Retired Army Colonel Earl Hopper, Sr. is a godfather of the Vietnam War POW/MIA activist movement in America. The Glendale resident has served both as executive director and chairman of the board of the National League of Families of American Prisoners and Missing in Southeast Asia, the country’s largest, best-known…
Info:Correction Date: 08/27/1998 Info: Trainspotting Nearly three years after Amtrak’s Sunset Limited was sabotaged near Buckeye, firefighters who rode to the rescue remain on the FBI’s list of suspects By Michael Kiefer An hour and a half past midnight on October 9, 1995, when four cars of Amtrak’s Sunset Limited…
State medical officials are the latest to investigate the death of a teenage boy at the Arizona Boys Ranch. They’re looking into the conduct of the nurse and doctor who examined 16-year-old Nicholaus Contreraz before he died of a massive infection. Their inquiries come as a California report rips the…
For years, Phoenix firefighters have been contracting tuberculosis at an unusually rapid rate. Since 1992, about 250 city firefighters–roughly 20 percent of the force–have tested positive for TB. Or have they? Now, fire officials are wondering if those swelling skin tests might really be an indicator of something else: bird…
What Hoots-puh Phoenix Fire Department whistle-blowers thought they’d seen the last of their prankster boss, former deputy chief Robert “Hoot” Gibson. Gibson retired in 1996 after a high-profile inquiry into allegations that he’d paid some recruits unearned overtime and allowed his relatives to sell tee shirts at a fire department…
According to the law, a person charged with a crime is presumed innocent until he’s proved guilty in court. But, in Maricopa County, the presumption of innocence won’t protect you from rotting in jail for months. Only money will protect you from Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Because the law doesn’t apply…
Maquila Horror Congratulations to John Dougherty and David Holthouse for their award-level reporting from the world of the Mexican maquiladoras (“Bordering on Exploitation,” July 9). Yes, I find it morally abhorrent that Mexico, the United States and the emerging culture of boundless corporate profiteering have expanded the trappings of the…
Nogales, Sonora Virginia’s a bad girl, and she’s good at it. Eighteen years old, with a nightclub walk that purrs. Long, auburn hair. Tall and sleek, with cinnamon-sprinkled skin. She could be a model if she weren’t a factory worker. It’s Friday night. Party time. Virginia clocked out two hours…
The Mexican-American border is a virtual cesspool and breeding ground for infectious disease. –Council on Scientific Affairs of the American Medical Association, 1990 Nature respects geographic boundaries, not political ones. Nogales Wash originates about 8.6 kilometers south of the Mexican-American border, fed by natural springs. The perennial wash travels north,…
Shift change, San Ramon Industrial Park. Nogales, Sonora. Tuesday, 4:59 p.m. She wants out, the short, pretty girl in the short, pretty sundress. Out of this factory, out of this city, out of this grind her life has become. Right now, though, just out of this factory will do. Forty…
Basketball in Nogales, Sonora, is like football in west Texas, and Hector’s got game. Homeboy busts threes like a blackjack dealer. Sporting a new pair of Gary Payton signature Nikes–$140 in Tucson, “no counterfeit bullshit”–Hector went five for eight from downtown in the city league basketball championship in May. Downtown…
San Luis Rio de Colorado, Sonora There’s a weathered wooden sign across the street from an industrial park where maquila workers toil, making clothes, toys and expensive stereo speakers. Through peeling paint, the sign proclaims this as the future site of 550 dwellings for the maquila workers. But there are…
Empalme, Sonora Does a work force content to live in pallet houses while earning $1 an hour sound like the ultimate boost to your company’s bottom line? But are you concerned about dealing with the red tape, cultural differences and logistical maze of moving production to a Third World country?…
Ensenada, Baja California The road to Ensenada is a jewel. The four-lane tollway cuts free of the industrial labyrinth of Tijuana and turns west toward the Pacific Ocean, where it clings to cliffs jagging into the surf. Snaking its way down Mexico’s northernmost coast, every turn reveals another expansive, soft…
One hundred metal folding chairs sit in neat rows on the stark, tile floor of the Tucson union hall of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. Seventy-nine are empty. The rest are occupied by a mix of hard-boiled blue-collar workers, aging hippies and a handful of young activists from the…
The showdown started in high June. Facing off are the top guns of Maricopa County’s two crime-fighting agencies. But instead of six-shooters, County Attorney Rick Romley and Sheriff Joe Arpaio loaded their word processors and fired off nasty memos about the other to the county Board of Supervisors. The latest…
Dr. Ram Krishna delivered the best news possible to Mary Nixon: Her daughter, Billye, did not have cancer. Too bad he was wrong. Krishna, a Yuma orthopedic surgeon and secretary of the state Board of Medical Examiners (BOMEX), thought Billye’s cancer was a simple fracture. But when Mary tried to…
It’s late on a Saturday morning at Phoenix Civic Plaza. Downtown is quiet and hot, and there’s no sense of violence in the air. Until I go inside the civic center. The Grand Canyon State Games are being held here, and the first thing I see is a baton-twirling contest…
A six-month New Times investigation reveals that companies controlled by one sitting Baptist Foundation of Arizona director and two former directors have received nearly $140 million worth of loans in complicated real-estate and stock transactions with BFA. A company controlled by one of those insiders in 1997 reported a net…
Bill Perschetti was typing a letter when he found himself looking down the barrel of a gun. The office manager of Summerville and Associates had heard the front doors of the offices crash open, and someone yelling, “Police! Police!” He thought it was just a joke. Then he looked up…
On a summer day in 1988, Tucson retirees Nita and Chuck Pratt visited an RV resort near Show Low. Juniper Ridge RV Resort sat atop an isolated ridge studded by fragrant juniper trees, a setting that seemed idyllic to the Pratts. They were also impressed by the resort’s country-club-style amenities–a…
I’d like to point out that it’s been a wonderful two weeks for me. I haven’t had quite this much fun since I was interrogated in Hanoi. –Senator John McCain His anti-tobacco bill bombed. He was caught making fun of the First Daughter. The Supremes canned his line-item veto. And…
