7/29/2010

20 Comments

1. Bussed in from California and probably paid for by unions or Democrats, but I repeat myself.

   Comment by PatAZ (9d1bb3) — 7/29/2010 @ 1:35 pm

2. Sheriff Arpaio is a huge hulk of animal excrement masquerading as a human being so I don’t know if I believe him.

   Comment by AJB (d64738) — 7/29/2010 @ 1:35 pm

3. AJB, and your evidence that he’s lying is what? Surely not your own word …

   Comment by SPQR (26be8b) — 7/29/2010 @ 1:42 pm

4. His deputies, particularly his jail guards, seem to have less sense of how far they can go. Thousands of lawsuits and legal claims alleging abuse have been filed against Arpaio’s department by inmated–or, in the case of deaths in detention, but their families. A federal investigation found that deputies had used stun guns on prisoners already strapped into a “restraint chair.” The family of one man who died after being forced into the restraint chair was awarded more than six million dollars as the result of a suit in federal court. The family of another man killed in the restraint chair got $8.25 million in a pre-trial settlement. (This deal was reached after the discovery of a surveillance video that showed fourteen guards beating, choking, and suffocating the prisoner, and after the sheriff’s office was accused of discarding evidence, including the crushed larynx of the deceased.) To date, lawsuits bought against Arpaio’s office have cost Maricopa County taxpayers forty-three million dollars, according to some estimates. But the Sheriff has never acknowledged any wrongdoing in his jails, never apologized to the victims or their families. In fact, many of the officers involved have been promoted.

   Other jails get sued, of course. The Phoeniz New Times found that, between 2004 and 2008, the county jails of New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Houston, which together house more than six times as many inmates as Maricopa, were sued a total of forty-three times. During the same period, Arpaio’s department was sued over jail conditions almost twenty-two hundred times in federal district court. Last year, the National Commission on Correctional Health Care withdrew the health accreditation of Maricopa County’s jails for failing to meet its standards, and a federal judge refused to life a long standing consent decree on the jails, finding that conditions remained unconsitutional for pre-trial detainees. (The consent decree mandates that the jails be monitored. But it hasn’t had much effect.)

   Remarkably, Arpaio has paid almost no political price for running jails that are so patently dangerous and inadvertantly expensive. Indeed, until recently there were few local or state politicians willing to criticize him publicly. Those who have, including memebers of the county board of supervisors, which controls his budget, tend to find themselves under investigation by the sheriff’s office. The Phoenix New Times ran an investigation of Arpaio’s real-estate dealings that included Arpaio’s home address, which he argued was possibly a violation of state law. When the paper revealed that it had received an impossibly broad subpoena, demanding, among other things, the Internet records of all visitors to its web site in the previous two and a half years, sheriff’s deputies staged late-night raids on the homes of Michael Lacey and James Larkin, executives of Village Voice Media, which owns the New Times. The deputies arrested both men for, they said, violating grand-jury secrecy. (The county attorney declined to prosecute, and it turned out that the subpoenas were issued unlawfully.)

   Outspoken citizens also take their chances. Last December, remarks criticial of Arpaio were offered during the public-comment period at a board of supervisors meeting, and four members of the audience were arrested and charged with disorderly conduct–for clapping. Their cases are pending.

   http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/07/20/090720fa_fact_finnegan

   Comment by AJB (d64738) — 7/29/2010 @ 1:45 pm

5. You could have just posted the link. It’s rude to just copy and paste an article, but I guess you knew that was rude, right? It’s not as though your other comment was polite.

   Your link doesn’t show any lying. People lose cases. People differ as to what’s disruptive. Big whoop.

   And all that do demonstrate that the protestors weren’t bussed in? Why?

   Comment by Dustin (b54cdc) — 7/29/2010 @ 1:57 pm

6. Imagine how fast AJB’s head would pop if Arapaio used the expression ‘they are a mongrel people’. I guess there’s a pattern now. The left isn’t racist or offensive, even when it is. the right is offensive and racist for pointing out racism and offensiveness on the left.

   Comment by Dustin (b54cdc) — 7/29/2010 @ 1:58 pm

7. I’m no fan of “Sheriff Joe”, but if your reference for events in Arizona is the New Yorker magazine, the Force remains completely undisturbed. (The Phoenix New Times” is a tiny left-wing “weekly”; usually listed as an “alternative” news source, i.e., leftist.)

   Besides, Phoenix is reported as being the kidnapping capital of the US, so maybe some serious law enforcement is required. People on Park Avenue may not get that. Locals, on the other hand, might prefer their family members not be kidnapped and killed, even if the “rights” of “undocumented travelers” are inconvenienced.

   Comment by GaryS (8351a3) — 7/29/2010 @ 2:05 pm

8. AJB, you really don’t have the concept of logical fallacies down do you? They are to be avoided, not celebrated.

   Comment by SPQR (26be8b) — 7/29/2010 @ 2:15 pm

9. AJB: I agree with Dustin. That link demonstrates that there are problems with Arpaio’s department. It does not demonstrate that Arpaio is a liar.

   Comment by aphrael (e0cdc9) — 7/29/2010 @ 2:34 pm

10. Arpaio likes to dress men in pink underwear and torture them — sometimes to death. Nuff said.

    Comment by nk (db4a41) — 7/29/2010 @ 3:19 pm

11. This almost qualifies as being so predictable that it doesn’t qualify as news.

    Comment by Aaron Worthing (A.W.) (f97997) — 7/29/2010 @ 3:40 pm

12. Sheriff Joe is reported to like dogs.

    Comment by daleyrocks (940075) — 7/29/2010 @ 4:54 pm

13. Big Zero ‘fess up
    supporters voted for the
    Heinz fitty seven

    Comment by ColonelHaiku (ac3c3c) — 7/29/2010 @ 5:00 pm

14. If Sheriff Joe is so bad with the feds monitoring his every move, I’m not sure why he hasn’t been hauled away already.

    The report I heard this am was that people from a number of different unions (32?) were being bussed in. This info came from Calif when they were starting out.

    I heard a brief interview with the Sheriff this afternoon. he said he was continuying to do his business as usual, that he’s been monitored by the feds and nothing has changed.

    So, is being given pink underwear cruel and unusual punishment, or an effective deterrent to crime (or at least to getting caught in the county, anyway).

    Comment by MD in Philly (3d3f72) — 7/29/2010 @ 5:12 pm

15. Comment by Dustin — 7/29/2010 @ 1:57 pm

    It couldn’t have been a “copy & paste”, too many typos, even for the NewYorker.

    As to the number of lawsuits:
    Why does this seem anologous to the ethics complaints filed against Gov. Palin?

    Comment by AD - RtR/OS! (3c90d0) — 7/29/2010 @ 7:19 pm

16. If they’re sending all of these people in from out-of-state to protest, are they also going to set-up a logistics train for their supplies, or are they actually going to engage in trade with the locals for sustenance?
    What happened to the boycott?

    Comment by AD - RtR/OS! (3c90d0) — 7/29/2010 @ 7:23 pm

17. Are the finger chompin’ Purple People Beaters there?

    Comment by daleyrocks (940075) — 7/29/2010 @ 7:30 pm

18. AD, he just reads illiterate journalism I guess.

    He didn’t copy and paste from his hyperlink, though.

    Comment by Dustin (b54cdc) — 7/29/2010 @ 7:31 pm

19. Daley, the purple people beaters sent 11 buses from Los Angeles to Arizona for the protest.

    Comment by John Hitchcock (9e8ad9) — 7/29/2010 @ 7:49 pm

20. the purple people beaters

    hahahahahahahahaha

    Oh man, too funny. And yet it kinda pisses me off.

    Comment by Dustin (b54cdc) — 7/29/2010 @ 7:52 pm

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