Arpaio in trouble for abusing Latinos

[Stephanie]

they dont care about any of the American citizens who filed these charges?


They are brown so they must be lying?

Is that the rights stance?

good grief.
If I remember right, they couldn't continue with the investigations of these abuses because the people were ILLEGIALS and had MOVED.

please knock it off with your lies.

 

[Salt Jones]

Link that the investigation started under Bush? Obamaturd is the one that doesn't want sheriff Joe to do his job.

I did. It was in my link, that you didn't read.

Despite Arpaio's claim that the Obama administration is targeting his agency, former U.S. Attorney for Arizona Paul Charlton, a Republican, pointed out that the investigation began under a fellow conservative.

"This began under a Republican administration and continued under a Democratic administration, and who knows what the next administration will be?" Charlton said. "It's not a partisan issue, it's a constitutional issue. My hope is that law-enforcement officials will see it that way."

Arpaio: Inquiry is motivated by politics, hampers enforcement

Okay, I read it. Still the point is sheriff Joe is doing the Job the feds aren't. I would appoint Joe as USAG!

No, sheriff Joe is not serving warrants or investigating sex crimes against kids, while he launches crime sweeps based on letters about Spanish being spoken by McDonald's workers.

 

[AmericanFirst]

they dont care about any of the American citizens who filed these charges?


They are brown so they must be lying?

Is that the rights stance?

good grief.
If I remember right, they couldn't continue with the investigations of these abuses because the people were ILLEGIALS and had MOVED.

please knock it off with your lies.

That is all truthdoesn'tmatter has is lies.

 

[bripat9643]

Justice Department reports pattern of civil rights abuses in Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio's Maricopa County - latimes.com

He's "in trouble" simply because he's a thorn in the side of Obama and his flunky Eric Holder. They have therefore targeted him for special measures. Anyone who doesn't understand that this lawsuit is a vendetta motivated purely by political considerations is either a despicable weasel of terminally naive.

 

[Salt Jones]

they dont care about any of the American citizens who filed these charges?


They are brown so they must be lying?

Is that the rights stance?

good grief.
If I remember right, they couldn't continue with the investigations of these abuses because the people were ILLEGIALS and had MOVED.

please knock it off with your lies.

You remember wrong, but that's typical. Research before you speak. All 432 victims moved before the MCSO could investigate?

 

[bripat9643]

Maybe at sone point you will have to face the fact that hes a racist

Perhaps at some point you will have to face the fact that you're a moron, but I doubt that. Obama is doing everything possible to make this country "moron friendly."

 

[Salt Jones]

Justice Department reports pattern of civil rights abuses in Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio's Maricopa County - latimes.com

He's "in trouble" simply because he's a thorn in the side of Obama and his flunky Eric Holder. They have therefore targeted him for special measures. Anyone who doesn't understand that this lawsuit is a vendetta motivated purely by political considerations is either a despicable weasel of terminally naive.

What lawsuit?

Were Obama and Holder running Bush's DOJ in June 2008, when this investigation was started?

 

[Rat in the Hat]

If this man is found guilty of these crimes they will defend him.

How very sad and moraless the right in this country has become

Why do you keep saying "this man" when they are investigating the entire Sheriff's Dept.?

Do you think Sheriff Arpaio personally committed all of these crimes?

 

[bripat9643]

How many American latinos do you think are in this country?


How racist to claim all latinos are not Americans.

No, just the ones Arpaio arrests are not Americans.

 

[driveby]

Maybe at sone point you will have to face the fact that hes a racist

Maybe at some point you'll face the fact that Eric Holder is a racist, race baiter.....

 

[bripat9643]

There has been a lot of talk around here lately , the feeling I get is that residents here a little tired of all the negative attention and the sheer number of office holders both locally and nationally from our state that have brought negative attention to Arizona. Pearce deserved to lose, he treated his office like he was annointed to it and his actions have cost the state a lot in terms of money lost and negative attention . Our state is last in education or near the bottom, close to the top in home foreclosure, deep in debt, and here we stand in the national spotlight as a result of the actions of many elected officials trying to legislate or enforce things they were clearly NOT given license to do. Our state needs many things and absent Senators who could care less about Arizona, a Gov. that is tied up in the Supreme Court, a Sheriff tied up in investigation, does not help.

What your state needs the most is to keep out illegal aliens. The above screed is nothing but politically motivated bullshit from a liberal who supports illegal immigration. Liberals always have a million reasons why the problem if illegal immigration can't be addressed.

 

[Stephanie]

they dont care about any of the American citizens who filed these charges?


They are brown so they must be lying?

Is that the rights stance?

good grief.
If I remember right, they couldn't continue with the investigations of these abuses because the people were ILLEGIALS and had MOVED.

please knock it off with your lies.

You remember wrong, but that's typical. Research before you speak. All 432 victims moved before the MCSO could investigate?

You research it. it was posted here.

 

[bripat9643]

There are many nice people in Arizona.

Those nice people need to put an end to the control of the state by people who dont like Brown Americans

Lest you forget, Arpaio was elected to is job. He has been reelected numerous times. He's there because the people in his county support the work he is doing.

It must suck to know that the majority thinks people like you are a bunch of putzes, doesn't it?

 

[Salt Jones]

I have sort of a different take on Sheriff Joe and yes, I also live in Maricopa County. First unless Sheriff Joe gets ousted from office then that will not keep him from geing re-elected. He has strong support in areas of the city like Sun City, Mesa, etc. That said it would seem to me our Sheriff spends way too much time on issues that he has no business with that are way outside his jurisdiction. Arizona is deep in debt and has a huge housing crisis and all this civil litigation and investigations brought on by Sheriff Joe and our Gov. do not help our states budget. When Peoria has to lay off over 500 teachers and our state is spending millions of dollars defending itself on issues that are clearly brought on as a result of legislation and enforcement actions outside the business of the state as well aas Sheriff Joe that is very hard to justify. His and the MSCO's recent admission of having messed up or clearly ignored several sex crimes investigations points to the fact that his office is deeply in need of a professional police officer and not someone who spends more time on talk shows and worrying about enforcing laws outside Maricopa County. While I would not go so far as to call him personally a racist I would rather say that he is not a very good law enforcement officer and as such his actions tend to call attention to that.

I live in Mesa and I agree with you 100%. This mess with the child sex abuse cases is just wrong and then to have the county attorney state that just because we have 432 cases of possilbe police misconduct doesn't mean that it's a concerted pattern of neglect, is just plain stupid. Remember when people said Russell Pearce would easily win his recall?

There has been a lot of talk around here lately , the feeling I get is that residents here a little tired of all the negative attention and the sheer number of office holders both locally and nationally from our state that have brought negative attention to Arizona. Pearce deserved to lose, he treated his office like he was annointed to it and his actions have cost the state a lot in terms of money lost and negative attention . Our state is last in education or near the bottom, close to the top in home foreclosure, deep in debt, and here we stand in the national spotlight as a result of the actions of many elected officials trying to legislate or enforce things they were clearly NOT given license to do. Our state needs many things and absent Senators who could care less about Arizona, a Gov. that is tied up in the Supreme Court, a Sheriff tied up in investigation, does not help.

Again, I 100% agree. Here in AZ, we elect more politicians who only worry about creating national images for themselves. Without the stimulus funds we would be in an even deeper whole. Brewer fights to defend SB1070, but fights to defeat the thrice citizen-approved medical marijuana law.

 

[Navy1960]

Two former sex-crime investigators for the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office blame the office's misplaced priorities, including investigations into Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon and trips to Honduras, for staffing shortages that left the sex-crime unit unable to adequately handle the volume of cases it was assigned.

The detectives, James Weege and Mary Ward, resigned from the Sheriff's Office in 2008 after spending several years in the sex-crime unit under Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

The unit's work has come under scrutiny after an investigation into the conduct of former sheriff's Chief Deputy David Hendershott and two other administrators revealed details about more than 400 sex-crime cases that were inadequately investigated from 2005 through '07.


MCSO priorities blamed for sex-crimes snafu

In August 2001, Charles Agster, a 33-year-old mentally handicapped man, died in the county jail three days after being forced by sheriff's officers into a restraint chair used for controlling combative arrestees. Agster's parents had been taking him to a psychiatric hospital because he was exhibiting paranoia, then called police when he refused to leave a convenience store where they had stopped enroute. Officers took Agster to the Madison Street jail, placed a "spit hood" over his face and strapped him to the chair, where he had an apparent seizure and lost consciousness. He was declared brain dead three days later. A medical examiner later concluded that Agster died of complications of methamphetamine intoxication. In a subsequent lawsuit, an attorney for the sheriff's office described the amount of methamphetamine in Agster's system as 17 times the known lethal dose. The lawsuit resulted in a $9 million jury verdict against the county, the sheriff's office, and Correctional Health Services

One major controversy includes the 1996 death of inmate Scott Norberg, a former Brigham Young University football wide receiver, who died while in custody of the Sheriff's office.[75] Norberg was arrested for assaulting a police officer in Mesa, Arizona, after neighbors in a residential area had reported a delirious man walking in their neighborhood.[76] Arpaio's office repeatedly claimed Norberg was also high on methamphetamine, but a blood toxicology performed post-mortem was inconclusive. According to a toxological report, Norberg did have methamphetamine in his urine, though "there would be no direct effect caused by the methamphetamine on Norberg's behavior at the time of the incident".[77] During his internment, evidence suggests detention officers shocked Norberg several times with a stun-gun. According to an investigation by Amnesty International, Norberg was already handcuffed and face down when officers dragged him from his cell and placed him in a restraint chair with a towel covering his face. After Norberg's corpse was discovered, detention officers accused Norberg of attacking them as they were trying to restrain him. The cause of his death, according to the Maricopa County medical examiner, was due to "positional asphyxia". Sheriff Arpaio investigated and subsequently cleared detention officers of any criminal wrongdoing.[78][dead link]

Norberg’s parents filed a lawsuit against Arpaio and his office. The lawsuit was settled for $8.25 million

Richard Post was a paraplegic inmate arrested in 1996 for possession of marijuana and criminal trespass. Post was placed in a restraint chair by guards and his neck was broken in the process. The event, caught on video, shows guards smiling and laughing while Post is being injured. Because of his injuries, Post has lost much of the use of his arms.[80] Post settled his claims against the Sheriff's office for $800,000

The lawsuit against Arpaio and his office resulted in an award of $2 million.[83][dead link] As in the Scott Norberg case, it was alleged that Arpaio's office destroyed evidence in the case. In the Crenshaw case, the attorney who represented the case before a jury alleged digital video evidence was destroyed
Maricopa County Sheriff's Office controversies - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


The point is given this past and ongoing issues, it shows Sheriff Joe is an unprofessional law officer who has cost this country much in terms of money and goodwill. Again I will point to the sheer number of good law enforcement officers in our area facing lay-offs that would not be, had the Sheriff been professional enough to carry out his duties and see to it his office did the same.

 

[Salt Jones]

There are many nice people in Arizona.

Those nice people need to put an end to the control of the state by people who dont like Brown Americans

Lest you forget, Arpaio was elected to is job. He has been reelected numerous times. He's there because the people in his county support the work he is doing.

It must suck to know that the majority thinks people like you are a bunch of putzes, doesn't it?

Obama was elected, should the investigation of fast and furious be stopped?

 

[BluePhantom]

Arizona is deep in debt and has a huge housing crisis and all this civil litigation and investigations brought on by Sheriff Joe and our Gov. do not help our states budget.

This is really the crux of the problem. Now what I am going to say I cannot provide links to support because it comes from personal experience and discussions with two friends of mine who are ex-cops, two retired Arizona judges, and a slew of defense attorneys that I regularly golfed with when I lived there. So what I am going to say is based upon their collective opinions.

The problem is economic. Arizona is deep in debt and arrests bring money to the state. The more arrests a department makes they more they can argue for increased funding because the more money they are bringing in. That means it's in the cops financial best interests to screw people to the wall as much as possible because it will enhance their jobs prospects, opportunities for promotion, etc. My friends who are cops have flat out told me that what someone is charged with is frequently a decision based upon whether or not the officer thinks they can afford to fight it in court. In other words, if they don't look like they can afford an attorney they are more likely to get arrested for something. It also means they can charge them with flimsy or manufactured evidence because a) they don't think the person will be able to afford to fight it and b) the laws are often written in such a way that the officer's opinion is only slightly less valid than hard evidence. It also means they are less likely to arrest people who look like they can afford a legal defense because they don't want to have too many arrests of theirs get thrown out in court.

For the prosecutors, they get elected and promoted based upon their rate of conviction. The more people they convict the more likely they will keep their job or be promoted. Also, again the more they can argue for funding from the state. So they have a financial incentive to stick as many people for as much as they can.

For the judges; Arizona is one fucked up state. You do not need a law degree or any qualifying criteria to sit on the bench. All you need to do is win the election. Well judges run on being "tough on crime". That means they have a financial incentive to screw as many people to the wall as they possibly can and yes there are people on the bench in Arizona who have absolutely no background in law at all.

For the defense attorneys it creates a hell of a problem because many cases can be successfully fought but doing so costs a shit ton of money. Proving that the police manufactured evidence for example is not an easy thing to do and it's terribly expensive. Well if a defense attorney knows that a client can't afford that, they won't take the case or will simply advise them to plead guilty because it will be cheaper than fighting it.

So what you have is a system where it's in everyone's best interests to screw the citizens who can't afford a defense. It funds the state government, creates arguments for additional funding, and is a ticket to professional advancement and unless you have a lot of cash you are effectively defenseless.

Now when you consider that the median income for Hispanics in Arizona is generally pretty low and that Arizona has a very high population of Hispanics it's going to appear statistically that they are targeted exclusively. Not the case. If you're poor and white, poor and black, poor and green...you're going to get fucked. The key word though is "poor" not "Hispanic".

 

[C_Clayton_Jones]

If Arpaio were smart (!) he’d get is office in compliance with the Constitution and sound public policy as soon as possible; he’d lose the case anyway should Justice file suit.

 

[bripat9643]

Lest you forget, Arpaio was elected to is job. He has been reelected numerous times. He's there because the people in his county support the work he is doing.

It must suck to know that the majority thinks people like you are a bunch of putzes, doesn't it?

Obama was elected, should the investigation of fast and furious be stopped?

The people of Mariposa County didn't elect Obama. They did elect the congressman in the House who are investigating the policy of the Obama administration to deliberately break the law.

 

[C_Clayton_Jones]

Why are conservatives so adamant in their defense of a Sheriff so egregiously in violation of the Constitution?

It's very telling.

This is really the crux of the problem. Now what I am going to say I cannot provide links to support because it comes from personal experience and discussions with two friends of mine who are ex-cops, two retired Arizona judges, and a slew of defense attorneys that I regularly golfed with when I lived there. So what I am going to say is based upon their collective opinions.

Nothing.

As your ‘golfing buddies’ defense attorneys would say: ‘it’s antidotal, immaterial, and hearsay.’