One of Sheriff Joe Arpaio's detention officers stabbed his father six times Sunday morning after a long night of drinking, according to Avondale police.
C.J. Joe, a 27-year-old guard at Durango Jail, claims he "blacked out" and doesn't remember what happened, but his sister told police that Joe stabbed his father, 55-year-old Curtis Joe, according to court documents obtained by New Times.
Curtis Joe was "bleeding profusely" when firemen responded to the house and found him on the driveway around 5 a.m. Sunday. Inside the house, police found the weapon described by his daughter -- the 2- or 3-inch blade on a Leatherman tool.
There were "several" open and/or empty bottles of Southern Comfort and cans of Bud Light throughout the house, where C.J. Joe and his father both lived.
Joe told police that after he finished his shift at Durango Jail, he and his father met up at a Native New Yorker restaurant in Avondale, and drank there for almost three hours before going home and drinking more.
Joe said that after a while, they got into an argument, as Joe's father "was telling him how dirty the house [was] and how much of a slob C.J. was and wanted him to leave the house," according to the documents.
Joe said he remembered his father pushing him, then punching him, but claimed he blacked out and didn't remember hurting his father in any way.
Joe admitted that he's blacked out before from drinking alcohol, and doesn't remember what happened, but said the knife was his father's.
His father couldn't be interviewed by police, because he was in surgery at St. Joseph's Hospital, where he was listed in critical condition with his six stab wounds. Two stab wounds were to his chest, one in his shoulder, one in his arm, and two in his back.
Joe was booked into jail on charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and attempted murder.
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