A court commissioner has dismissed criminal charges against two men and is likely to drop many other cases because he says the agency providing mental health services to county inmates is failing badly at its job. Commissioner Benjamin Vatz’s recent rulings — which followed six days of little-publicized hearings held…
The world’s fastest 17-year-old girl summons her teammates to the finish line of Peoria High School’s oval track. It’s the end of a grueling two-hour practice at Peoria High School, on a blustery day in late February. Jessica Onyepunuka, her defending state champion team’s undisputed leader, has worked hard all…
Hey, have you heard the news about Jerry Colangelo? No, not that he’s trying to sell the Phoenix Suns. Did you know he’s already sold his controlling interest in the Arizona Diamondbacks? That’s right. Jerry Colangelo is no longer the grand master of major league baseball in Arizona. In fact,…
It was eye-popping: Countless teenage bimbettes in low-cut jeans or short pleated skirts and provocative tops. If I had a dollar for every glimpse of skin-glittered ass-cleavage at Britney Spears’ Glendale Arena concert on a recent Wednesday night, I could afford a swimming pool full of Kris, and a set…
The Need for Speed The fast and the corrected: I would like to correct some misinformation contained in the article “The Fast and the Frustrated” (Jimmy Magahern, March 4). It was reported that Superior Racing Development performed “the high horsepower engine swap and the installation of the nitrous kit” on…
Shane Saunders tugs the brim of his baseball cap, pulling it down tighter over his short red hair, and stares out over the row of turbocharged Corvettes, Vipers and F-body Camaros parked behind the high-performance tuning shop where he works. “Nobody I know says they’re racing tonight,” he says, shaking…
Connie and Mark Thompson aren’t letting ethics, honesty and honorable public service get in the way of boosting the fortunes of the elder care referral business they run from their Tempe office. Instead, they are simply abusing their position of public trust to benefit their private business — even if…
Political Action That creepy feeling: I’ve gone around and around about these Tempe mayoral candidates (“The Mouth That Should’ve Roared,” John Dougherty, February 26). But I’d prefer not to vote for the obviously ignorant and corrupt one. That’s Dennis Cahill. If Hugh Hallman is bad for Tempe, we’d know it…
Ever since blowing into this desiccated town from El Lay’s relatively humid climes, a number of fellow lowlifes have told me about a notorious gangbanger club at 2424 East Thomas that even scares the bejesus out of Phoenix SWAT. Apparently, the nightspot’s also the Saturday after-hours hangout for brown-and-black Phoenix…
I’ve got this creepy feeling about Tempe mayoral candidate Hugh Hallman. I know Tempe desperately needs new leadership at City Hall, and, for many voters, Hallman, a Republican attorney, is the hands-down choice in the hotly contested March 9 election. Hallman scored points with the electorate during his four-year term…
Though it’s been 15 years since he emigrated from Romania, Florian Salajan’s accent remains thick. Nearly as thick as his chest. With reading glasses on his nose and gray in his hair, Salajan studies a Phoenix police citation sitting on his desk, looks up and denies what police say is…
One evening not long ago, Scott Jacobson was about to get in the shower when he heard a noise outside his front door. Turned out, it was a 300-pound concrete statue of a very large, very white woman wearing a brightly painted lei. Along with his role as the current…
Thin Skinned White like me: I just finished reading your article on the recent Aryanfest outside of Phoenix and can’t argue with your basic premise that neo-Nazi skinheads, their music, and their lifestyle are easy targets of ridicule (“Barbecue Nations,” Susy Buchanan and David Holthouse, February 19). I myself find…
All you P-town ballers grab a pencil and take notes: Kreme and Jett don’t go anywhere before 10 p.m. Maybe if the Legislature ever gets off its ass and ups the drinking cutoff to 2 a.m., like most non-Mormon-inspired metropolises, then I can finally trade up to 11 p.m. In…
You gotta be careful with hip-hop. The members of Impact, a student dance club at Millennium High School in Goodyear, knew that. Last October, club members put together a mix tape of various artists. They used beats from this rapper, lyrics from that one, and made a dance routine every…
Have you heard the one about the brown-skinned kid who showed up at the Nazi rally wearing a “WHITE POWER” tee shirt? This was no joke at Aryanfest 2004, an “international” gathering of Nazi skinheads, Ku Klux Klan members and other white supremacists that took place inside McDowell Regional Mountain…
Jim Cozzolino wasn’t afraid of serving jail time. He was just afraid of where he’d be serving that jail time. Two months ago, Cozzolino was sentenced to four months in jail for illegally discharging a weapon (“The Trial,” December 25). No matter that his gun accidentally fired during a melee…
The corporate big wheels are putting the screws to downtown Phoenix. Each twist brings us inexorably closer to obliterating a rare and fragile opportunity to create an urban center unique to our corner of the world. Anyone who thinks a corporate-dominated glitter mall with chain eateries and high-end housing isn’t…
A federal judge in Missouri is refusing to admit sworn testimony from Arizona Department of Corrections Director Dora Schriro in a lawsuit brought by an inmate, saying that Schriro and other jail officials can’t be trusted to tell the truth because they had previously given misleading evidence under oath. In…
Kamal Abdul-Rasheed claims he and seven other workers were laid off from AT&T because of their age. But it may be the group of know-it-all seniors were forced out of AT&T’s youngest division more because of the age of telephone service — and office politics — they represented. “The ones…
The Bishop & Me Throw the good book at him: After reading the article on Bishop O’Brien, it did nothing but confirm my conclusion about this man (“What Was He Thinking?!” Michael Lacey, February 12). Bishop O’Brien is a disgrace to the human race. How dare this man declare his…
The dance floor at Hot Pink squirms like an orgy with clothes: Women and men, women and women, men and men and a number of more complicated combinations gyrate together — humping, grasping, petting each other to the cyberpunk snarl of Billy Idol’s “Dancing With Myself.” Blue and red lights…
