Three fundraisers are planned this week to help the families of J.T. Ready’s victims. On May 2, Ready shot and killed his girlfriend Lisa Mederos, 47; her daughter Amber Mederos, 23; Amber’s fiance Jim Hiott, 24; and Amber’s one year-old baby girl Lilly, in a murder spree that ended when Ready…
Click-clack/Where your papers at?/We under attack/Fight back/It’s warOne of the best songs to put Senate Bill 1070 and the whole police state mentality that reigns in Arizona on blast is “Papers,” by the Phoenix hip hop duo Shining Soul.With the U.S. Supreme Court scheduled to rule on SB 1070 by…
A Peoria seventh-grader earned a trip to a juvie facility yesterday for telling his classmates the flashlight he planted near the school was probably a bomb, police say.Flashlights, as you may recall, are a hot topic on the west side these days, as someone turned a couple of them into…
Few things tick off Karl “Jack” Frost more than pedestrians in a bike lane, apparently.Frost, a 47-year-old Chandler resident, tried to make a “citizen’s arrest” on a 52-year-old Chandler man who was jogging in a bike lane yesterday, Gilbert police say…
It appears a person with an actual law degree also thinks it’s a bit strange that former middle school teacher’s aide Gabriela Compton got probation for having sex with a student, groping another, and sending some nudie pictures that the teenaged boys passed around.Slate posted an online article yesterday sending…
Last year, former New Times news blogger James King wrote about Wade Ridley’s arrest and subsequent confession to the February 2011 north Phoenix machete/butcher knife murder of his girlfriend, Anne Simenson. Ridley was charged with first-degree murder in Maricopa County Superior Court, but the local case still was awaiting disposition…
Juan Garcia — who’s accused of killing his girlfriend’s 2-year-old son in February — is back in Maricopa County, winning a trip to the 4th Avenue Jail for a fresh mugshot.Garcia, 18, turned himself in to immigration-enforcement authorities near the border crossing in Lukeville on Friday, and was booked into…
May be apples and oranges on some level, but yesterday’s bust of State Representative Ben Arredondo after a fairly elaborate FBI sting, got us to thinking about Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his onetime henchman (i.e. chief deputy) Dave Hendershott. The federal indictment against the veteran Tempe pol claims that he…
UPDATE: “Mr. Bennett wrote that email,” Bennett’s spokesman Matt Roberts says. “With respect to the story, a constituent requested him to request a verification in lieu of certified copy. They have yet to respond.”Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett, who just recently filed the paperwork for an exploratory committee in…
After an awful loss in Glendale on Tuesday, the Phoenix Coyotes dropped to 0-2 against the Los Angeles Kings in the Western Conference finals.The Coyotes haven’t played well — at all — in the first two games, and despite three Coyotes players being booted from the last game for playing…
I usually don’t allow anyone to hijack this columna, but an exception must be made for California State Assemblymember Gil Cedillo. He’s been fighting the good fight for decades, recently trying to get driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants and ceaselessly support DREAMers. Cedillo was so moved by the undocumented college…
It was a breezy recent evening in Florence as Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu walked to the podium in his crisp, dark uniform, which included a Smokey hat replete with a gold star pinned to its front. Babeu was there to lead a memorial for fallen peace officers from his…
As Sunday’s game between the Phoenix Coyotes and the Los Angeles Kings began, fans belted out the same refrain they’d left Jobing.com Arena with six days earlier — when the Desert Dogs booted the Nashville Predators out of the Stanley Cup playoffs in five games: “Beat L.A.!” The crowd was…
Wildfire season started early in Arizona this year. There are currently four wildfires burning throughout the state, the largest of which is the Sunflower Fire, burning about 20 miles south of Payson in the Tonto National Forest. Phoenix New Times freelance photographer Andrew Pielage made the trek north and sent…
Who knew we’d have to post that video for two different Arizona House members this year?It didn’t take long after the news broke that Republican-turned-Democratic state Representative Ben Arredondo was indicted on federal charges including bribery, fraud, and attempted extortion for Senate Democratic Leader David Schapira to tell him to…
How’s this for irony in literature:A state summer-reading list’s Web link to a site about George Orwell states that accessing the page may result in “malicious software being downloaded and installed without user consent.” Orwellian, no? But instead of the pervasive government that Orwell deemed “Big Brother” in his famous…
State Representative Ben Arredondo was charged by a grand jury today with bribery, fraud, attempted extortion and false statements — all for a few thousand dollars worth of tickets to ballgames and charity events.According to the indictment, Arredondo — a Republican-turned-Democrat who served on the Tempe City Council for 16…
In what’s sort of a running joke since then-congressional candidate Ben Quayle released his goober-ish campaign ad saying “Barack Obama is the worst president in history,” Quayle has an update on his stance.Quayle actually had to defend the video ad after people got a little pissy about it, but he…
The campaign of Legislative District 25 state Senate hopeful Bob Worsley today announced a major endorsement, that of Mesa Mayor Scott Smith, a GOPer many consider a future contender for Governor of Sand Land.”I have known Bob Worsley for over 30 years,” Smith states in the press release, which you can…
If a U.S. Senator from Vermont is right, then Maricopa County could be on the hook for repaying up to $25 million in federal taxpayer coin, thanks to the Justice Department’s civil-rights case against Sheriff Joe Arpaio.Senator Patrick Leahy wrote a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder on Tuesday, asking…
The Worsley camp’s latest, and how true it is…At the Red Mountain Tea Party Monday night, recalled, disgraced ex-state Senate President Russell Pearce did not bow out of the GOP primary in Legislative District 25 for state Senate, as some in the blogosphere had anticipated.Instead, according to those in attendance,…
The relentless attacks on Mark Mitchell seem to have worked out in Michael Monti’s favor in the race for Tempe mayor, as Monti was up by one point after people hit the ballot box yesterday.There still are some votes left to count — provisional ballots and people who brought their…
