U.S. District Court Judge G. Murray Snow’s recent order spanking Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his chief deputy, Jerry Sheridan, mainly dealt with Sheridan and Arpaio’s contempt for Snow’s ruling in the ACLU’s big civil rights lawsuit, Melendres v. Arpaio. Snow has ordered that both Sheridan and Arpaio be present Monday,…
The Glendale Police Department today released video of MCSO Deputy Sean Pearce’s December 16, car crash, which killed 63-year-old Glendale resident John Harding. A local businesswoman provided the video to police, and there are two angles. The first is from the southbound side of North 59th Avenue and shows Harding’s…
Neither Sheriff Joe Arpaio nor his Chief Deputy Jerry Sheridan have been playing by the rules federal Judge G. Murray Snow laid down in the ACLU’s big racial profiling lawsuit Melendres v. Arpaio. And Judge Snow is not amused. That’s the gist of a 17-page order issued Monday by Snow,…
MCSO Deputy Sean Pearce was clocked at 81 mph just seconds before a December 16 crash that killed Glendale resident John Edward Harding, 63. Pearce was traveling north on North 59th Avenue a little after 1 p.m. in an unmarked black Chevy Tahoe when he collided with Harding’s Nissan Cube,…
Lawyers for Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne have hit upon yet another less-than-ingenious strategy to save him and his outreach director, Kathleen Winn, from being found guilty of campaign finance violations and possibly fined $1.2 million. That is, to accuse FBI agent Brian Grehoski — one of the federal investigators…
***Note: Please see update at bottom of post.*** Well, let’s hope they don’t jump in, ’cause crackers get soggy when wet, but something called the White Man March may be coming to Tempe Town Lake this Saturday, March 15, at 2 p.m. I know what you’re thinking: “White Man March?…
U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid recently made headlines when he blasted the infamous Koch brothers as “un-American” for bankrolling anti-Obamacare ads that have kept fact-checkers in clover debunking them. But criticism of the Affordable Care Act comes not just from the far-right Koch brothers It comes from the left…
When a candidate begins poaching the endorsements earned by his or her rival, consider it a sign that things are not well. You know, like Captain Queeg playing with his ball bearings in The Caine Mutiny. Last week, shortly after Mark Brnovich’s campaign sent out an announcement that state Representative…
Former Arizona Attorney General investigator Meg Hinchey today settled her claim against the state, Attorney General Tom Horne, and Horne chief deputy Rick Bistrow for nearly $100,000. Hinchey filed suit in January 2013, claiming Horne and Bistrow retaliated against her in response to her blowing the whistle to the FBI…
A former member of Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s posse was arrested by MCSO deputies on child-pornography charges.According to the Sheriff’s Office, 73-year-old Roger Byg was a posse member in the old-folks community of Sun City and even had served on the posse’s board before resigning early last year. MCSO’s computer crimes…
A humorous brief to the U.S. Supreme Court filed last week invokes Stephen Colbert’s concept of “truthiness” in a defense of the right to tell fibs about elected leaders. Penned by lawyer Ilya Shapiro on behalf of the Cato Institute and satirist P.J. O’Rourke, the amicus brief, written to defend…
After a week of allowing voters in Congressional District 9 believe that she didn’t want to serve them any more, Congresswoman Kyrsten Sinema has finally made a Sherman-esque statement about the prospect of running in CD 7, where Congressman Ed Pastor recently announced he would not seek re-election. The following…
Update: Sadly, since this list was published, Sinema has decided not to commit political seppuku and parachute into CD 7. Sigh. Looks like we may have her to kick around a la Dick Nixon for a while longer. One week after Democratic Congressman Ed Pastor announced that he would not…
To read all the fake outrage spewed by schoolmarmish lefties over state Representative John Kavanagh’s skewering of Sheriff Joe Arpaio during a recent roast of the aged autocrat, you’d think Kavanagh had shot a Mexican man in Reno just to watch him die. Don’t get me wrong, I take a…
According to one nationally recognized expert in correctional medicine, medical care in Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s vast incarceration complex is not just potentially hazardous to the health of pretrial detainees and jail staff, but to that of the general public. Dr. Robert Cohen, a member of New York City’s Board of…
Guadalupe’s come a long way from the days when Sheriff Joe Arpaio laid siege to its mean streets, hunting for illegal immigrants. On Wednesday, the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved two groundbreaking amendments to Guadalupe’s contract for police protection with the Sheriff’s Office. The first requires that deputies…
Update 2/26/14 5:59 PM: Jan Brewer Vetoes SB 1062 Back in the dark ages, Republicans used to be all about the economy, stupid. A chicken in every pot, a home-entertainment center in every living room. Take, for instance, our last great Republican president — William Jefferson Clinton. He demonstrated that…
See how the blind mice run . . . as far away from Senate Bill 1062 as they can get. This morning, the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and the Greater Phoenix Chamber of Commerce officially joined the increasingly crowded bandwagon of opposition to the anti-gay “religious freedom bill” that Arizona…
Maricopa County was ordered by a federal jury to pay $638,147 for retaliating against former county lawyer Maria Brandon after she commented to a newspaper. See our previous article today for details on the case. The jury verdict, released minutes ago, rejects all of Brandon’s claims except for two –…
Did top Maricopa County officials fire Maria Brandon, a longtime county lawyer, because she appeared to side with disgraced former sheriff’s official Dave Hendershott in a newspaper article? Or, as the county says, was Brandon fired solely because she instigated a catfight with a paralegal at the office in which…
Check out this awesome new video from Phoenix videographer Dennis Gilman, catching some of the action from a demonstration at the state Capitol, where protesters denounced the Arizona GOP’s asinine “religious freedom” bill, aka Senate Bill 1062. That bill would allow business people to discriminate against the LGBT community, and…
Recalled, disgraced former state Senate President Russell Pearce’s never been known as a friend to gay folks. Well, save for one: Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu. Ironically, Babeu — who embraced his sexuality in 2012 after New Times exposed claims of harassment made by his undocumented Mexican ex-boyfriend — legally…
