If MCSO big shots thought they were bringing in a ringer by hiring private investigator Don Vogel to look into the agency’s disobedience of a federal judge’s order, boy were they wrong. Vogel, a former detective with the Mesa Police Department, testified last week in the ongoing contempt trial of Sheriff…
History got a little too real in Tombstone, when a man reenacting a gunfight fired live bullets, shooting a fellow actor in the thigh and spraying shrapnel into the crowd. The actors, who perform with The Tombstone Vigilantes, a troupe that recreates Old West shootouts several times a month in…
The Tempe Police Department says it now believes Glenn Edward Baxter, the driver of a vehicle that crashed into Tempe Town Lake early Sunday morning and killed his entire family, was a murder-suicide. “Detectives have been working around the clock on this investigation,” Tempe Police Lieutenant Michael Pooley writes in a…
Arizona Department of Economic Security Director Tim Jeffries doubled down on his blunt comments about 72 employees fired from the agency in the past three months, taking to New Times’ website comments section to answer readers’ points personally. But under criticism from some readers, he attempted to clarify: “I have referred…
What would you call a guy who claims there’s a recall effort against him just so he can score donations off elderly, out-of-state supporters? A sleazy prevaricator? A political con artist? A creep of the highest order? Well, yes, all those things. But specifically, in Maricopa County, we call him…
A mother, father, and their three young children are dead after their vehicle crashed into Tempe Town Lake near the Scottsdale Bridge. According to Tempe Police, four witnesses say they saw a silver SUV drive into the lake just after midnight on Sunday morning, though it remains unclear why the…
It’s hard to say why U.S. Senator John McCain is so frequently the butt of late night TV jokes. Maybe it’s his relentless willingness to say or do anything for votes? Maybe it’s his “maverick” unpredictability and love of the spotlight? Or maybe it’s just that he’s such a good…
Within a 24-hour period, both a state and federal judge handed down two separate decisions about medication abortions in Arizona —- decisions plaintiffs are calling “major victories for the pro-choice movement, women, and the reproductive health of women in Arizona.” In the first, a 2012 state law that placed restrictions on…
A U.S. Border Patrol agent stopped a motorist on Highway 95, 75 miles from Mexico. When the man refused to consent to a search, the officer kicked a dent in the man’s car while four of his colleagues surrounded the driver with weapons drawn, forced him to the ground, and…
The county’s top prosecutor, an avid marijuana prohibitionist, has issued a “polite” waning to business owners, community members, and pot aficionados planning to attend the Southwest Cannabis Conference and Expo at the Phoenix Convention Center later this month: We might be watching you. During a presentation on drug abuse this…
It takes a saguaro cactus about 75 years to achieve its iconic, armed stature. It takes a couple burly poachers about 30 minutes to steal it. “They just wrap it in carpet to protect themselves from the spines, then they dig up its roots and heft it into a truck,”…
A new public-service announcement from the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office about the evils of heroin curiously shows an image of people apparently smoking marijuana. The short, publicly funded PSA begins at three minutes, 57 seconds into the 44:21 video of Montgomery’s semi-weekly news conference. With a striking graphic of the…
U.S. Senator John McCain announced his new Hispanic voter-outreach effort today at the back of El Mercado De Los Cielos, a small mall-within-a-mall of Latino-owned businesses, restaurants, and kiosks in west Phoenix. “Unidos con McCain,” or “United with McCain,” is the senator’s latest efforts to garner favor with the growing…
About 100 members of the Phoenix Latino community, most of them high school students, descended on the Arizona capital as part of a national day of climate action. They came armed with a simple message for Arizona’s elected officials: climate change is real, it’s killing our community, and you need to…
A private investigator hired by the MCSO to report on the agency’s defiance of a federal judge’s order, concluded that Sheriff Joe Arpaio “failed in his responsibility” to have proper control over his agency. Don Vogel, a former Mesa Police Department detective, testified Wednesday in Arpaio’s ongoing contempt trial. The…
Former Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords this week launched a new campaign attacking gun violence. The initiative, called the Women’s Coalition for Common Sense, will focus on the nexus of guns and domestic violence. Women in the United States are 11 times more likely to die as a result of gun…
Ever wonder why the Republican Party has trouble attracting minority voters? Could it be because of inflammatory and stupid comments about blacks and Hispanics by respected GOP leaders like former Arizona Republican Party Chairman Randy Pullen. While watching Tuesday night’s Democratic presidential candidate debate, Pullen tweeted that black people are…
Tim Jeffries, the crusading, new director of the Arizona Department of Economic Security, is on a mission to rid the agency of employees he calls “bullies… liars and multi-year bad actors.” In the past 90 days, 72 DES employees have been fired in Jeffries’ crackdown on negativity and “unworthy” employees…
Mere hours after U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders told the American public that the greatest danger to national security is climate change, a large crowd is expected to descend on the Arizona capital building in Phoenix to demand that state leaders take aggressive action to combat the threat. The planned action…
The number of sexual assaults reported at Arizona State University nearly doubled from 2013 to 2014, according to the university’s annual security report. That may sound ominous, but, according to advocates for victims, it’s actually good news. ASU police investigated 35 cases of rape or forcible fondling in 2014, compared…
Rumain Brisbon, the 34-year-old father of three who was fatally shot in the back last December by a Phoenix police officer is buried in an unmarked grave. With less than two months until the one-year anniversary of his death, his family and friends are trying to get him the headstone…
Following allegations of illegal and predatory student recruitment on military bases, the University of Phoenix has been temporarily barred from enrolling new active-duty military personnel under the Department of Defense’s Tuition Assistance Program. The move is a significant blow to the Arizona-based, for-profit college—the largest recipient of military-education benefits. And…
