The Pink Flamingo :: Trouble in Maricopa County with Sheriff Joe & the GOP

Evidently things are going from bad to worse in Maricopa County. Jon Garrido of the online conglomerate, Hispanic News filed a compliant today, requesting a civil rights investigation into the actions of good ole’ Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

Garrido wrote:

“…There appears to be substantial evidence Sheriff Arpaio, his deputies, and perhaps other Arizona law enforcement officers — especially the Scottsdale Police — are engaged in racial profiling and making pre-textual traffic stops in an effort to find undocumented immigrants so as to get ICE to deport them. Because we believe some or all of these stops — or at least the questioning and searches that ensue — are pre-textual, we believe they endanger the rights of ALL Hispanic or brown-skinned-looking people — regardless of their immigration status; and of course, the 14th Amendment covers all PERSONS — not just citizens — so those here legally on tourist or green-card visas are affected even if they are IN FACT non-citizen Hispanic-Americans.

Further, one of your predecessors as U.S. Attorney, Janet Napolitano, was investigating Sheriff Arpaio for Civil Rights violations in his jail before she resigned to seek another office in 1998. I would ask that you re-open and update that investigation in light of the many federal and state court verdicts showing actions by the Sheriff that violate the 8th and/or 14th Amendments, some involving death of inmates due to such violations….”

Along this line, last week the SPLC Reported that a lawsuit was recently filed against Sheriff Joe and his associates after a Mexican citizen, LEGALLY HERE IN THE US, was detained due to racial profiling.

“…The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in federal court, outlines several alleged instances where Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his deputies overstepped their authority, targeted people solely based on race and detained individuals who are legally in the country. [… The lawsuit seeks a judgment that Arpaio's actions are unconstitutional, injunctions prohibiting the use of the sheriff's anti-immigration hot line, and the disbanding of the Illegal Immigration Interdiction unit."Our investigations show that the Sheriff's Office has routinely exceeded their authority and shown a blatant disregard for the civil rights of individuals in Maricopa County," said Lou Moffa, a lead attorney in the case. […] …”

From SF Gate

“…The lawsuit seeks a judgment that Arpaio's actions are unconstitutional, injunctions prohibiting the use of the sheriff's anti-immigration hot line, and the disbanding of the Illegal Immigration Interdiction unit. "Our investigations show that the Sheriff's Office has routinely exceeded their authority and shown a blatant disregard for the civil rights of individuals in Maricopa County," said Lou Moffa, a lead attorney in the case. Although only one plaintiff is identified, the lawsuit is a class-action suit filed on behalf of all alleged victims. It is based on the claims of Manuel de Jesus Ortega Melendres, a retired teacher, who was stopped by deputies on Sept. 26 in suburban Cave Creek. Ortega said he legally entered the United States on Sept. 6 and produced a U.S. visa, his Mexican federal voter-registration card and a copy of a permit from the Department of Homeland Security. The lawsuit claims Ortega was detained for about eight hours before an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent verified his documents and set him free. Capt. Paul Chagolla, a sheriff's spokesman, said Ortega was detained and transported appropriately after he made statements about seeking employment when he was in the country with a visitor's visa that didn't allow him to work….”

SHERIFF JOE COSTS MONEY!
So far, according to the Phoenix New Times, Sheriff Joe has cost the people of Maricopa at least $41 million – that’s forty-one million dollars – in judgments for various and sundry offences such as civil rights, deaths, arrests, etc. Frankly, I don’t know how the GOP of Maricopa County can let him get away with it, but then they’re so busy ignoring the documented neo-Nazis who are part of the local party apparatus that forty one million bucks is child’s play!

“…Vermin, filth, medical care suggestive of POW camps, chronic mismanagement, the wanton destruction of records, and a steady parade of corpses in Maricopa County jails have cost taxpayers an astonishing — and until now, undisclosed — 41.4 million dollars. Joe Arpaio has perpetuated his reign as "America's toughest sheriff" with an open checkbook. ... The Sheriff has captured the imagination of voters with his almost cartoonish contempt for the prisoners in his charge. He's subjected inmates to pink underwear, chain gangs, and rancid bologna sandwiches, and he's garnered big wins at the polls. But Arpaio's jail policies have generated a tsunami of lawsuits from prisoners and their families. There simply isn't another jail system in America with this history of taxpayer-financed litigation. New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Houston, for example, collectively housed more than 61,000 inmates per day last year. From 2004 through November of this year, these same county jails had a combined 43 prison-conditions lawsuits filed against them in federal courts. In the very same three-year time frame, despite housing a mere 9,200 prisoners per day, Sheriff Arpaio was the target of a staggering 2,150 lawsuits in U.S. District Court and hundreds more in Maricopa County courts. With a fraction of the inmate population, Arpaio has had 50 times as many lawsuits as the New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Houston jail systems combined….”

So, dear conservatives, why are you so busy sucking up to this man when you should be screaming about the amount of money he is costing. Funny isn’t it? I’m beginning to think the only time conservatives are truly conservative is when it is something they endorse! As they all endorse Sheriff Joe, then they cannot admit he is an abject disaster as a lawman.

ABUSE IN SHERIFF JOE’S JAILS

“…County taxpayers have footed an undisclosed fortune to sustain Arpaio's image as a tough lawman. The $41.4 million taxpayers coughed up to insure for, defend, or settle lawsuits is just the edge of the cesspool — one result of inhumane conditions that have long made Arpaio's jails the target of investigations from both the federal government and advocates like Amnesty International. Arpaio has an 11-year history of ignoring expert warnings that his jails violate basic tenets of the U.S. Constitution and threaten life and limb. At least 11 inmate deaths have directly resulted from Arpaio's refusal to heed such warnings. In that time, the deductible for the county's insurance policy to cover lawsuits against the sheriff has jumped from $1 million to $5 million. The annual premium has quadrupled in recent years. These dollars come out of the county's coffers, not from Arpaio's annual budget of $288 million, which he's already overrunning this year.

And which is $60 million more than the sheriff budget in a county jail of similar size in Houston. While the sheriff has long argued that his crude jails prevent crime, a study that his office commissioned, and that cost $19,900, found that Arpaio's jails have no effect on inmate recidivism.

Despite the cost, the primary victims of Arpaio's mismanagement are not taxpayers, or even attorneys like Kathleen Carey, but indigent inmates like Michelle McCollum. McCollum, who was arrested for drug possession, could not make bail and, therefore, waited for trial in Arpaio's lockup. She eventually was sentenced to nothing more than probation. A medical test administered when McCollum was admitted to jail confirmed that she was pregnant.

On August 22, 2005, McCollum sat on the concrete floor of the Fourth Avenue Jail, a facility un-affectionately known by inmates as "The Matrix" (because the lights never turn off). She longed for a mattress and tried hard to overlook the rotting food and soiled feminine napkins on the floor. Suddenly, two inmates attacked her, pummeling her face, back, and abdomen. McCollum and another cellmate reported the beating to detention officers, pleaded for medical help, and reminded deputies that McCollum was pregnant and had been hit in the stomach. McCollum also put in a medical request to the infirmary.

No doctor or nurse looked in upon the injured McCollum.

Two days later, McCollum sat in the courthouse, chained to a row of inmates, when she started to bleed. She bled for five hours, looking frighteningly like Stephen King's infamous Carrie. The inmates chained to McCollum to await their arraignments began to complain. Detention officers ignored the prisoners. When she arrived at the E-Pod in Sheriff Arpaio's Estrella Jail, a bloodstained McCollum again told guards about her beating and her need for medical care. An officer put in a priority request for medical attention, but nobody came. Alarmed at McCollum's loss of blood, a guard finally ushered her to see a doctor. Infirmary workers called an ambulance and rushed McCollum to Maricopa Medical Center. Doctors there found her baby with an ultrasound, but they couldn't find the baby's heartbeat. The baby was dead….”

How about a list of the inmates who died while in Sheriff Joe’s custody?

SHERIFF JOE AT PRUITT’S FURNITURE
Our favorite liberal, The Feathered Bastard, was on hand on Saturday for the second installment in Pruitt’s Furniture v. The World. It must have been a sight to see when all the local Arizona Celeb Nativists (some targeted as Neo-Nazis) many of whom have their own individual profiles with the SPLC, gently and humanely trying to convince Hispanics to leave the US to REAL AMERICANS!

“…One middle-aged ass, who was too much of a pussy to give me his name, kept telling me I'd better leave, or something bad was going to happen to me. I offer a pic of the guy above, in case the po-po need to jump-start their investigation should I end up shot in the back someday. Another biker fella nicknamed "Jimbo" with Riders Against Illegal Aliens, who I've run into before at nativist rallies, advised me that, "A lot of people here wanna thump your head." No shit, Sherlock. Normally, I'd suggest he be added to the list of possible suspects in the case of my offin' or boot-stompin', save that he sweetened up a bit toward the end of the demonstration as we discussed hypocrite Hispanic-hater Rusty Childress' recovery from a severe motorcycle accident months back. Jimbo said Childress was there that day, though I didn't see him. Maybe he was off somewhere checkin' his Blackberry for possible CYA memos from F.A.I.R., the Federation for American Immigration Reform.

(Inside baseball, I know, but read this Bird item, if you care to grok that last reference. And remember, Rusty, sometimes certain laws can be retroactively applied. Well, at least, according to one County Attorney. Constitutional guarantees against ex post facto be damned!)…

“…Nativist hottie Michelle Dallacroce was on hand, blaring Twisted Sister's "We're Not Going to Take It" on her bulky, MASH-style speakerphone. And I also ran into lesbian-pagan-Mexican-flag-burnin' firebrand Laine Lawless, who was there representin' her group Border Guardians. An independent thinker, Lawless actually has liked New Times' "Target Practice" series on Sheriff Joe, and disagrees with the abuses in his jails. While we were discussing this, self-loathing Latino Anna Gaines of the F.A.I.R.-sponsored group You Don't Speak for Me -- who looks like she's about four feet tall but is as feisty as they come -- walked up to me and informed me, cattily, "I just wanted you to know that she is not a part of our group." "Which group is that?" growled Laine as Gaines scurried off.

I would suspect she meant former Kia-peddler Rusty Childress' United for a Sovereign America, though Lawless has attended their meetings, and is hardly the most extreme of the bunch. Neo-Nazi J.T. Ready and a certain grizzled buffalo chip everyone knows and loathes are far, far worse. Maybe Gaines doesn't like Lawless because she's a lesbian, or maybe Gaines is just jealous of the attention Lawless has gotten, specifically my story on her early in 2007 titled, "Burn, Baby, Burn!"…”

MARICOPA COUNTY GOP NAZIS
A PURGE IS NEEDED
Evidently in Maricopa, it is okay for card-carrying Nazis to be a Precinct chair for the GOP. I kid you not. According to Stephen Lemons of the Phoenix New Times, this is what is going on, and out in the open!

“…So look who's got a neo-Nazi in the woodpile: the Maricopa County Republican Party. This plumed penman first sniffed a whiff of National Socialism in local GOP ranks when The Bird was forwarded an e-mail signed by the Ernst Roehm of the East Valley, J.T. Ready, in which the turd-Reicher mentioned he's a Republican Precinct Committeeman….Ready's the same twice-court-martialed ex-Marine who was recently in Omaha, Nebraska, for a brownshirt rally, as online photo galleries of the event have shown. Ready even received kudos from National Socialist Movement Commander Jeff Schoep, who cited "JT Ready/Arizona Republican activist" as a guest blowhard. It ain't the first such shindig Ready's attended. In 2006, Ready graced the neo-Nazi National Vanguard's Winterfest event in the PHX…”

A few days ago The Pink Flamingo did yet another expose of Nazis in Arizona and featured a piece about REPUBLICAN AZ State Representative and CURRENT GOP CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE Russell Pierce (friend of Ready) and his attempt to squash birthright citizenship in Arizona. You might want to note the photo of Ready and Pierce from a white supremacist, neo-Nazi web site.

LOCAL GOP CLAIMS IGNORANCE
According Lemons, the local GOP claims ignorance of Ready’s Nazi associates even though information has been “out” for years.

“…County Republican Party Chairman Lyle Tuttle was too busy playing golf to return The Bird's call. But Sean McCaffrey, executive director of the state GOP told the Taloned One the party was unaware of Ready's Republican position. He vowed Ready will be asked to step down. If Ready refuses, the party will field candidates for his PC-ship in '08, when Ready's term's up, to make sure Ready's not re-elected.

"People that campaign on hate and people that campaign on fear, well, that eliminates neo-Nazis and Democrats from the Republican Party," McCaffrey informed this egret.

Cute comparison, Sean. But local Dems aren't the ones with an Adolf Hitler-lover in-house.

Nor does McCaffrey's cheap shot explain why the Arizona GOP didn't try to stop Ready from becoming a precinct committeeman in '06. McCaffrey's excuse was that he'd just arrived in AZ this March, and that most of his staff is new and from out of state.

But state Republican Party Chairman Randy Pullen's no neophyte to local politics, being a two-time loser in the Phoenix mayoral race. Pullen can't be expected to know all the more than 3,000 Republican PCs, but Pullen and Ready run in the same immigrant-hating circles. They've spoken at the same Mexican-baiting rallies. And both have attended meetings of Rusty Childress' immigrant-bashing United for a Sovereign America.

Also, Ready's tight with state Representative Russell Pearce, who's bashed Mexicans ever since a Latino teen shot off his finger when he was a county sheriff's deputy. Pearce is a racist law machine, pumping out statute after statute targeting the brown segment of AZ's population. At a June anti-illegal demonstration at the state Capitol, Ready and Pearce worked the crowd arm-in-arm.

Remember when Pearce forwarded a neo-Nazi e-mail to supporters in '06? Pearce claimed a "friend" sent him the e-mail. Could that "friend" have a last name that rhymes with "Freddy"?

The blanket isn't big enough these days for all the bigoted bedfellows who want in on the nativist lovefest. In any other state, Pearce's ties to a white nationalist like Ready would make him a pariah, especially after the outrage over that neo-Nazi e-mail.

Instead, both Sheriff Joe Arpaio and County Attorney Candy Thomas recently honored Pearce at a "gala reception" and dinner to raise moolah for Pearce's committee exploring a primary challenge to Congressman Jeff Flake, a moderate Republican who's championed comprehensive immigration reform. It was $100 a plate for the dinner, $200 if you wanted a pic of yourself with Thomas, Arpaio, or radio wingnut Bruce Jacobs. Minuteman leader Chris Simcox was on the fundraiser's planning committee….”