As I watched a live feed of the roiling ugliness outside the Islamic Community Center of Phoenix on Friday, I kept thinking of “Gimme Shelter” by the Rolling Stones, and that chilling refrain, sung by legendary backup singer Merry Clayton: “War, children, it’s just a shot away.” Indeed, with a…
The U.S. Supreme Court decided today that it won’t review a decision striking down Arizona’s voter-approved, 2006 law denying bail for certain undocumented-immigrant crime suspects. Passed by a bipartisan wave of voters riding an anti-immigrant sentiment in the mid-2000s, the law was also a favorite of Maricopa County conservatives including former…
Local VA whistleblower Jared Kinnaman is demanding that U.S. Secretary of Veteran Affairs Robert McDonald and Glen Grippen, interim director of the Phoenix VA Medical Center, resign from their leadership positions. Kinnaman sent them personalized letters late last week, describing the Phoenix VA system as “a very volatile and grossly…
Retired Mesa police union president Javier Fabian Cota won a partial victory this week in his civil-rights lawsuit against San Diego police, but so far no monetary award or reimbursement of his many expenses. The flap began about 3 a.m. on June 4, 2011, while Cota was in downtown San…
Arizona legislators are framing their recent determination to impose a 12-month lifetime cap on welfare benefits and cut off assistance to some 1,600 families as a way to motivate the poor to take care of themselves. “I tell my kids all the time that the decisions we make have rewards…
A suspicious package left at the Phoenix New Times’ parking lot in downtown Phoenix on Friday morning contained a letter referring to a recent cover article about an emotionally-disturbed teenager accused in a homicide case, police said. After a New Times employee found a large cardboard box in the lot at…
As helicopters circled overhead and police officers stood guard, the seven-plus-hour “Rally for Free Speech” protest outside of the north Phoenix Islamic Community Center on Friday remained relatively uneventful. No arrests were made, no guns were fired, and though a few fights almost broke out along the edges of the event —…
Four Phoenix family members with former ties to Iraq’s Badr Corps were stripped of their naturalized citizenship status this month and have agreed to leave the United States in August. New Times reported on the family’s arrest in February. Hadi Assi Mubarak, wife Wahida Juma Odah and their two adult sons,…
Star college hockey player Max Gardiner was arrested in Scottsdale early Thursday morning after a woman found him drunk in her backyard. Gardiner, 23, a Penn State player who’s also a draft pick of the NHL’s St. Louis Blues, was booked for alleged trespassing and released a few hours later…
On Friday evening, a group of self-proclaimed “patriots” will demonstrate outside of the Islamic Community Center in north Phoenix to “protect [their] Constitutional rights to freedom of speech.” According to the event’s Facebook page, the rally “is in response to the recent attack in Texas where 2 armed terrorist, with ties…
In an opinion that impacts several criminal cases around the state, the Arizona Court of Appeals ruled on Wednesday that authorized medical-marijuana patients cannot sell cannabis to other patients. The 3-0 ruling by the state’s Division Two appeals court overturns a decision made last July by Pima County Superior Court Judge Richard…
A proposed tuition rate for undocumented immigrants that the Arizona Board of Regents will vote on next week was created by guesswork, New Times has learned. At a public meeting last month, the board proposed the new tuition rate of 150 percent of in-state tuition for undocumented immigrants who qualify…
From what I’ve seen and heard, Mexicans are very family-oriented. They take the names of their mothers and fathers, live with extended family, take carpooling to the nth degree, and tattoo the names of their children across their bodies. We recently had a party and invited one of our Hispanic friends. She showed up with her grandmother, mother, sister, and her two kids! What the hell was that all about?
Among the masses of men in cowboy hats and steely-eyed women in “Babes with Bullets” T-shirts at the Crossroads of the West Gun Show in Glendale, a petite, suburban mom with a blond bob, yoga pants, and a Prada purse wanders from booth to booth picking through rhinestone-studded Glocks, gas…
Perhaps Ken and Terri Johnson of Tempe need to get out more. After recently witnessing a fight on the light-rail train car they were riding in, the elderly couple has sworn off the Valley’s 20-mile choo-choo line for good. They decided to tell the whole world about their paranoia by…
Ann Kirkpatrick, a moderate Democrat and Arizona Congresswoman, announced on Tuesday that she would run against John McCain for the U.S. Senate in 2016. In a video published this morning, Kirkpatrick says she’ll take on challenges from education to the economy, and mentions her famous rival by name. “I respect…
The U.S. Border Patrol caught 18 camo-wearing men trying to smuggle 659 pounds of marijuana in backpacks last week through the desert near Gila Bend. Fourteen of them landed in the Maricopa County Jail’s mugshot section, where they stood out for their makeshift uniforms. These guys, no doubt connected to…
Oral Arguments will begin this afternoon over a motion to dismiss Rodriguez v Swartz, a widely publicized lawsuit concerning the shooting of 16-year-old Mexican national Jose Antonio Elena Rodriguez by U.S. Border Patrol agents on October 10, 2012. In question is whether, and under what circumstances, U.S. Constitutional protections and laws…
Attorney Mel McDonald, Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s personal Bruce Cutler, rode on the coattails of Birther lawyer Larry Klayman Friday morning by filing a motion in Phoenix federal court to have Judge G. Murray Snow recuse himself from the contempt proceedings in the civil rights case Melendres v. Arpaio. Klayman’s move to…
At the end of the week, we bring you a roundup of visitors to the fun-filled Fourth Avenue Jail in downtown Phoenix. To be considered for Mugshots of the Week, get arrested, strike a pose, and we’ll take care of the rest. This week: The sequel to our February 2014…
Pinal County Attorney Lando Voyles states in a recent news release that marijuana usage has increased statewide because of “looser” marijuana laws that help drug cartels, but can’t or won’t back up the claim. He’s the latest public official to use his and his staff’s time, on the public dime,…
Talk about chutzpah. If a well-dressed moocher were to approach you and ask for money to fight a serious criminal allegation, would you give it to him? What if he admitted that he might kinda-sorta be guilty? And, oh, he has a well-paying job (six figures), owns loads of pricey…
