Posted on 06/16/2006 8:40:39 PM PDT by machogirl
Citizens group confronts sheriff on immigrants
'Copwatch' calls for sheriff to release immigrants from jail Friday, June 16, 2006 Members of a citizens group known as Copwatch protested outside Sheriff Joe Arpaio's office Friday morning. They held signs asking Arpaio to release illegal immigrants that his deputies and volunteer posse members have arrested. The arrests came under a state law making it illegal to conspire to smuggle humans into Arizona, or to conspire to be smuggled. Arpaio came down from his 19th floor office in the Wells Fargo Building to let the members of Copwatch present their complaints in person. They told Arpaio that he and County Attorney Andrew Thomas are misintepreting the law, which they claim was intended to apply only to coyotes, or human smugglers. Arpaio responded that with over two dozen immigrants already having pleaded guilty, the justice system has apparently agreed that the law is constitutional.
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I love this, if you have a contrary opinion (one based on tons of readily verifiable facts) about Joe, here is what will happen to you on FR.
You will be questioned about your criminal past with snide insinuations and attacks.
You will be called a liberal.
Your patriotism will be called into doubt.
Your "member since" date will be looked up and if you are newer than the person responding you will be attacked.
Sloppy argumentative styles and the lack of courage by others who don't know the subject and refuse to educate themselves.
But the truth about Arpaio is out there, and here's a big hint: most of his detractors are conservatives!!!
Of course, if you try to expose this corrupt politician, you're lambasted, called names, have retarded posts directed at you, like "blah blah blah blah" (award for most bizarre poster EVER), etc. And all this from my fellow Freepers!
The funny thing is, most of the Sheriff Joe fan club is from OUT OF STATE! The majority of people who actually live here roll their eyes and shake their heads when you mention his name - they KNOW he's a joke. But to Joe's supporters, the critics must be liberals or DU'ers or drug addicts or ex-cons.
Talk about closed minds. Guess I just expected better from Freepers.
thank you for posting this, some of the questions that I had from the other posts have been answered
About 70% of the inmates haven't been to trial, so they can't even be called criminals. And yet most of the Freepers on this thread think this guy's the greatest thing since sliced bread. Of course, it's not THEIR rights being trampled on.
Yup, that's the mental image I had.
*YUG!*
Thanks.
;-)
I'm sorry, but your post is still just...lame!
sw
"Sheriff Joe better watch his back. I hope nothing happens to him."
Our Sheriff Joe has more things to worry about then smelly street protesters. He has been threatened by everyone from the Mexican Federales--who pretend to like him--to the M-13 gang.
By the way, I think "Put that in your pipe" also means, "If you don't like it, I'll personally kick your whiney, liberal butts."
"Sheriff Joke is an ass. If every county in America had one of him, the whole country would be bankrupt."
Say this to his face, Dowtownconserative, rather than from the safety of your home. I think we know who the ass is in this situation.
Showed it on the local news this morning, all young, all white (from what I could see).. made me wonder if this was reved up at ASU.
Yep. Tis true. Arpaio is very tough on crime!
I spent 90 consecutive days in Tent City for an underage drinking offense (possession/consumption). It was a warrant I hadn't taken care of for a year ($$$) and the irony was that i had just turned 21 when I got arrested for it >=)
Best thing that ever happened to me, let me tell ya!
Set me straight, and I got a great tan. I'll never drink underage again (oh, too late).
It really is 140 degrees in those tents....I heard it, but never believed it till I got there.
However, it seems like almost all the news articles miss the fact that there is an air-conditioned day room available almost 24 hrs a day, the exception being during headcounts.
So I managed to keep cool!
But then someone got beaten to death in the tent next to mine, bludgeoned with steel bunk drawers.
I wonder if he was in there for underage drinking as well...
Oh well the past is past.
--Reverend
Under the new law it doesn't matter if they are coyotes or illegals since illegals pay the coyotes to smuggle them they are breaking the law. Every officer in Arizona should be doing what Sheriff Joe is doing.
So if not from the safety of my home office, where do YOU suggest I "say" these things?
And since when does one become an ass merely because they don't like corrupt public officials, and aren't afraid to say so...even if it IS from the "safety" of their living rooms?
and, he shows up on every Sheriff Joe post to trash the Sheriff's reputation. Of course he's had lawsuits, that is because he's actually DOING something, unlike too many other Sheriff and Police Chiefs in Arizona. He can move to Mohave County anytime he pleases and would be more than welcome.
Of course crime rate hasn't gone down, the population has grown by leaps and bounds, especially the illegals coming in... look at the 83-year-old woman who was attacked earlier this week in her home.. all three assailants were hispanic and those home-invasion crimes have been escalating due to the violence we are importing from Mexico. Sheriff Joe has a huge task in a huge county.
Yes.. he just won't admit it.
"And since when does one become an ass merely because they don't like corrupt public officials, . . ."
Please PROVE his corruption. And don't send me to some
brain dead website. I want proof--written records and records, audited spread sheets, eyewitnesses (preferably without Coyote or meth relationships).
Or, in your world, do you not have to back allegations with proof?
You are absolutely correct there. If he wasn't he would just quietly run the department without the bragging.
I like some things about sheriff Joe, I don't believe that convicted criminals should be coddled and life in jail should be hard. I want criminals to be afraid to go back to jail. However your points about not yet convicted inmates and status offenders being improperly treated are valid and important. Joe goes too far in ill treatment of these prisoners. Likewise lefty judges, prosecutors and politicians go too far in arranging for their pet criminals to avoid prosecution and jail and live off the taxpayers dime while doing so. The same lefties persecute ordinary law abiding citizens, conservatives and Republicans maliciously with fabricated evidence or none. We are in a heck of a mess and Joe is just a tiny pimple on the rear of both the left and the right.
Oh, here's another one - remember all those detectives that were investigating "massage parlors"? They waited until AFTER they had sex with the prostitutes to arrest them!
I am a proud member of the Maricopa County Sheriff's Posse. I was part of that prostitution detail. The above statement is a lie. The prostitutes had discovered that Scottsdale PD had a policy that they couldn't get completely naked, so that word spread, and the first thing they would do for any potential customer was make them get naked. We got permission to get naked as part of our investigation. The plan was to wait until the prostitute made the offer of sex for money and then to back out of the deal. That plan was executed flawlessly time after time, and all the evidence was built up, and finally we had a big weekend detail where we arrested hundreds of people simultaneously at locations all over Maricopa County. Everything was looking good until County Attorney Rick Romley, who didn't have a good relationship with the Sheriff, threw out every one of the cases for some reason known only to him. Luckily we have Andrew Thomas as our County Attorney now, and he works well with the Sheriff.
The proof that the above statement is a lie is that it is illegal to have sex with a prostitute, and Sheriff's Deputies cannot perform illegal acts.
Sheriff Arpaio did not "support" Janet Napolitano during her run for Governor. He made a statement asking people to stop the vicious attacks on her. There's a big difference.
Sheriff Arpaio is definitely not a liberal.
The inmates in Tent City are people charged with non-violent offenses, so they don't need to be inside the higher-security jails. Some of them are awaiting trial and some have been convicted of crimes. One thing that's different about Tent City is that many of the inmates are released to work at jobs during the day and report back there at night to serve their sentence. I went in there on a Posse detail a few years back to search it for contraband. It consists of concrete pads with metal bunks installed, and a big military surplus tent over the whole thing. They used to have swamp coolers in each tent, but the inmates were able to get parts off of them to use as weapons, so they were replaced with big fans. The story about not giving water to the inmates is another lie. Notice the lack of links to confirm it.
Every single lawsuit against the Sheriff has been settled out of court, with the County paying the price. In some cases the price has been millions of dollars. Sheriff Arpaio has said that he would like to see some of the cases go to court so he could demolish them, but the County won't allow that to happen. As a result, there's the appearance of wrongdoing. The restraint chairs, for example, are mentioned over and over. I've transported inmates to jail and booked them, and I've seen these chairs. They're just sturdy metal chairs with straps where they place an inmate who is violent and trying to hurt himself or others. One inmate I saw had a protective helmet on because he had been trying to beat his own head to a pulp on the walls of his cell. The other inmate had a bag over his head because he was trying to spit on everyone. One case often cited is that of Scott Norberg. This guy was high on methamphetamines and got into a big fight with the Detention Officers. After the fight was over, he died of positional asphyxia. This is not uncommon in today's drug culture, and as the article said, the DOs were not found guilty of any wrongdoing.
The Dan Saban allegations are comical. His own mother charged him with rape. The Sheriff's Office merely invesigated the charges.
To #125:
Wow!
Sounds like you've got some sort of axe to grind.
Ever been made to wear pink underwear?.
I believe that many of Sheriff Arpaio's critics (or their family or friends) have been his guests at the County Crossbar Motel. That's just a personal observation. I see them all the time when I'm in uniform. There are 3 different reactions when people notice you're wearing a Sheriff's Office uniform - 1.) Indifference, 2.) People who will wave or come up and say hello, 3.) People who look at you like you just crawled out from under a rock. The critics here seem to be Type 3. You'll notice that the only link they've posted is to a couple of anti-Arpaio websites and to the Phoenix New Times, a free newspaper that you can find in grocery stores and on street corners in the seedier parts of town. It's a hard-left publication, critical of anything or anyone conservative, and isn't fit to line the bottom of a bird cage. A "real" conservative would not use it as a source of news, given its leftie bias.
To #135:
This two month "sting operation" involved over 350 deputies that were pulled off other investigative details and patrol that resulted in 80 cases that have all been declined for prosecution by the Maricopa County Attorney's Office.
Not sure where the number of 350 came from, but there were probably 20 deputies (if that) working the day to day cases. There may have been 350 deputies and Posse involved in the arrests on that final weekend. And yes, County Attorney Rick Romley refused to prosecute, for no good reason other than (I think) opposition to the Sheriff. He was a disgrace, and I'm glad he's gone.
Lawsuits brought against Arpaio by employees, former employees, inmates, and the families of dead inmates have cost the county millions and Arpaio has misled the public about the cost to taxpayers of lawsuits.
As stated previously, these lawsuits are all settled out of court. The Sheriff is not allowed to fight any of them. Ask the Board of Supervisors why they're costing the County millions, not the Sheriff.
By comparison, the Los Angles County Sheriff's Department, the nation's largest, has half as many on the executive staff.
This is funny. The Maricopa County Sheriff's Office is the second largest S.O. in the country. I'm sure the executive staff takes hundreds of Deputies and DOs away from patrol, right? Jeez...
Joe and County Attorney Richard Romley have never got along in any way.
Rick Romley is gone. The current County Attorney is Andrew Thomas, who is a true conservative and gets along just fine with the Sheriff.
To #136:
Remember when he installed a web cam in the women's jail right above the toilet? Inmates caught naked on the camera for all the pervs to watch. And these were women awaiting trial not guilt till charged.
Another lie. The webcams were in the corridors looking into the cells, and did not have views of the toilets.
To #138:
Funny thing is, up until a month or so ago, whenever the "posse" would arrest someone, they'd turn around and let 'em go, just like ICE does. When that little-known fact came up, suddenly Joe decided to put 'em into Tent City.
Another lie. Anyone who is arrested is taken to jail. The Posse would never let anyone go. We work under the authority of a sworn Deputy, so we couldn't do that.
To #139:
Let me break it down Barney style since you want to play stupid then. You living there, in Arizona, the state you live in, doesnt mean you're an expert - someone with above average knowledge of something - on the state - again that being the place you live.
These anti-Arpaio folks may live in Arizona, and some may even be some variety of conservative, but they do have an axe to grind for whatever reason, so they come out of the woodwork when anyone mentions the Sheriff. Follow the links (if they give any), look at the information, consider the source, and then make a judgment. I'm (obviously) in favor of the Sheriff. He used to come to our Posse meetingss and answer any questions we might have. He had a staff member who came with him who could answer anything he didn't know or would go find out the answer and contact us later. A few years ago when I was on mall patrol he and his wife were shopping in the mall. He came out (alone) and sat in my car in the parking lot and we had a conversation. He's the Sheriff and I'm just a lowly Posse member, but he took the time to hang around with me for a while just to find out what I thought about the Sheriff's Office and if there was anything I would change about it. I like the guy, and so do the majority of people who know him or hear about him.
I know, the purpose wasn't to get the illegals out, but to get copwatch in using their own disingenuous definition of the law as bait. Clever huh?
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