The Bird exposes Sheriff Joe's racist ties, delves into the Israel Correa madness, and reveals Napolitano as the real Judas

Next stop, 25th Street and Bell Road, near Salvador Reza's Macehualli Work Center, which caters to mostly Mexican day laborers. There, U.S.A.'s armed brigade of gap-toothed nativists has manned a semi-permanent encampment since January 1. Its members have harassed jornaleros nonstop at the site, terrorizing the neighborhood in the process. Starting this week, Sheriff Joe's gonna do U.S.A.'s bidding by having his boys in beige patrol the area.

During such sweeps, the MCSO will hunt for the undocumented under the guise of routine traffic stops. Anyone the color of a brown paper bag gets the criminal treatment. The publicity stunts are staged to help Joe convince Maricopa County's Hispanic-hating honkies he's the meanest when it comes to migrants, thereby earning their votes.

Joe formally announced his intent to move on up to Macehualli during a Good Friday press conference at 32nd and Thomas. But less than 24 hours earlier, Joe was tipping off his prejudiced fans during one of U.S.A.'s regular Thursday-night white-pride clambakes, currently held at Sunnyslope's Veteran of Foreign Wars Post 9400.

Joe's speech at the VFW post was met with hoots and hollers from U.S.A.'s rabid rabble. Like the egomaniac he is, he ate it up.

"I appreciate your support," he gushed. "You're on the right track. You're doing what you should be doing."

Joe wondered aloud whether there were spies present in the crowd from New Times. Not really spies, Joe, just friends of this wacky warbler who keep him well-informed.

Arpaio rambled on for an hour, denying he's a racist, offering as proof his assistance to the people of Central America via Chief Deputy David Hendershott's notorious Honduran police-training scam. Sure, Joe. The Bird will buy that one when he observes Jabba the Hendershott break down and join Jenny Craig.

Joe crowed that he was investigating Attorney General Terry Goddard and that he'd just come from a going-away party for recently replaced ICE honcho Alonzo Pena.

Joe then pumped up the audience with bigoted comments.

"The good news is, all these people are leaving," he said, speaking of Mexicans in Sand Land. "They're going to other states, or back to Mexico."

The U.S.A. crew went wild. Joe followed up with another callous remark.

"We've got 900 Class 4 felonies we put in jail," he asserted, referring to immigrants arrested for such Class 4 felonies as forgery and held by ICE. "They can't work and send money back to their loved ones if they're behind bars."

U.S.A.'s idgits responded with a sarcastic, "Awwww." See, many of these trailer-park denizens don't hold jobs. They're too busy protestin' them Messcans to work. Smell the irony? Or is that the odor of these unwashed a-holes?

When Joe exited stage left, Childress took over, declaring it was alleged public urinator Buffalo Rick Galeener who'd petitioned a smattering of business owners to pen letters begging Joe to bring his dragnet to 25th and Bell. Galeener, who was cited by Phoenix cops on March 8 for allegedly showing his pee-pee to a mom and her 2-year-old kid, mimicked a foreign gas station proprietor who'd turned him down on writing a letter, mocking the man's accent to the delight of his fellow rednecks.

Galeener said he's retained a lawyer to help him with his indecent exposure "case," so he can "go after the city, Sal Reza, the one who filed the charges, and anyone else who's involved up there."

So this Gabby Hayes lookalike allegedly breaks the law, then sets out to sue those who caught him dead to rights. This is the class of people Arpaio's in cahoots with.

Galeener read a letter to his fellow tools from the VFW Post's Commander Tom Kaifesh, thanking them for a $100 donation "in the name of Elton Hall." Hall, 74, was injured near Macehualli by a two-car crash on February 9 while toting a sign for U.S.A. According to scholarly tomes on white supremacy, the goose-steppin' geezer once organized for George Lincoln Rockwell's American Nazi Party.

Hall was present that evening. When Childress introduced him, he received an enthusiastic ovation.

The next day, at Arpaio's Good Friday press conference, Childress was an honored guest.

After the media confab, this beaker buttonholed Joe, inquiring about his ties to Childress, and why he spoke before an organization that accepts neo-Nazis.

"He's a good guy," Arpaio said of Childress, adding, "I have no problem [with him accepting neo-Nazis]. You know what? I talk to everybody. I even talk to the demonstrators."

"Would you talk to the Klan?" asked this avian.

"I talk to the inmates; I talk to everybody. I'm the sheriff for everybody," he boasted.

That is, unless your skin's a tad too tan. Right, Joe?

CUCKOO CORREA?

This balmy bill-bearer's been through the looking glass and back with oddball gadfly Israel Correa. Bird-watchers will recall that this tweeter wrote about Correa being stopped by the sheriff's initial anti-illegal sweep at 32nd and Thomas ("No Holds Barred," January 31). Correa was pulled over for not having his headlights on and arrested for failure to show ID, though the MCSO's own report admitted Correa'd offered up a valid AZ driver's license.

The MCSO obtained Correa's Social Security number. But the MCSO still placed an ICE hold on Correa, without informing ICE. Vinnie Picard, ICE's PIO, didn't know a hold had been placed until informed by this egret. Picard later said the MCSO told him it was some internal notation, rather than an actual hold. The incident has never been explained fully.

On March 19, all three charges against Correa from that January stop (the alleged failure to present ID, lack of insurance, and not having his vehicle's registration) were dismissed by a justice court — evidence the collar was bogus from jump.

Correa wasn't celebrating, though. He'd been arrested by the MCSO on March 17, for allegedly threatening the arresting officer from the January stop, C.A. Rangel. In his report, Rangel wrote, "At one point, [Correa] spoke near my left ear and stated that he was going to find out where I live and I was going to get it."

Vague stuff, but enough to draw the misdemeanor charge, albeit two months late. Correa was also facing a Class 5 felony of aggravated harassment for allegedly violating a court mandate that he steer clear of Judge Carlos Mendoza's courtroom. Correa was released on a $500 bond, and ordered to wear an ankle bracelet, which monitored his curfew.

Mendoza and Correa have a legal blood feud spanning several years, and both men have had injunctions against harassment on each other, according to the Phoenix Police Department. Correa's suing Mendoza to recover $3,800 Correa says he paid Mendoza to represent him in a divorce proceeding. As part of the original complaint, Correa alleged the two men had some sort of sexual encounter, a weird thing to put in a $3,800 contract claim. Mendoza has denied all Correa's claims to The Bird, as well as the sexual allegation.

Correa's representing himself in the suit. Mendoza's being represented by — get this — disgraced former special prosecutor Dennis Wilenchik. Wilenchik asked that Correa's orginal complaint be stricken because of the scandalous, immaterial, baseless, heinous, and bizarre statements therein. The court agreed, and Correa was forced to file an amended complaint that deleted the sexual allegation.

What is this, a freakin' episode of HBO's The Wire? And if so, who's wearing one?

Correa's also involved in one of the charges brought by the Arizona Commission on Judicial Misconduct against Mendoza. The thing's too tangled for The Bird to tackle fully, but basically, the commission alleges Mendoza had Correa thrown out of a downtown courtroom, that Mendoza challenged another judge to fisticuffs, and that Mendoza failed to report certain financial information. Mendoza's attorney, Rick Strohm, maintained his client's innocence to this perplexed penguin.

Then, some deep weirdness took place on the evening of Wednesday, March 19. According to Stacie Derge, the Phoenix PD's PIO, Correa reported a home invasion by two armed, masked men, looking for files on Judge Mendoza. At Correa's house, the po-po found him and gal pal Gabby Espinoza partially bound.