Arpaio Grande

According to a Los Angeles Times article (May 24), Maricopa County Arizona top cop, Sheriff Joe Arpaio, wants his legion of supporters to pay for his self-made legal financial woes.  According to that article, Arpaio’s May 21 email reportedly stated in part:

“In some instances I have to personally pay for attorneys to represent me in these cases," and, "I do not have the personal wealth or the wherewithal to keep up with the costly demands of paying for attorneys to defend me.”
Boo hoo.

In this writer’s estimation, this cruel, egotistical, misogynistic outlaw made his own bed many times over and now should be forced to lie in it with all of the insects it no doubt attracts.

Arpaio was born in 1932 in Springfield, Massachusetts to Italian immigrants (ironically).  If Wikipedia.com is to be believed, his mother died in childbirth (she would have died from shame and embarrassment otherwise) and he was raised by his father, a grocery store owner.  He reportedly worked with his father until he joined the U.S. Army at the age of 18.  After his discharge in 1954, he became a civilian police officer.  Around 1957, Arpaio began working as a DEA agent and remained with the agency for 25 years.  In 1992, he ran for and successfully won the Sheriff’s seat in Maricopa County.  Since his inauguration in 1993, he has been a tenacious and incredibly vile fixture in Arizona’s political landscape.

Arpaio’s tenure has been marked by archaic, cruel, and bizarre governance.  In 1995, he re-instituted chain gangs.  While these chain gangs are voluntary for women and juveniles, it is not clear that they were voluntary for male inmates.  Given the life-threatening summer heat in Arizona, one should immediately wonder if he is trying to kill his wards.  Certainly, if his Tent City is any illustration, he is decidedly dismissive of the effects of exposure to heat that can soar over 110 degrees.  The temperature within the interiors of the tents is akin to the interior of locked vehicles where it would be illegal to leave a dog, let alone a person.

In November of 2008, Slate Magazine reported Arpaio instituted a plan to force all prisoners to wear pink underwear and fed them rations of “fortified bread and water.”  In the same year (and again in 2010), federal court judge Neil V. Wake ruled that conditions in Maricopa jails were unconstitutional.  The problems listed included the use of molding food, excessive heat, severe overcrowding, denial of medical and mental health services, and failure to allow prisoners access to toilets, toilet paper, and soap.  While Arpaio justified his practices by saying that jail was supposed to punish criminals, most people incarcerated in Maricopa County’s jails are not convicted felons, but are awaiting trial.  Let me state unequivocally – nothing justifies cruelty and these procedures harken to Third World despots.

The list of systematic, documented cruelties against incarcerated persons is so lengthy and sick-minded it is maddening.  It is nearly as long as the list of public servants, officials and journalists that he has legally attacked simply because they opposed him politically or publicly in some way.  Between 2008 and 2010, Arpaio enlisted the aid of former Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas in calling for numerous public corruption investigations that were excessively costly to the public.  Eleven people including judges, and county supervisors were accused of corruption.  All of these individuals were exonerated of corruption charges and the county was forced to settle for over $45 million, a cost that did not include civil staff time.  The cases were such an egregious exploitation of power, that Thomas was disbarred by the findings of a panel of the Arizona Supreme Court.  Somehow, the Sheriff held on and was re-elected.

If Arpaio was actually a good top cop who was overseeing justice on some other level, this writer could understand why he still remains in office, but he is not.  Between 2004 and 2007, more than 400 sex crimes reported to the Sheriff’s office were inadequately investigated, or not investigated at all.  Over 30 of these cases involved child molestations.  One case involved a mentally disabled 13-year-old named Sabrina Morrison who was repeatedly raped and ultimately impregnated by her uncle.  The case was botched by investigators even though clear evidence of rape was gleaned in a rape kit.  The victim was then victimized by her family; but, after four years of incompetence, her perpetrator, Patrick Morrison, ultimately was sentenced to 24 years behind bars in 2012.  She is now reportedly suing Arpaio and Maricopa County for $30 million.

The county’s arrest rate also inclines one to believe that people are frequently taken into custody under false pretense.  According to an ABC news report in December 2010, at least 75% of criminal cases in Maricopa County were cleared by “exception” rather than arrest.  In 2008, the Goldwater Institute found the number of exceptions was closer to 82%.  After their original report, Nightline reportedly contacted Maricopa County again and learned that the actual number of crimes cleared by arrest was a dismal 944 out of 7,346 crimes, or 15%.  This is no surprise.

Famously, Arpaio is best known for racial profiling and pursuing all Hispanics as illegal immigrants.  “Unconstitutional policing” led to a class action lawsuit in 2007 and the May 10, 2012 Department of Justice filing of United States v. Maricopa County, et al.  In other communities around the United States the pattern of discriminatory policing usually has been perpetrated against African American citizens.  In Phoenix and surrounding communities, the people targeted are Latino.  This is another one of those powder kegs that is bound to ignite when enough Latino lives are disrupted, abused or taken by biased and lawless members of the Sheriff’s Department while their equally lawless and biased superior scoffs, waves a dismissive hand, and looks the other way.

Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s legal problems now stem from his defiant refusal to act upon the rulings against him and his ruthless tactics.  Clearly he has frightened everyone who can unseat him so badly that there is no concerted political effort worthy of such a feat.  At the age of 83, it is time for him to step down for no other reason than to relieve the good citizens of Arizona from the on-going and predictable burden of his parasitic presence.  One could hope that we could excuse his insanity as one commonly associated with old-age; but, alas, it appears to be a pattern that must be eradicated by a fearless and forthright electorate.