The July 20 New Yorker has a profile of Joe ArpaioRight now, it’s still hidden behind the New Yorker’s subscription wall,
I’ll post a link once someone fishes it out and posts it in the free world In the meantime, here are a few highlights.
New Yorker writer, William Finnegan, points out that while Arpaio is not the lead law enforcement for some backwater. Maricopa County covers more than 9 thousand square miles, has a population of nearly 4 million, and includes Phoenix. Arpaio has been the elected sheriff since 1993.
Arpaio became popular with conservative voters with his much publicized jail privations. First he put 2,500 of his jail inmates in tent cities, inside which during the summer months, often reached temperatures of 135 degrees. Then came the pink underwear, the chain gangs, and Arpaio took away such “luxuries” from inmates as hot lunches, coffee and even salt and pepper—bragging to the New Yorker’s Finnegan that “it costs more to feed the dogs than it does the inmates…”
The result was, writes Finnegan, Sheriff Joe became the most popular politician in the state of Arizona. Moreover, anyone who opposed him or spoke out against him was likely to find themselves investigated if not arrested.
And all this was before Sheriff Joe found his newest source of notoriety: immigration raids.
It was his middle-of-the-night, unannounced raid on Mesa, Arizona, that brought him in opposition to George Gascon, Mesa’s then police chief, formerly the Assistant Chief of the LAPD. (Gascon is now the chief of the San Francisco PD.)
Last October, Sheriff Joe sent 60 detectives plus a posse of volunteers to Mesa to creep around the public library and city hall looking for “illegals.” The raid netted three middle-aged cleaning women, but the arrival of a small army of armed and flack jacketed un-uniformed men in the dead of night produced what Gascon described as a “very, very dangerous scenario,” adding “in my entire law enforcement career I have never heard of anything close to this.”
That Gascon was one of the handful of Arizona officials who refused to roll over and play dead for Arpaio put him high on Joe’s enemies list, a fact which Arpaio made clear to Finnegan.
In the end, Finnegan had great access to the sheriff and has painted a fascinating and alarming portrait that most definitely draws blood. But he does so with a very light touch.
Mostly all Finnegan needed to do is allow Arpaio to impale himself on the reporter’s pen, which the media-hungry Sheriff Joe, and those surrounding him, obligingly did over and over again.
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Photo by Matt York/AP
I will be anxious to look at Finnegan’s piece.
I HAVE to do a tad of chest beating here and note that I wrote a long profile of Joe Arpaio for Spin magazine way back in 1994 shortly after he came to power. I rode with him and his heavily-armed volunteer posse for a couple of days and damn near got my head blown off. During a made-for-media anti-hooker sweep in downtown Phoenix the posse unit I was riding with pulled its guns on a couple of undercover Phoenix PD vice cops who they mistook as drug dealers. The cops pulled their guns as well and we had a real live Mexican standoff. It’s hard to believe this sociopath (and corrupt one at that) has held office for nearly 20 years. Something about that desert sun.
The dirty rednecks love “crazy Joe”
That pink looks sooo HOT on those inmates.
Joe has arrested more than 30,000 illegal aliens from his county.
That MUCH success prompted Attorney General Eric Holder to open an investigation of Sheriff Arpaio.
Sheriff Arpaio hasn’t broken any laws has he? You guys hate the jailer more than the criminals.
“It seems that what we have here is a failure to communicate!”
CA has 175,000 inmates incarcerated at any given time. The recidivism rate is the highest in the country, higher even than TX. Parolees are violated for losing a job, losing their dwelling, or losing their girlfriend (kidding).. The reason for this discrepency is the strength of the Correctional Officer’s union. They are the highest paid guards in the country, and they have plenty of fatcat lobbyists on permanent retainer. Can someone verify? I think the annual budget for housing inmates hovers around two billion.
Sheriff Joe with his simplistic ways is getting the job done with tent cities, chain gangs, pink coveralls, and green bologna sandwiches. The only way he’ll be thwarted is if he’s indicted, or the voters speak differently than they have. Bottom line: Would you rather render your tax billions to bureaucrats or your millions to loony lawmen? If the tax bill is more reasonable and the effect is the same gimme the loony lawman. But keep the bologna.
I’ve crossed paths with some dark individuals in my travels. I’ve known some CA ex-cons who had no qualms about returning to the CA slammers, but never heard a con who did a stint in Arpaio’s camp who wanted to go back. It’s repressive and everything we as taxpayers and law-abiders want from a hoosgow..
Sheriff Joe is a complex guy.
On the one hand, he has inadequate respect for civil liberties, and that makes him scary.
On the other, he is very creative and quite effective. The tent city jail was not a stunt – he did it when the county refused to fund the construction of indoor facilities. The pink underwear was a result of underwear theft – so he made it pink so people wouldn’t want it. After it got publicity, he started selling it publicly (proceeds go to charity).
A friend of mine was his guest at tent city and is thus not a fan. I consider that an appropriate outcome of imprisonment.
The chain gangs are very popular among the inmates, because they allow them a chance to get out of the jail for a while – albeit under guard. They are all voluntary – nobody is coerced.
Marc may make light of the “heavily armed” civilian posses, but they are quite useful here. Each armed member has at least as much firearms training as a sworn peace office (they have to go through the same course), and there are over 1000 of them.
A few years ago, we started having fatal carjackings at shopping malls around Christmas. Joe sent out his armed mounted posse members to the mall parking lots, and the problem quickly went away.
One of his most successful posses is the Sun City Posse – armed senior citizens who protect their retirement community. I am aware of no problems with this posse, and their contribution has been very positive.
The Sheriff also has many unarmed posse members, as he had (last time I checked quite a few years ago) 3000 or so members in 30 or so different posses. They perform work ranging from assisting law enforcement to specialty search and rescue (desert mounted search, desert 4wd search, mountain rescue, air posse, etc).
Oh, and unfortunate incidents between undercover agents and other law enforcement officials is not a unique property of civilian posse members.
Joe is a very popular guy here, and fulfills the role that Arizona seems to always keep occupied: colorful public official – in that sense he is in the same vein as Sam Steiger (libertarian, got in trouble for shooting a burro, and got in more trouble for midnight addition of a crosswalk to Prescott) and Evan Mecham – car dealer turned sleazy Governor and entertainingly (if stupidly) politically incorrect.
When I was a syndicated talk show co-host, I once participated in an interview of Sheriff Joe. One thing about him – you don’t have to fear dead air time (a talk show hosts biggest fear) with him. Just get him on a mic, and sit back for an hour or two and listen to him go.
I’m glad we have Sheriff Joe, even if he is a bit of a neo-fascist in his attitudes toward civil liberties. He’s entertaining and genuinely keeps Maricopa County (where I live) safer.
I need to add to my list of local colorful political figures… Barry Goldwater, and Former Graham County Sheriff Richard Mack (who among other things got part of the Brady Bill overturned in a Supreme Court case). Of course, we can go farther back to Wyatt Earp…
John, regarding Sheriffs and armed citizens, we recently had a neighborhood meeting with a member of the Sheriff’s Department, who spoke to us about the Neighborhood Watch Program. The representative asked who had guns in their homes. Several hands went up including mine, hesitantly, as I wondered where this was going. After seeing the number of hands, the representative said, “Good!”
We have our police cruisers and helicopters, but the most rapid response is putting a shotgun in the face of an intruder. Citizens groups work, and I enjoy my Second Amendment right.