The woman, Ciria Lopez-Pacheco, 25, currently has an ICE hold against her, and whether or not her traffic ticket gets paid, she may be heading back to Mexico, separated from her kids indefinitely.
How does terrorizing little kids and leaving old ladies stranded solve murders? Your guess is as good as this gander's. Plus, cities like Avondale and Buckeye, out where the sweep took place, already have police forces that can handle traffic patrols.
courtesy of MCSO
Ciria Lopez-Pacheco, torn from her two children during Arpaio's latest sweep.
courtesy of Dennis Gilman
One of the masked MSCO deputies who claimed to be "undercover," while riding in a marked car.
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Interestingly, the West Valley View, the pugnacious independent paper that covers the west side, has been after Sheriff Joe for years to bring his office's investigative resources to bear on all the dead bodies that litter the region's roadways.
"Arpaio isn't good at solving crimes," one unsigned 2008 editorial noted. "Since 2005, more than a dozen bodies of homicide victims have turned up in the West Valley in Arpaio's jurisdiction. He's been too busy rounding up tree trimmers to go after the hardened criminals responsible for those murders. As a result, the people who depend on him for their police protection are at great risk."
LAWBREAKER JOE
Not only does Arpaio continue to piss away taxpayer money with impunity on these inefficient, expensive sweeps, he refuses to cut his budget in a time of fiscal crisis. And his administration persists in ass-backward policies that are a persistent drain on the county's coffers, and are sometimes in conflict with state statutes.
Take the recent news that the Arpaio's jails have been — once again — decertified by the National Commission on Correctional Health Care.
The MCSO's accreditation was first pulled in September. The county Board of Supervisors flipped out and pleaded for another chance on appeal. But Betty Adams, director of Correctional Health Services, the department that provides healthcare to county jail inmates, has just received a letter from the NCCHC, wherein president Ed Harrison lowers the proverbial boom.
"In response to your request for reconsideration of the decision to withdraw NCCHC accreditation from the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office," wrote Harrison, "a focused survey was conducted on November 24-25, 2008. We did not find any evidence that would warrant a reversal of the prior decision of the NCCHC Accreditation Committee. Withdrawal of accreditation is affirmed."
Harrison then informed the county that it can further appeal NCCHC's decision, or it can reapply for accreditation.
Why is this a big deal? Well, as former New Times scribe John Dickerson pointed out in an article last fall, the sheriff's required by state law to show proof to the Arizona Department of Health that his gulags meet national health standards, as laughable as that may sound.
After all, doesn't Joe essentially run for re-election every four years on the premise that his jails are medieval, cockroach-infested rat holes? And if Joe's really broken the law on this, will he turn himself in to himself? Maybe Joe supporters could start a candlelight vigil down at the Fourth Avenue Jail, waiting for the sheriff to show up, slap the cuffs on himself, and demand that he be booked.
Okay, The Bird's wet-dreaming, but if the Board of Supervisors was ready to grow a collective pair, it could potentially use this new development to retaliate against Arpaio for investigating Supervisor Don Stapley, and having Joe's butt-boy, County Attorney Candy Thomas, slap Stapley with 118 felony counts for not filing his paperwork properly.
That power move was meant to keep the Supes in submission, and it sparked the ongoing war between Candy and the B.O.S. So why not use Joe's loss of accreditation against him for a little payback? Heck, Supes, at least use it against him in the freakin' press.
Joe will squeal that he doesn't control CHS. But as Dickerson pointed out in his piece last year, that's a copout. CHS and the MCSO are joined at the broken hip. CHS is responsible for healthcare, but Sheriff Green Bologna's liable for the nourishment of inmates, housing them properly, and delivering them to CHS if they're injured or sick.
The lack of accreditation leaves the county more vulnerable to payouts on lawsuits concerning Joe's jails. Without that accreditation, the MCSO's lawyers have nothing to fall back on. They won't be able to claim that Joe's jails are up to snuff. And conversely, litigants will be able to rightly say that the MCSO's jails blow, and that Arpaio's in defiance of state law.
So far, Arpaio's cost taxpayers more than $43 million in lawsuit payouts because of the gruesome conditions in his jails. Now that the NCCHC has shot down the sheriff once again, you can expect more and larger lawsuit settlements and awards. In a time of budget deficits and cutbacks, taxpayers can no longer afford Arpaio's rampant stupidity. What do Joe supporters want the county to do, go bankrupt for the star-wearing fool?
CLOWN CONSTABLE
The Bird has to admit one thing about ol' Joe. His press conferences are hi-larious, especially when this taloned terror's able to crash one.
This happened at the one inaugurating Joe's first Hispanic-hunting escapade of the season on the west side. As The Bird joined the other representatives of the Fourth Estate out at I-10 and Miller Road, he was singled out by one of Joe's flacks, who asked this beaker if he planned to be respectful of the sheriff.