To read recent accounts of state Senate President Russell Pearce’s lawbreaking son Joshua Pearce, you’d think he’d only caught six days in stir for violating terms of his probation on a 2007 aggravated DUI conviction.In reality, Pearce the Younger had already spent close to two months in Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s…

Cops and other attendees had to run the gauntlet today at a BBQ/fundraiser for fired, killer-cop Richard Chrisman, held in an underground enclosure at the Phoenix Law Enforcement Association, the powerful police union that reps rank and file Phoenix police officers.About a dozen or so protesters, led by local radio…

For a hot-shot legal beagle, Craig Mehrens sure seems to have plenty of time to write op-eds for the Phoenix Law Enforcement Association.His latest ditty for the Phoenix police union’s Web site defends PLEA’s all-day BBQ/fundraiser today on behalf of his client, fired killer-cop Richard Chrisman. The former Phoenix police…

I have to wonder if the Phoenix Law Enforcement Association would be so supportive of fired killer-cop Richard Chrisman if his victim had been white instead of Latino.PLEA has gone all out to back Chrisman, who has kept his lips zipped about the October 5 shooting of unarmed south Phoenix…

Anyone recall the flap of about a year ago, when Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu went on a white supremacist radio show in Tennessee called “The Political Cesspool”?PCSO spokesman Tim Gaffney took the spear for not vetting that one for his boss. And I couldn’t help but recall that little…

I’ve received a couple of calls from regular readers wondering about the paucity of posts this week in Feathered Bastard. And no, I’m not in rehab or dead. Yet.Rather, I’ve been hard at work on a special project for my editor, one commanding almost all of my time this week…

Among those disappointed by Republican Arizona Congressman Jeff Flake’s recent about face on immigration is Julie Erfle, the widow of slain Phoenix Police Officer Nick Erfle.You’ll recall that Officer Erfle was murdered in 2007 by an ex-con with an outstanding warrant who was in the country illegally. Erfle and his…

In the wake of the Phoenix Police Department’s firing of Officer Richard Chrisman, the cop facing second degree murder charges in the October 5 slaying of an unarmed South Phoenix man, the Phoenix Law Enforcement Association continues to smear fellow Officer Sergio Virgillo, who witnessed the shooting and told investigators…

Phoenix Police Officer Richard Chrisman, who faces a second-degree murder charge in the October 5 shooting death of South Phoenix resident Daniel Rodriguez, was terminated today by the City of Phoenix. Phoenix Police Department spokesman Sergeant Tommy Thompson issued the following statement to the press via e-mail:”In answer to questions…

In the wake of the defeat of five anti-immigrant bills in the state Senate last week, there’s been some question about whether the boycott of Arizona over Senate Bill 1070 should continue.There’s no doubt that the boycott has been effective. Both the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and the Greater Phoenix…

Can someone please tell this crank about the night they drove ol’ Dixie down?As I blogged recently, the main concern of the pro-immigrant side after the defeat of five anti-immigrant bills last week in the state Senate was that under Senate rules, someone who voted against the measures could move…

According to beefy action film star Steven Seagal’s former “boss,” Jefferson Parish Sheriff Newell Normand, Seagal is not “on loan” from Jefferson Parish, as Seagal asserted recently after a massive MCSO raid on a home in Laveen, where one — count him, one — suspect was nabbed for his alleged…

They’re practically singing hosannas in the streets, the pro-immigration folks, or just those who’d like to see an end to Arizona’s tsunami of hate. This, over the defeat of five anti-immigrant bills on the state Senate floor yesterday, including Senate President Russell Pearce’s “immigration omnibus” Senate Bill 1611, and the…

Border extremist Glenn Spencer was a no-show today at the state Senate Border Security Committee hearing where he was to give a presentation on immigration. Before the hearing started, Democratic Senator Steve Gallardo told me that he was informed last night that Spencer had been “uninvited.”Gallardo and others, including the…

Bunny boiler. Sorry, all I could think of as I read through Maricopa County Hearing Officer Harold Merkow’s report on former Deputy County Attorney Lisa Aubuchon and her ongoing appeal of her dismissal, was Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction. What will it take, I wonder, for the county to be…

Vanity, vanity, saith the preacher, all is vanity.And what more can it be than vanity that Phoenix’s Arizona Christian University is feting former President George W. Bush at a $500 a plate dinner so the Torturer-in-Chief can blather on about his “faith-based presidency”?I reckon there’s also hypocrisy and greed, both…

An all-access pass. That’s what aging action film stud Steven Seagal, star of the cheesy A&E series Steven Seagal: Lawman gets in his contract with Sheriff Joe Arpaio. In fact, Seagal may have better access than the U.S. Department of Justice, which is still investigating the MCSO for alleged civil…

So here’s a little round-up of news related to everyone’s favorite neo-Nazi hugger, state Senate President Russell Pearce.First, regarding the dueling recalls of Pearce underway in Legislative District 18: DeeDee Blase of the Libertarian/Somos Republicans effort Arizonans for a Better Government recently issued a statement regarding the rival recall group…

You would think that an old, Mexican-bashing coot like Glenn Spencer, the head of the nativist “organization” American Border Patrol, would be radioactive to any politician with a lick of sense, after all of the dumb, bigoted statements he’s made over the years. Not to mention that he was once…

As Sheriff Joe Arpaio tosses cots in Tent City with Steven Seagal, a woman in Guadalupe, Arizona is looking forward to a check cut by the county for $30,000. This, due to her false arrest and imprisonment at the hands of Sheriff Joe’s boys in beige.You may recall the name…

So it’s Friday –traditionally a slow news day — which means time for another Sheriff Joe Arpaio media stunt, this one to help his buddy Steven Seagal’s A&E reality series Steven Seagal: Lawman. (Please see updates below.)Although the media has been told to “embargo” this one for “jail security” till…

The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office’s investigation of the Phoenix Law Enforcement Association and its president Mark Spencer, the subject of this week’s Bird column, produced a nice doorstop pile of documents for me to dig through.I have limited time to scan the ginormous file that I obtained from the MCAO…