Sheriff Joe Arpaio's Own Records Raise Serious Questions About Inmate Juan Mendoza Farias' Violent Death

Comments (0) By John Dickerson Thursday, Nov 20 2008

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By December 6, 2007, at 6:10 p.m., one of the sergeants and her lieutenant had already viewed the jail's video footage of the altercation with Farias.

"I saw a shot where the safe-cell door opens [and] it looked like the inmate just walked out on his own," Sergeant Debra Renteria told a detective. "God, this is going to sound awful . . . They put a blanket over him. Over his head, body."

courtesy of the Maricopa County Office of the Medical Examiner

An autopsy photo of Juan Mendoza Farias

courtesy of the Maricopa County Office of the Medical Examiner

An autopsy photo of Juan Mendoza Farias

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In addition to those contradictions, sheriff's attorney Michelle Iafrate blacked-out entire portions of the record. Some records — including Farias' medical records and a grand jury subpoena — are confidential, by law. Other redacted records, however, are not clearly confidential, including:

• The jail log of what cells Farias stayed in,

• Employee logs, which could show a full list of the guards who interacted with Farias,

• A written summary of the jail's video-surveillance footage of Farias.

Finally, the video footage itself may be redacted, as camera angles during the crucial moments of Farias' altercations with jail guards supposedly don't exist.

According to a December 27, 2007 note by sheriff's investigator C.F. Garcia, 28 camera angles exist "[showing] the incident where inmate Mendoza Farias is escorted from Level One, T13 to Level Three, T-31 on Wednesday, December 5, 2007, after getting into altercation with detention staff."

Detective Garcia was given another "23 camera angles" in January.

Iafrate gave New Times 29 of the total 51 camera angles.