The Reverend Jarrett Maupin catches a lot of flak for leading protests of police shootings in greater Phoenix. But nature abhors a vacuum. And love him or loathe him, Maupin remains the point man for direct action in the Valley, keeping the pressure on law-enforcement agencies with marches and demonstrations…
Despite an Arizona Supreme Court opinion and sensational news articles, Arizona parents and caregivers can rest easy: Nobody’s going to be charged with child molesting just for changing a baby’s diaper. But the fear is real — and so is the embarrassment Arizona is once again facing nationally because of poor…
Former Phoenix police officer Sergio Virgillo remembers the point of no return for what should have been a routine call to a trailer park in South Phoenix, when fellow cop Richard Chrisman took his Glock 22 and pressed it so hard against the temple of Daniel Rodriguez that it bent Rodriguez’s head to one side. Chrisman and Rodriguez had been “going at it…
At a press conference on Thursday, Arizona’s top law-enforcement officials announced that they have increased the reward for information about the Serial Street Shooter, saying they urgently need the public’s help to crack the case. The news conference at Phoenix police headquarters included Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, Maricopa County…
The Phoenix man who narrowly escaped being killed in July by the Serial Street Shooter doesn’t want his identity revealed. “I’m just an ordinary young man who experienced an extraordinary miracle,” he says with a grin. He may be right about that. On July 11, the unknown assailant, who appears…
Maricopa County’s death-penalty system is plagued by “overzealous” prosecutors and creates a high number of questionable death-penalty cases, according to a new Harvard Law School report. “Too Broken to Fix: Part I: An In-Depth Look at America’s Outlier Death Penalty Counties,” by the school’s Fair Punishment Project, identifies Maricopa as one of…
A Mesa police supervisor was facing termination before he retired last week following his recent conviction for super-extreme DUI, a police spokesman says. Richard “Rick” Van Galder, who had more than 20 years on the force, was stopped in February with his wife, Teresa, a Mesa PD homicide detective, as…
An employee of the Grand Canyon Lodge at the North Rim faces a detention hearing this morning on a charge that he choked and raped another employee after a dorm party. Jeremy Ean Bird has been held in detention since his August 11 arrest in connection with the assault, which…
New evidence shows that a few weeks before a teenager held in solitary confinement at Perryville Prison died in what appears to be an act of suicide, the Arizona Department of Corrections had been specifically warned about her deteriorating mental health and notified that the conditions in which she was…
An inmate who raped a teacher at an Arizona state prison in 2014 may be forced to pay her $10 million — in the unlikely event that he gets out of prison and/or inherits a boatloads of cash. A federal magistrate made the recommendation earlier this month after Jacob Harvey, 22,…
An Arizona woman charged with receiving infant porn said on Monday that it was her teen daughter, not her, who was in communication with a Colorado child-porn suspect. Sarah Cox, 39, of Clarkdale, was charged last week with three counts of knowingly receiving child pornography. As a New Times article…
An Arizona woman has been caught up in the federal investigation into an alleged child pornographer in Colorado. On August 4, authorities charged 39-year-old Sarah Cox of Clarkdale with three counts of knowingly receiving child pornography. The complaint, filed in Arizona U.S. District Court by Homeland Security Investigations, alleges that Cox and Richard Hennis…
The Mesa Police Department has released findings from a months-long project on community engagement, just in time to buoy public confidence in the agency. With one of its officers facing trial for the January 18 killing of an unarmed man, the agency is looking ahead. On Tuesday, in a conference…
Newly released body-cam video (embedded below) shows Loreal Tsingine brandishing a pair of scissors at Officer Austin Shipley of the Winslow Police Department before he shot her during a confrontation outside a Circle K store on Easter Sunday. The police department has edited the actual shooting out of the March 27 clip. It…
Despite the threat of a lawsuit and allegations that its investigators tried to frame an innocent man, the Arizona Department of Public Safety continues to try to link Phoenix landscaper Leslie Merritt Jr. to four shootings in 2015 on the I-10 freeway. Court documents recently unsealed by superior court Judge…
It has been 15 years since Robert Fisher allegedly butchered his wife and two children before blowing up the family’s Scottsdale home. After more than a decade on the FBI’s “Ten Most Wanted Fugitives” list, Fisher has yet to be apprehended. But the 15-year anniversary, coupled with recent media coverage, has fueled…
In 2012, Rebekah Mellon, a 31-year-old mother of one, was charged with the first-degree murder of her husband, who was found shot to death in the family’s Phoenix home. In a bizarre twist, the shooting was recorded on video, thanks to the family’s indoor surveillance system. When the case goes to…
When it comes to orchestrating a civil rights-themed public spectacle in Phoenix, the Reverend Jarrett Maupin cannot be beat. Billed as a protest of police brutality, the event that took place Friday at 24th Street and Camelback Road in the city’s tony Biltmore area lacked the spontaneity, the fear and…
Andy Barrios, the driver in a 2015 Christmas-night car crash that killed three men, including popular Phoenix rapper Jose “Low Key” Hernandez, failed to make a July 1 initial appearance in Phoenix municipal court for the low-level misdemeanor he faces stemming from the fatal collision. As a result, the court…
Ex-Minuteman and anti-immigrant vigilante Chris Simcox declined to speak on his own behalf during his sentencing today in a Phoenix courtroom. “I have nothing to say, Your Honor,” the former kindergarten teacher said, as he stood before Judge Jose Padilla. He was dressed in stripes with his wrists handcuffed in…
Anger and activism met with the blunt reality police force on the streets of Phoenix on Friday night in a dramatic, hours-long confrontation filled with tear gas, pepper spray, and pepperballs. New Times was, at times, at the heart of the action that stretched into early Saturday along Seventh Street…
A Phoenix driver who allegedly killed three men, including popular local rapper José “Low Key” Hernandez, in an auto crash last year, may wind up serving no more than a month in jail if he’s convicted, despite having admitted to drinking the night of the accident and to running a…
