The family of a boy who died in the custody of the Arizona Department of Juvenile Corrections has filed a claim against the state for $20 million. Christopher Camacho, 15, was found hanging from a sheet in his cell at Adobe Mountain School in north Phoenix on April 11. It…
Women With Balls Playing defense: I am an offensive lineman for the Arizona Caliente Women’s Football Team. I recently read the article about the Arizona Nighthawks and their struggles to be a successful football organization “Ladies Who Crunch,” Lisa Kennedy, October 10). I was truly enamored by 90 percent of…
Tight end Emmy Schmelzer pushes the Jetta onto I-10. The drive to Glendora, California, and the Citrus College stadium, where the Arizona Knighthawks of the Women’s Professional Football League will face the Los Angeles Amazons, takes a good five hours. Schmelzer, a West Point grad and Qwest cable repair technician,…
Last week, The Spike watched as the Arizona Diamondbacks lost the bid for the world championship. There was much drinking of beer, throwing of pompoms, and some smack talking involved, but The Spike tried to be a good sport — after all, the Diamondbacks in five short years have made…
Debris was just the gold that Matt Smith was looking for a month or so ago. A Tempe sculptor, he’s always scavenging for inspiration in rubbish. But pawing through a mound of construction refuse across the tracks from Macayo’s Depot Cantina in downtown Tempe, he found a mother lode that…
Two founding members of a beleaguered animal charity have disassociated themselves from the organization. John Teets — former head of Dial, current boss of his own investment firm — and his wife, Nancy, are the latest defectors from Scratch & Sniff, a nonprofit founded and operated by Susan Heywood. Three…
The Problem With Polygamy The view from within: Your writer John Dougherty outdid himself this time. “Cover-up” in your October 3rd issue is based upon a bogus document purported to be an internal investigative document from this office. Indeed, the Arizona Department of Public Safety is now conducting a criminal…
Arizona Attorney General Janet Napolitano’s office is covering up information documenting extensive and ongoing criminal activity including rape, incest, assault, kidnapping, forced marriages of underage girls, weapons violations and welfare fraud that is rampant in the remote polygamous community of Colorado City, state records obtained by New Times reveal. Napolitano’s…
1920s — Short Creek, Arizona, was founded by a group of Mormon polygamists calling themselves the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Polygamy had been disavowed by the Mormon Church in 1890 as a condition for Utah’s admission as a state. Today the isolated polygamist community, the largest…
Early in childhood, The Spike spoiled its frilly pink Easter dress by firing a double-barreled shotgun at a watermelon. The dress and The Spike landed in a large heap on the ground — torn, muddy and decidedly unhappy about the condition of the beloved pink organza. But The Spike was…
FLAGSTAFF — A decade-long, high-stakes financial and environmental struggle that stretches from a 1,000-year-old Hopi village to Southern California electric users is rapidly coming to a head. At stake are hundreds of high-paying jobs on the Hopi and Navajo Indian reservations in northeastern Arizona; they could be lost if the…
All About Cats and Dogs Pooper scooper: Thanks for your article exposing the fraudman, Bill Heywood (“The Big Stink,” Amy Silverman, September 26). Every time I listen to his unprofessional radio talk show, my stomach turns. He does not have a clue about the events of the day and gives…
Susan and Bill Heywood put Mister Laguna, their red poodle, to sleep on Groundhog Day, 1996. Most people honor a pet’s death with a few tears. The Heywoods thought an annual black-tie affair at the Arizona Biltmore would be more fitting. Several years later, the Scratch & Sniff Awards dinner…
If you’re wondering how your state could spend so little on critical services yet still collapse into a budget crisis, look no further than this little phrase in Arizona tax law: “. . . and common areas used as an airport.” This line will cost you and other Arizonans hundreds…
On August 26, longtime mental-health advocate Jack Harvey stepped into familiar haunts to deliver some God-awful news. “I just had to let people at the office know that I’m not doing so well, that I’m pretty sick at the moment,” says Harvey. The “office” houses the Mental Health Advocates Coalition…
From the Heart Heartfelt thanks: Thank you for the article you did on Dr. Teodori (“Prince of Hearts, Paul Rubin, September 19). He is a wonderful man and many people have been praying for him since his accident. He saved my niece in July of 2001 by repairing her heart…
Having just turned 19 in July, Michelle Branch hardly looks the part of an elder statesperson in a rock ‘n’ roll movement. But having scored the earliest success with a formula that’s already been copied by a string of other young-chicks-with-instruments, Branch has become to the Avrils and Vanessas what…
Three-year-old Xzavion Gonzales looks up at his mother in a preoperative room at Phoenix Children’s Hospital. “Am I gonna die, mama?” Xzavion asks Samantha Blier, moments before a doctor gives him a shot to make him sleepy. Blier is taken aback. No, you’re not going to die, she says, you’re…
Before the September 10 primary, The Spike thought it would be fun to devote this week’s column to all the wackos who lost the election. A parting shot at some folks we didn’t expect to see for another two to four years — the gay bashers, the home schoolers, the…
Cops call it “building the jacket.” If you’ve got a guy you want to ruin, you start throwing crazy allegations at him or start listening to crazy allegations about him. Then you conduct sham “investigations.” Then you make sure the allegations and investigations start piling up in his personnel file…
Crotch Talk Macho macho man: Regarding Amy Alkon’s rant equating big SUVs with small penises (“Guys With Small Penises,” September 12): I drive a Toyota truck, but I live full-time in a 35-foot-long, 11-foot-tall motor home. It averages about six miles per gallon. Based on Amy’s assumptions, I must have…
Advice columnist Amy Alkon had a delicious secret. In her spare time, she’d been actively insulting the owners of sport utility vehicles (SUVs) with an inspired piece of performance art. This past spring she wrote about her one-woman campaign in our sister publication in Los Angeles. The column ignited a…
