"From time to time, they might seek our assistance for help," Burke peeped.
Not exactly the sort of stuff that'll have Arpaio quaking. In fact, Burke's admission that Arpaio is on his back burner (if not on the back burner of his fellow feds, who are looking into Arpaio) should have Sheriff's Office muck-a-mucks sighing in their patent-leather chairs.
Stephen Lemons
Jonathan Coronado (left) with Guadalupe activist Andrew Sanchez
Stephen Lemons
William Robles bangs his drum during his near-daily protest against the MCSO.
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I asked former Maricopa County Attorney Rick Romley whether he thought Arpaio should be on Burke's back burner. Romley, always an authoritative critic of Joe, thought it was time to turn up the heat.
"I don't know how any U.S. Attorney could not put public corruption at the highest of levels," he opined. "That is one of the most fundamental charges to the Justice Department, to ensure that there is not corruption in government itself."
However, Romley insinuated that U.S. Attorneys can't even take smoke breaks without phoning D.C. for permission. He also suggested that the DOJ bring in a team of prosecutors to handle Joe, to avoid Arpaio's penchant for making conflicts personal.
"When I was county attorney, I learned that lesson," Romley continued. "Remember when [Arpaio] did the prostitution sting? C'mon, you think I'm going to be sanctioning law enforcement techniques that allow guys to get blowjobs? That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard in my life. But that isn't the way the press played it. The press played it as, oh, this is another personal feud between Romley and Arpaio. So the substance of the issue [was lost]."
Romley makes a valid point, though I know of one news outlet that didn't misrepresent Arpaio's bungled prostitution sting involving deputies and posse men getting nekkid with hookers on camera. Need we take a bow?
A DOJ flack in D.C. similarly declined comment on the statements of David Iglesias. Nor would the DOJ describe Burke's role, if any, in their probe.
Will history repeat itself, and will Burke end up shilling for Arpaio, as Janet once did? Burke's tepid statements so far leave us with only one hope: that Washington will either act on its own concerning Arizona's number-one civil rights problem or that it will force Burke to act.
Either way, it leaves those longing for justice in Maricopa County feeling like we're waiting for Godot.
FIGHTING SANCHEZ
The reason the feds must act in Maricopa County can be seen in the ongoing saga of Guadalupe town activist Andrew Sanchez and his family. As New Times reported in Michael Lacey's kick-off to the series "Are Your Papers in Order?", the Sanchez clan has suffered much at the hands of MCSO deputies — who look for any picayune reason to mess with them.
In 2008, during Arpaio's anti-immigrant sweep in Guadalupe, Sanchez committed the heinous act of honking his car horn in support of those protesting Arpaio's military-style invasion of the square-mile town of 5,500. Sanchez, whose vehicle was filled with anti-Joe signs and smeared with an anti-Arpaio slogan written in shoe polish, was stopped and cited for "improper use of horn." A judge later threw out the citation.
About a month later, his sister Elaine Sanchez was wrestled to the ground — as well as handcuffed, kneed in the back, and arrested because her license-plate light was out — by MCSO deputies.
Sanchez's brother-in-law Manuel Valenzuela was arrested on an outstanding warrant because he owed 40 cents on a $135 traffic fine that he'd already paid. Valenzuela's ticket was for operating Andrew Sanchez's car without a license. This was shortly after Arpaio's 2008 sweep. Why did the MCSO stop the car to begin with? Valenzuela had the high beams on.
Since Lacey wrote the Sanchez story in March, things had been relatively quiet for the family. Many of them live in a house Sanchez owns near Guadalupe's Family Dollar store, where Arpaio had his command post during the infamous 2008 sweep.
About a week ago, Sanchez was buying supplies for a Halloween haunted house the family was building in the backyard, when he received a call from Jonathan Coronado, his cousin's husband.
"The cops are in your room," Coronado alerted Sanchez, who dropped everything and rushed home to find that three sheriff's deputies had just searched his home, one of them with his gun drawn, looking for probation violator Alex Valenzuela, an ex-boyfriend of Sanchez's younger sister.
Valenzuela had been in the house days earlier before getting in trouble with his parole officer, and the MCSO apparently came looking because of the visit. Sanchez's aunt allowed the deputies to search the property when they told her she could get in trouble for harboring a fugitive. Sanchez says he would never have allowed them to search his house, and he believes they waited until he was away to knock on his door.
Needless to say, the MCSO didn't locate Valenzuela.
"Since the news came down that he has violated parole, he has not stepped foot in my house," Sanchez said. "He had been here several days back. Technically, he was not a felon then."
But that didn't stop an unnamed deputy from searching the house with gun drawn and children present. Coronado was in a bedroom sleeping. Also in the room was Sanchez's 11-year-old cousin.
