U.S. District Judge Neil Wake is allowing Chandler police officer Thomas Lovejoy’s lawsuit alleging rights violations to move forward in the latest blow to Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio.Lovejoy’s the over-worked officer who left his K-9 partner, Bandit, to die in a hot patrol car on August 11, 2007 and…
U.S. District G. Murray Snow ruled today that any Hispanic stopped by Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s deputies since January 1, 2007 — or will be stopped in the future — can sue the Sheriff’s Office in a class-action lawsuit. The ruling in the Melendres racial-profiling case also enjoins the Maricopa County…
U.S. District Judge G. Murray Snow set up Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio for a knockout in his latest ruling on a racial-profiling lawsuit.Snow’s ruling (see below) in the Melendres Vs. Arpaio case eviscerates the Sheriff’s Office for its record-shredding tactics, noting that deputies intentionally destroyed records that revealed their…
U.S. District Judge G. Murray Snow today criticized the policies of the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office in a lawsuit alleging racial profiling by deputies, and says he’ll make a decision in one or two days.Overall, this morning’s hearing in the Ortega Melendres vs. MCSO lawsuit seemed to go well for…
Does the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office have the right to detain you if you seem to be violating one element of a criminal statute?The office’s lawyer, Tim Casey, is arguing with U.S. District Judge G. Murray Snow over that question right now in this morning’s hearing in the Melendres vs. MCSO…
The federal government just approved the destruction of 2,000 acres of Sonoran Desert land in the southwest Valley for a new solar plant, but conservationists aren’t complaining.This time, anyway.Thomas Hulen, executive director of Friends of the Sonoran Desert National Monument, was one of seven environmentalists who signed a November 21…
Mesa ranks seventh in the top 10 safest U.S. cities, says a recent data-crunch by Forbes magazine.”I think it definitely goes against the stereotype,” Mesa Mayor Scott Smith told Channel 3 News (KTVK-TV) in the station’s blurb on the report this morning, adding that some people think incorrectly that Mesa…
Federal authorities promised today to take up the slack in Maricopa County jails following the severing of ties with the sheriff’s office over allegations of widespread racial profiling. In a letter today to Arizona Senator Jon Kyl, an official with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security vowed to leave “no gap” in immigration enforcement. Fifty agents from…
Former Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas and his former underling Lisa Aubuchon must be disbarred in order to restore public trust in the legal system, the State Bar’s investigating lawyer has found.The opinion comes in two documents filed today with the state Supreme Court: A closing argument and “finding of…
Jack Hegarty, the former boss of the Arizona Highway Patrol who was demoted in October, is being investigated for an allegedly unethical use of baseball tickets, the state Department of Public Safety confirmed today. The probe was spurred by a photograph (see below) of Hegarty and another DPS officer, Tim…
The latest FBI crime report shows violent crime was on the increase in most Arizona cities for the first half of 2011, even as the rate of such crimes fell nationwide.Phoenix’s violent crime rate went up 2 percent in the first six months of the year, (from 3,188 reported incidents…
Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery expressed skepticism today about the claims of racial profiling by the Sheriff’s Office, and demanded the return of a jail program to identify illegal immigrants. The feds announced yesterday they were canceling the 287(g) program in Maricopa County due to findings by the U.S…
The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement bureau isn’t ready to comment this morning on the impact of severing ties with the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office.Which is a shame, because we have some good questions for them. Like, why was ICE supervising operations (see the last couple of pages of its…
Eileen GilBride, Sheriff Arpaio’s lawyer, reacts to criticism by Chief Judge Kozinski that she had come to court unprepared. Questions asked by a Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel in yesterday’s hearing of the New Times vs. Sheriff Arpaio false- arrest lawsuit seemed to lean toward the newspaper’s position…
Back in the late 1990s, the Justice Department ordered Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio to stop the physical and medical abuse of inmates in county jails.The problems persist more than a decade later, despite the Department’s stipulations for reform.Today, the Justice Department ordered Arpaio to reform a “culture” of racial…
Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s office didn’t just commit racial profiling of Latinos, according to the findings of the U.S. Department of Justice’s investigation. Rather, Arpaio oversaw the worst pattern of racial profiling by a law enforcement agency in U.S. history, a DOJ expert concluded.Arpaio and his commanders created a “culture”…
U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano yanked the 287(g) program from Maricopa County jails today because of a finding that Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s office abused the rights of Latinos. The program, in which deputies are cross-trained by federal authorities to identify illegal immigrants booked into jail, has been credited by…
It was the most egregious case of racial profiling federal experts have ever seen. Findings in a long-running investigation of the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office found that Sheriff Arpaio’s department has an “ingrained culture” of abusing the rights of Latinos. Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez announced today that the MCSO…
The findings of a three-year probe into allegations of racial profiling and other civil rights allegations against Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s office will be revealed this morning by the U.S. Justice Department.The Civil Rights Division has run a wide-ranging investigation into the “patterns and practices” of the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office,…
Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his top supervisors declared last week that agency’s failure to properly investigate hundreds of sex-crime cases didn’t jeopardize public safety.The father of one teenage girl in El Mirage says that’s a bunch of crap.In 2008, the girl was just 14 when she had sex…
Basketball superstar Scottie Pippen wants $1 million each from the ASU Foundation and various media outlets around the country for calling him broke.Sounds like a great way to raise money — if his legal moves can equal his performance for the Chicago Bulls.In a federal complaint filed yesterday in the…
The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday will take its second look at New Times’ lawsuit against Sheriff Joe Arpaio for the 2007 arrests of the newspaper’s two top executives..The Ninth’s 11-member en banc panel will hear the appeal this time, rather than the three-member panel that ruled on the…
