Sheriff Joe just keeps racking up the victims. The latest report comes courtesy of reporter Aura Bogado in Mother Jones magazine.
In her article Hazing Arizona, Bogado details the death by pneumonia of David de la Fuente, an illegal immigrant held in Joe's gulags for three weeks before being turned over to federal immigration officers and booted from the country. Doctors believe he contracted pneumonia while in MCSO custody.
Bogado writes:
"[De la Fuente] arrived in Colonia Emilio Carranza three days later, stumbling and barely able to speak. His family got him to the hospital, where he was diagnosed with acute pneumonia. Based on the stage of his illness, the doctors determined that de la Fuente had contracted it about 15 days earlier--roughly a week into his jail stay--according to medical paperwork and an interview with the hospital director. The doctors did what they could, but de la Fuente was too far gone. His cousins and a sister stood vigil as he dwindled and eventually fell into a coma. He was pronounced dead on June 23--exactly four weeks after the traffic stop."
Score another one for Arpaio, whose jails are so filthy and full of brutality that the denizens of Maricopa County barely lift an eyebrow when news of another wrongful death or a mother with a broken arm or jaw comes to light.
The big question is why does Immigration and Customs Enforcement still allow Arpaio 287(g) authority in his vast incarceration complex when these jails have no accreditation, when they have been condemned by Amnesty International, and while conditions there have been and continue to be the subject of multi-million dollar lawsuits?
Of course, I know the answer to that question. The feds want as many warm bodies as possible to remove from the country in order to make their quota of 400,000 deportations for the fiscal year.
So they are partnering with a corrupt county sheriff, who, ironically, is also under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice for civil rights violations, and by a federal grand jury for alleged criminal misconduct.
Everyone knows the old saw about politics and strange bedfellows. Seems immigration has a similar affect on opposing parties.
Kudos to Bogado and Mother Jones for a solid piece. You can read it in its entirety and catch a slideshow accompanying the story, here.