BAD BREAK
Why did six of Joe Arpaio's goons break the arm of a Mexican house-mom?
Stephen Lemons
Maria del Carmen Garcia-Martinez, shortly after her release from ICE custody. MCSO officers broke her arm.
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The answer seems to be that MCSO corrections officers are brutes empowered by a barbaric law enforcement entity that's rewarded with federal immigration power under the 287(g) program.
What The Bird has learned about the beat-down suffered by Maria del Carmen Garcia-Martinez is that there was absolutely no reason for it. Garcia-Martinez had already given fingerprints when she was booked into MCSO custody March 6 on a bogus charge of presenting a forged instrument to a Phoenix police officer. That charge was later dropped during her near-week in MCSO gulags such as Estrella and Lower Buckeye.
Garcia-Martinez did not resist jailers when they took her prints at booking. But after she had been transferred from Estrella to Buckeye, and with the forgery charges dropped, she was on the fast track into ICE custody (and likely the federal pen in Florence). MCSO officers were determined to get her fingerprint in lieu of her signature on a "certificate of service" (essentially a notice to appear in court on a certain date) — which's ironic since she was already in custody and was not about to be let out anytime soon.
Believing that she was signing off on a voluntary-removal form to send her back to Mexico, Garcia-Martinez refused to give her fingerprint, as was her right, and as any mother would do who had three children who needed her.
MCSO's finest could have simply given Garcia-Martinez the document, with witnesses noting that she would not sign or give her fingerprint. Instead, six guards jumped the 5-foot-tall 46-year-old. They stomped on her legs and twisted her left arm behind her back as they attempted to put her right index finger on the document.
She screamed in pain as they did this. On March 12, after being released from ICE custody, Garcia-Martinez showed this avian her swollen, ink-stained fingers. Her entire left arm, now in a cast after ICE took her to St. Joseph's to be treated, was also swollen — her ankle, as well. And she indicated that the side of her right leg was severely bruised.
"They put their feet on top of her and called her stupid," said Garcia-Martinez's daughter Sandra, translating for her mom.
Garcia-Martinez said she called to the one Hispanic officer out of the gang that was roughing her up, asking him, "Why are you doing this to me, when you came from Mexico also?"
After the physical abuse, the jailers put Garcia-Martinez in a cell for several hours by herself to mull over her pain, which kept her awake. Sometime after midnight, eight more MCSO officers paid her a visit.
"'If you don't put your finger on the paper, we're all going to get you,'" Garcia-Martinez said they told her. Under this threat, she relented, and gave them a fingerprint for the form, which is signed by 287(g) officer A. Reese.
The MCSO practically admitted that they broke Garcia-Martinez's arm in statements made days later to the Arizona Republic, which buried a page-one story on page B3. MCSO flack Doug Matteson admitted that Arpaio's officers unnecessarily coerced a fingerprint out of her. The best he could offer in the way of rationalization was that Garcia-Martinez "tried to bite" the officers, but only "after they placed her in a control hold."
So Garcia-Martinez didn't bite anyone. But the MCSO still broke her arm and beat her up trying to get a fingerprint it didn't really need. For her part, Garcia-Martinez denies she did anything to provoke the attack. The Hispanic hausfrau doesn't look like she could fight off one burly MCSO cop, much less six.
It was a brave fellow inmate who took notice of Garcia-Martinez's injury the morning after, when Garcia-Martinez was placed in a holding area with other women. She wished only to be identified as Rebecca. As she was being released that morning, Rebecca promised to call Garcia-Martinez's then-attorney, Ana Sanchez, and tell her about her client's broken arm, and how she was using her sweater as a sling.
Sanchez swung into action, engaging the help of other attorneys and demanding to see her client. Later that day, ICE took custody of Garcia-Martinez, who had still not seen a doctor. Likely because of Sanchez's relentless prodding, ICE photographed Garcia-Martinez's injuries and took her to St. Joseph's in an unmarked car. When the doctor asked the ICE agent escorting Garcia-Martinez what happened, the ICE guy said, according to Garcia-Martinez, "The MCSO broke her arm."
The ultimate proof of MCSO's complicity is that ICE finally released Garcia-Martinez on her own recognizance, with an April date scheduled for her to go before an immigration judge. For an agency that tries, by hook or by crook, to ship as many warm bodies to Mexico as possible, this is practically unheard of.
"ICE makes decisions about whether to detain an individual during immigration proceedings on a case-by-case basis," said spokesman Vinnie Picard, in a statement carefully vetted by Picard's bosses in D.C., "taking into account flight risk and the potential danger to the community. ICE also considers humanitarian concerns when making a custody decision."
