JAIL HELL
Addicts deserve humane care, too: This is just awful! Just because you are in jail doesn't mean you don't deserve medical treatment and [you should be] ignored. And being a drug addict doesn't make you a criminal — it is a sickness ("What's Mom Worth?" Michael Lacey, December 9).
You may do criminal things as an addict, but you still deserve to be seen [by doctors] if you have a medical condition. Jail/prison is supposed to rehabilitate people so they can rejoin society not treat them like caged animals.
Dona Riles, Phoenix
Enough is enough: It's been more than obvious for many years now that Joe Arpaio and his goons [couldn't] care less how many people they kill, hurt, or maim.
It's time they start suffering the consequences of their actions. They have gotten away with murder long enough.
Jim Cozzolino, Peoria
Jailers afraid to do what's right: Michael Lacey's article is a journalistic indictment of Joe Arpaio's cruelty. Reading this, anybody can see the top-down nature of cruelty in his jails. His jailers are afraid to treat anybody humanely.
It's time for this to stop, along with so much else regarding the evil, old scumbag. Where are the feds? They have been investigating Arpaio for years, and still nothing.
Tom Hull, Phoenix
Hell awaits Joe: There is a special place in Hell reserved for Joe "The Murderer" Arpaio and his minions at the Sheriff's Office, [including] all those demented detention monsters at the jail.
Teo Bueno, Tucson
Civilized cities would've stopped this by now: This story is sickening! How can human beings treat another like this? This story is right out of Nazi Germany.
How Arpaio and his SS men survive year after year with stuff like this going down is amazing. In any civilized place, like Chicago or New York (never thought I'd be calling those places "civilized"), he would have been indicted and thrown in prison a decade ago.
I hope Deborah Braillard's family gets many millions of dollars, even though I know it comes out of we taxpayers' pockets.
Ned Taylor, Tucson
Believe it, Jack: Wow, hard to believe that [the Deborah Braillard case] happened in the United States of America.
Jack Harrington, city unavailable
We do, too, Michelle: Fortunately, [Deborah Braillard] had loved ones who were able to get [her story] out to the public.
So many times, inmates die with no loved ones; therefore, no one ever hears about it and thinks that everything is just hunky-dory over there in jail, that Sheriff Joe is actually doing his job.
I hope, in my lifetime, I see this man and all his goons get what they deserve.
Michelle Gyder, city unavailable
Heartless jailers: The people who work at Estrella Jail are heartless. Being locked in that disgusting place is punishment enough without having to be victimized by the psychologically defective detention officers and staff.
What right do they have to allow such inhumane treatment of people?
Michelle Spegar, city unavailable
Worse than imaginable: You don't ever want to know what goes on in the [MCSO] jail system — it's so much more than anyone could fathom!
Myree Manes, city unavailable
Joe's killing Arizona!: Something needs to be done with Joe Arpaio. To put it bluntly, he's killing Arizona!
Too many people have died under Arpaio and his goons. So what if these people are in jail; they are still human. People make mistakes. We are not perfect. But paying for those mistakes with your life?
Who the hell made Joe Arpaio judge and jury? That man is all about himself, so in no way should he be in charge of anyone, not even inmates. I don't believe there are any good people who work in his jail, because, to me, if you work for Joe, you're just another one of his puppets.
When are the people who can get him out going to get a backbone and do it? How many more deaths and millions of dollars is it going to take? Open your eyes, people, Joe Arpaio is rotten to the core!
Diane Girk, city unavailable
We're doomed: Joe Arpaio, [Arizona Senate President-elect] Russell Pearce, [former County Attorney] Andrew Thomas, [Governor] Jan Brewer: what a cabal of reprehensible characters.
It is hard for me to believe that Phoenix is the fifth-largest city in the country and not some Third World banana dictatorship. Mothers dying in jail, citizens dying because state insurance is cut off. We're doomed.
Sali Olson, city unavailable
How could jailers be so "criminal"?: After reading this account, I find myself asking how any group of individuals placed in charge of others could be so totally criminal in not following the most basic human instinct — [helping] someone in need.
It seems that the guards and other staff members in charge at the jail, along with Sheriff Arpaio, surely must be held accountable for their behavior.
Name withheld
Because of voters like this guy: I moved to Phoenix because of Sheriff Joe! I left that fucked-up extension of Mexico formerly known as California. Why don't all you bleeding-heart losers go there!
Oh, I know why. Because California is broke. No handout money there anymore [because] too many illegals gobbled that up.
So, oh, well, I guess my hero Sheriff Joe wins. Again. God, I love him, and I wish we could just make him king of Arizona!
Name withheld
See comment above: The evidence just keeps mounting that Arpaio and his staff are brutal, incompetent, and power-hungry. Yet Arpaio keeps getting re-elected. What is wrong with the people in this state? Are they deaf, dumb and blind?
Name withheld
Where is the DOJ in all this?: The saddest part of all this is how Arpaio's name appears throughout yet another scandal, and he remains unscathed.
Andrew Thomas [and his former deputy county attorneys] Lisa Aubuchon, and Rachel Alexander clearly deserve to go down — and criminally — but it is incredible how the U.S. Department of Justice drags its feet and turns a deaf ear when it comes to the MCSO junta.
Name withheld
System is obviously broken: This is appalling. How is it that we are asked to have faith in the system when the system is obviously broken?
And how is it that an inmate can be denied medical treatment when it is obvious there is an immediate need for help? Aren't there cameras in jail, and can't we prove wrong doing?
Name withheld
MSCO destroys the evidence: Cameras are in the jails. Problem is, tapes get erased long ago that would have shown the brutality of the MCSO. History has proved this already.
Name withheld
It's all true: I just want to say that I did six months in one of Joe's hellholes, and every single damn thing this story says is 100 percent true!
Name withheld
Why not be honest about victim?: Around a steady stream of illegal and dangerous drugs, plus a revolving door of "bad boys," she was not a "mom," despite incubating a fetus during her life cycle.
Deborah Braillard was nothing but a drain on society. She gave no indication that she wanted to be rehabilitated. Had she survived her stint in jail, she would have returned to the life. She was a total waste.
Why the June Cleaver cover? Why the squeaky-clean photo of Braillard, why the dramatic and so-sweet-they're-sickening constructions of the dead mother?
Lacey would have been a lot more honest had he printed Braillard's booking photos. But let's face it, the real intent of the story was just to mother-fuck Joe Arpaio.
Coni Cabot, Phoenix
