But getting trumped by Gascón, a Hispanic immigrant, put him over the edge.
One local newspaper described Arpaio as "red-faced" with anger that night at his downtown offices. He lashed out at the chief for "leaking" to the public when the roundup was to commence.
Jamie Peachey
Mesa Mayor Scott Smith calls George Gascón "the best man for the job."
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Yet the publicity-obsessed sheriff had never asked Mesa to keep the raid secret.
In fact, rumors of the Thursday sweep had been spreading since the previous Sunday, but, according to Mesa PD spokeswoman Diana Tapia, the MCSO had denied that any raid was planned.
Gascón and Tapia tell New Times that the letter that was hand-delivered Tuesday by a sheriff's deputy came within minutes of calls by reporters who knew about the written warning.
If there was a leak, then, it seems to have sprung from Arpaio's office — which is typically how the sheriff operates, to maximize his face time in front of cameras.
Nonetheless, Arpaio played the role of martyr, claiming Gascón had screwed up his operation by talking "garbage" and swarming the area with city cops. He told a radio station that Mesa police did not want him in their town, did not want him "lockin' up illegals," and that he would not give any notice the next time his forces went there.
The reason he did not show up in Mesa, Arpaio said straight-faced, was that he had been playing a "game" with protesters.
In truth, the game had been between him and Gascón.
And Gascón had won.
It was yet another example of Gascón's leadership, the same attribute that got him hired as chief of police in the first place.
He has encountered just one big problem since his arrival in Mesa: He has led the city in a direction that a lot of its citizens do not want it to go.
It is a safe bet, according to Mayor Scott Smith, that most Mesa residents support Arpaio's position, not Gascón's, on how law officers should deal with illegal immigrants. After all, Mesa is home to Russell Pearce, the state lawmaker behind tough legislation targeting illegal immigrants, including two proposed statutes (dead, for now) that would force police to become immigration agents.
Gascón's opponents are numerous and vocal.
And to get at Gascón, they are not afraid to make it personal.
Gascón tells New Times a "really interesting letter" was mailed to his Mesa home a few weeks ago.
"There's some wackos out there. There really are," Gascón says. "Some people have an interest in tracking me down."
The anonymous note was not a threat, exactly, he says. It was a simple message:
"We know where you live."
Mesa did not set out to hire an immigrant rights activist as its police chief.
In fact, Gascón's talents — what got him hired — are getting overshadowed by the boisterous, seemingly unending debate over immigration. Of course, he has thrown plenty of gas on that fire, and scores of e-mails and phone calls have poured into City Hall from people who do not like the chief because of his outspoken opinions.
Despite his public sparring with the sheriff and the bad feelings many Mesa residents have about him, city leaders (new Mayor Smith, particularly) have stood behind the chief.
The reason is, Mesa desperately needed an exceptional police chief, and the city believes it has found one in Gascón.
Mesa can be a rough town, belying its stereotype as a bedroom community filled with peaceful Mormons. Violent crime and meth use plague its older neighborhoods. Armed robberies are a near-daily occurrence. Economic woes contribute to the crime problem.
The town has more than 460,000 people and no property tax. It has spent the past few years trying to cope with decreasing sales tax revenues and a lack of new job-creating businesses. With severe budget shortfalls have come slashed city jobs and cuts in services. Whatever the concern over crime, the police department has been told not to hire more officers until further notice.
Then there are the Mesa PD's internal problems, which were out of control before Gascón was hired in 2006.
One former officer says the department before Gascón was defined by a culture of corruption that too often went unchecked by superiors. In the worst cases, the former officer says, there were internal allegations of theft and drug use, and even officers having sex with informants. A "good ol' boy" network at the top of the chain of command was resistant to change, which allowed problems to fester.
The two chiefs preceding Gascón, Jan Strauss and Dennis Donna, who had come up through the ranks, presided over the scandals — including a slew of discrimination complaints and a debacle in which one out of every five of the department's 1,300 employees was disciplined for sending inappropriate e-mails.
The city conducted a nationwide search and found Gascón, a 28-year veteran of the LAPD. He had an impressive résumé, and it was Mesa's good fortune that Gascón had been passed over for the police chief's job in the nation's second-largest city.
