The Bird wonders just what Joe Arpaio's top dog is doing down in Honduras

The stated reason for the Friday-afternoon press conference had to do with the PHX's version of Idi Amin using his posse for an anti-illegal dragnet in the rectangle of P-town bounded by 16th and 40th streets, between Indian School and McDowell roads.

The posse? You mean those moss-backed Matlocks who gum their food and roam the malls during Xmas time?

Yep, Joe was touting these wanna-be deputies, who have no power to actually stop and arrest anyone, as the backbone behind a crime sweep intended to net as many illegals as possible in the predominantly Hispanic area. The dippy dragnet would therefore cost less, cried Arpaio, with fewer actual MCSO deputies needed.

So this obstreperous oriole eased up next to the sheriff and peeped his query as soon as he got a chance.

"Do you have to use the posse because all of your MCSO officers are in Honduras, Joe?" wondered The Bird to our Pennzoil-haired lawman. "Just what is Chief Deputy David Hendershott doing in Honduras training cops there?"

The sheriff advised this avian that he doesn't answer questions from New Times employees, and he proceeded to ignore the Taloned One, for the moment. But he did flinch as The Bird inquired several times as to Hendershott's Honduran escapade.

Maybe Arpaio doesn't know that much about it. After all, Hendershott is Arpaio's own blubber-bound Dick Cheney, the evil genius who pulls Arpaio's strings and runs the day-to-day operations of the MCSO while Nickel Bag Joe is out at staged events and press conferences. Arpaio should know about it, however.

"We are utilizing our volunteer posse," announced Joe to the flock of journos in the otherwise vacant parking lot where he'd set up his mobile command center. "We've done this many times before. We've gone after prostitutes and other criminal activity utilizing the posse."

Right, Joe, and that prostitution sting was sooooo successful. For those who weren't here back in 2003 when it went down, posse members and regular MCSO officers went undercover to bust massage parlors and whatnot, and in the process, some of the posse members got nekkid and had their wrinkled weenies stroked by the working gals involved. (See "In the Crosshairs," June 24, 2004, for more on this MCSO bumblefuck.)

The anti-ho operation was so compromised that then-County Attorney Rick Romley refused to prosecute the collars made. The fiasco's just one of many that has made the sheriff's posse a laughingstock, a Metamucil-primed gaggle of alter kockers who should be relegated to a support role, at best, instead of involved directly in legitimate law-enforcement activities.

Along those lines, this winged wordsmith persisted in peppering the ancient lawman with inquiries.

"What special training do posse members have to enforce immigration law?" wondered this woodpecker. "And do you have enough Depends to go around to all the posse members, Sheriff?"

There was a long pause after that crack, though still no reply.

"How old is the average posse member, Joe?" peeped this pigeon.

Joe ignored this egret, who followed up by asking whether most of the posse-ites were retirees. Joe then quipped, "I hear someone whispering . . ."

"It's a little bird in your ear, Joe!" this beak-bearer squawked not far from his ear.

To that, there were a few chuckles, even from ol' Joe.

"So would you say most posse members are around 50, 60, 70?" persisted this pelican.

"I don't think 60 is old," he grumbled. "They keep saying I have wrinkles on my hands. My hands look pretty good."

Hands? The Bird let it go. After all, the guy is pushing 80.

Pro-immigrant activists, including Salvador Reza, showed up at the event. They were concerned that Joe would do his racial profiling shtick so close to where the Pruitt's protests had been going down (until a truce was called between Reza and Pruitt's owner Roger Sensing, ending the months-long standoff).

Later that evening, those concerns were made real when MCSO officers stopped U.S. citizen Israel Correa nearby, supposedly for driving without his headlights on. He was arrested for allegedly failing to show his driver's license.

But when Correa was released, his Arizona driver's license was returned to him with his possessions, according to Channel 12. (The MCSO incident report later showed that Correa had given the deputy his driver's license after he was arrested.)

Can anyone say, "lawsuit in the making"? And it was the regular MCSO cops who made the bust, supposedly, not posse pinheads.

No wonder the sheriff's "mobile command center" was gone the next day, the parking lot at 32nd and Thomas empty once again. And the posse members? Presumably back at the Luby's in Sun City, gumming their meatloaf.

SABAN ATTACKS

Energetic, angry, and ready to rumble. That was the mood of the crowd of 200-300 who showed for Buckeye Police Chief Dan Saban's recent announcement at Phoenix's Wyndham Hotel that he intends to flay Arpaio's flaccid fanny in this year's general election for Maricopa County sheriff.

"Today will mark the beginning of the end of Mr. Arpaio and his infamous reign," declared Saban at the podium after being preceded by a series of supporters, including former Republican County Attorney Rick Romley, community activist Donna Neil of Nail'Em, and lefty former State Senator Alfredo Gutierrez.