A sergeant at the Aspen Correctional Facility in Phoenix is under investigation by the Arizona Department of Corrections for possible sexual misconduct. At least four prisoners are involved in the investigation, and one says Sergeant Ben Sanders made sexual advances to him and touched him inappropriately. The inmate also says…
County schools chief Sandra Dowling once called herself the governor of Maricopa County–after all, she was elected by all the people of the county, rather than county supervisors, who were voted into office by a mere district’s worth. The title “governor” may be stretching it a bit, but Dowling does…
Mill Stoners In response to “Meet the Crusties” (David Holthouse, February 26), check out this sob story: My dad abandoned our family in an alcoholic haze when I was 4. I barely remember him. When I was 15, I was kicked out of high school twice for “insubordinate behavior” and…
What should you do if you’re a police officer and you’re called to the scene of an allegedly violent domestic dispute? The answer depends on where you work. If you’re with the Scottsdale Police Department, you’ll probably want to take the victim into her bedroom, rough her up, then subject…
Marina flips open a Styrofoam box and holds it up. Inside are three pieces of California Roll and a red slab of tuna. She curls her mouth into a slack smile. “Sushi’s good when you’re high.” Free sushi, even. Half an hour ago, Marina says, some lady came out of…
For five days this month, Kimberly Boyden and Michael Logan sat in a courtroom where the most personal, embarrassing details of their lives were spread before a roomful of strangers. Logan has difficulty getting an erection. Boyden once had breast implants. Logan drinks in the morning. Boyden keeps condoms in…
Billy’s New Jack The National Football League’s new television contract will rake in $17.6 billion over the next eight years. Think about it. If you stacked up all that cash in $1 bills, it would be 17.6 billion bills high! The new pact could put up to $74 million more…
Fighting Mad Thanks to Amy Silverman for her informative article on extreme fighting (“John McCain Breaks Up a Fight,” February 12). John McCain has been exposed. I wonder if the Anheuser-Busch brewery and the senator’s office will respond to the requests for clarification on these matters, or if they will…
The word “legend” is employed too often by journalists, but a search through a thesaurus yields no word that better describes Marcel Marceau. It’s unfortunate that the world’s greatest mime is the master of an art that’s become regarded as a joke, a favorite target of comedians and vacuous skits…
Nobody’s ever going to mistake a night’s stay at Bisbee’s Shady Dell for a room at the Ritz. There are no mints on the pillow, and forget about daily maid service. If you want to make a call, you’ve got to use a phone in the laundry room that serves…
Bev Tittle-Baker is not a born activist. A single mother most of her life, she owned a construction business in Phoenix, but gave it all up in the early ’90s after growing weary of cutthroat contracting competition. She found a “fixer-upper” home in an old Mesa neighborhood, saw its potential…
Bang, Bang, You’re a Fed Faced with the closure of a firing range on public land in Tucson, Representative Jim “I am not a member of ACT-UP” Kolbe has called out the militia–literally. The Tucson Rod and Gun Club’s shooting area was long a fixture near the scenic Sabino Canyon…
In 1996, the Maricopa County Environmental Services Division launched a bold, new program to computerize its health inspection process. The aim was to provide on-the-spot permits and evaluations to facilities. The division spent $384,745 on 60 handheld computers for use in the field. But then most of the computers sat…
It’s the kind of setting that makes you want to be cynical. I’m trying my hardest, but it’s not working. Friday night, and the Scottsdale Center for the Arts is almost full of people who’ve come to see a bunch of Tibetan monks perform sacred music and dance. Consider that…
Death Fret In Barry Graham’s article “Curtains for Ceja” (February 5), he stated that at the age of 18, he himself had the urge to go to a local bookstore and kill the owner and take the money. Graham wrote, “It wasn’t my conscience that saved him, though I’d like…
Palmetto is a film noir set in a torpid seaside Florida town. It’s based on the James Hadley Chase novel Just Another Sucker, and when we first see Harry Barber (Woody Harrelson), he fits that moniker exactly. He looks dazed and confused–a sucker incarnate. Suckers are, of course, integral to…
Johnny Lee Riley spent his 48th birthday in court, charged with a crime he thought he’d run away from 24 years earlier. Armed robbery. Burglary. And, a big surprise to Riley, first-degree murder. It wasn’t that he was trying to hide his past. A minister for the past 13 years,…
Senator John McCain likes to play on the national stage; that’s why many of his constituents were startled January 30 to find him taking off after a local entertainment event. An upcoming match in a blood sport called cage fighting, he declared in a letter to his pal Maricopa County…
Sweeping Indictment A week into the current sweeps period, local news is awash in sleaze. Monday night at 10 p.m., for example, KNXV-TV Channel 15’s Bill Spencer will–salaciously, no doubt–air a story titled “Sex Offender Zip Codes.” (They’re hell on real estate values. Or something.) How does the Flash know?…
“After you’ve been dead, everything else is just . . . something to do,” said Dannion Brinkley. Brinkley said that in September on the phone from his hospital bed in Charleston, South Carolina. He was explaining his nonchalance about the brain surgery he would undergo two days later that had…
Last month was the 25th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, and the war over women’s right to abortion is no nearer to being over than it was in 1973. The discourse has been pretty static, barely moving on over 25 years. It’s an ideological war in which I walk through…
A View to a Kill The death penalty is revenge, pure and simple (“Curtains for Ceja,” Barry Graham, February 5). It is handed out inconsistently and is an ineffectual deterrent against crime. The blood lust displayed by the victims’ families is appalling. Such displays of hatred may be understandable, but…
