The Spider Mafia In case you missed the hilarity in an Arizona Republic story Sunday that was toned down so as not to offend too many readers in Sun City and other Sheriff Joke Arpaio strongholds: The Jokester told the daily that the “bomb” in the shape of a metal…
During Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s tenure, several of his employees have come forward with damaging information about what really goes on in the offices of “America’s Toughest Sheriff.” But of Arpaio’s former trusted troops, none has done more damage by coming clean than Robert Wetherell. The former lieutenant’s November whistle-blowing affidavit…
Paul Peaty rolls up to the scene in his white pickup truck. The victim lies lifeless on the side of the road. Hit and run. “That’s a nice one,” Peaty deadpans. He gets out of the truck, and, even upwind of the carnage, the putrid stench is thick. It’s only…
Killers Behind Badges I’m still reeling from David Holthouse’s column (“Murder on Madison: The Norberg Remix,” April 15), although I’m still not quite sure why. Both Scott Norberg’s tragically ironic letter to his father and Holthouse’s brilliant juxtaposition of Norberg’s words with the testimony of his murder are enough to…
Men are like fine wine. They all start out like grapes, and it’s our job to stomp on them in the dark until they mature into something you’d like to have dinner with. –Anonymous Mistress Cathryn Curtis emerges as the archetypal dominatrix: zaftig, milky-hued, clad in an all-black ensemble of…
Cruise along Avenida del Yaqui, the main drag in Guadalupe, and you’ll feel like a tourist in a cute little Sonoran town. Fuchsia houses are landscaped with scarlet hollyhocks and giant prickly pear. Mexican restaurants with Spanish signs promoting homemade menudo sit next to tiendas selling pinatas and Indian crafts…
4.26.99 Cris Kirkwood 1029 W. 17th Street Tempe Cris– You know me, but you’ve smoked so much coke since we last talked I should probably reintroduce myself. I’m the guy who will write your obituary, unless you stop this mad jig to death’s fiddle. I imagine what’s going on inside…
[Derian Hatcher] played only two minutes, 57 seconds, but his hit on Jeremy Roenick was an important action for the captain to take, and it set the physical tone. –Bill Nichols, Dallas Morning News, April 15, 1999 Phoenix Coyotes at Dallas Stars April 14, 1999 The Phoenix Coyotes’ dreams this…
While he spends lavishly on new offices, a bulletproof car and new employees to fight cat mutilations, Sheriff Joe Arpaio has so understaffed the county’s jails that inmates are threatened by disease outbreaks, and taxpayers could face new lawsuits. Documents, including duty rosters, sick-call rosters and jail-shift records, show that…
Shoot to Thrill Sometimes a New Times piece is so engaging and provocative that it continues to grow in notoriety long after its initial publication. Even if the story is not exactly true. Or at all true. Or completely ridiculous. Such is the case with our April Fool’s “Arm the…
Disbarred attorney and ex-con Dick Berry stood before federal judge Robert Broomfield on Monday afternoon, trying to talk his way out of jail. Berry’s excuses were the same as they’ve been for more than two years, after Bankruptcy Court officials started coming down on him and his Tempe-based business, People’s…
Justice may be blind, but it’s certainly not deaf. At least not in the courtroom of Phoenix Municipal Court Judge Chris Kramer. Last week, Kramer sentenced Bonnie Scherer to 24 hours in Madison Street Jail for talking back. Scherer, 21, is seven months pregnant and a single mother of a…
New Times staff writer Terry Greene Sterling was named Arizona’s Journalist of the Year–marking the fifth straight year a New Times writer has won the honor. Sterling, who also captured the award in 1987 and 1989, won for a 1998 portfolio that included an exhaustive investigation into the Baptist Foundation…
When it comes to handouts for the mining industry, the Arizona Legislature is a bottomless pit. This year has been no exception. First things first: I’ve got to give the Arizona mining lobby credit. These guys are pros. The dean of dollar-digging at the Capitol is Jim Bush. Bush, Arizona…
The incessant monologue of hushed Spanish is the soundtrack to the hypnotic streams of Circle K reds and Burger King yellows that fan passengers crimped on cushioned alloy seats. Above, under phosphorescent light, multilingual signs assert “No Fire Arms” and “Out of Work? Need a Job? Call . . .”…
I’ve got one for you: Two guys in wraparound shades with “Wetback Power” gang tattoos saunter past a Maricopa County sheriff’s volunteer posse member. Both are openly armed with pistols and combat shotguns. The weekend cop looks ’em over and says, “Have a nice Sunday, guys.” It was all part…
Grand Stand The attempt to rape the taxpayers of Mesa (sales taxes and recouped taxes) and Arizona (recouped sales taxes) is small potatoes compared to the cost to taxpayers of the control of state, city and county governmental policies by promoters and developers (“House of Cards,” John Dougherty, April 8)…
I’m watching a snuff film, and it’s hard-core. The snuffers–there’s a pack of them, male and female–are in uniforms. Scott Norberg, the man who will be killed on film, has blond hair, jeans, no shirt. He is slumped down, back against a wall. He looks confused. It begins. A fat…
There’s a story about Suns rookie Gerald Brown that has reached legendary proportions. His parents, Gerald Sr. and Wendelene, believe the incident helped make their son a man. His coach at Carl Hayden High, Argie Rhymes, thinks it made his guard a better player. His friend and high school teammate…
“Keane paintings are my friends,” gushed actress Joan Crawford. An art critic from the New York Times checked in with a far different opinion, characterizing the couple’s work as “the very definition of tasteless hack work.” Eye or nay, there was no denying that artists Walter and Margaret Keane had…
Lynette Bibbee’s museum of maudlin art is not a pretty picture. In one strategically placed lithograph titled “No Dogs Allowed,” a wide-eyed waif and his equally optically overendowed poodle soulfully dare the viewer to look away. Avert your eyes to the print next to it, this one identified as “The…
In recent months, there’s been a lot written and said about the death of the Tempe scene. Apparently, the sheer accumulation of isolated events (the closing of Gibson’s, the deaths of Brad Singer and Elvis Del Monte, and the record-label woes of the Refreshments, Pistoleros, Pharoahs 2000, and Lo-Watts) has…
