Say It Ain't Joe

Comments (0) By Jeremy Voas Thursday, Jun 12 1997

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How about the sergeant fired, and the other deputies investigated and polygraphed, and still others moved to dead-end positions because Arpaio has suspected them of talking to New Times?

How about Scott Norberg, the young man who was placed into a restraint chair and asphyxiated by jailers? Or Richard Post, the paraplegic who got the restraint-chair treatment and wound up with a broken neck? Or Jeremy Flanders, the young Tent City inmate who was beaten into a coma by tent-stake-wielding prisoners at Tent City?

How about the sheriff's denial of New Times' request for financial records of his nearly 60 citizen posses, which have raked in hundreds of thousands of dollars? He swears the posses are nonprofit organizations that are independent of the Sheriff's Office and not subject to the Public Records Law. Never mind that the fund-raising is coordinated from the Sheriff's Office. Never mind his dismissal of an "independent" posse chief for failing to follow his directives. Why won't Arpaio come clean about posse finances? What's he hiding?

Perhaps now you understand why Joe Arpaio is afraid.
And why, in Arizona, he's towering gubernatorial timber.