Why is Mayor Bloomberg concerned about law enforcement in my county? Maybe I should send undercover deputies to New York.
Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio
January 31, 2011
[I think I might like that. Go Joe!—Joe]
The View From North Central Idaho
Ramblings on explosives, guns, politics, and sex by a redneck Idaho farm boy who became a software engineer living near Seattle.
Will they be carrying snow shovels?
Hell I bet they can find enough felonies in one day inside the Police Precincts to make for quite the stunning expose. That’s without even venturing into Central Park after nightfall.
Something about tending to your own backyard comes to mind.
Though I often find I agree with Arpaio, he hardly runs a clean county.
Check the number of lawsuits for rights violations brought against him, the number of wrongful death lawsuits, etc.
His administration is corrupt and yet he keeps getting elected.
I agree with the sentiments re: Bloomberg, but its a bit like the pot and the kettle!
“Maybe I should send undercover deputies to New York.”
That’s a great idea! I’m all for it.
Bill; the number of lawsuits tells me nothing. Example; Doctor A has twice as many patients dying under his care than doctor B. That statement alone says nothing about the two doctors’ practices or abilities. It could be that doctor A, being far more experienced and talented, gets most of the really serious cases, or it could mean that he is a serial murderer, or any of a large number of variables in between.
It’s like Nazis vs. Commies: no matter who loses, we win! Anyone remember what “MAD” stands for?
Roberta,
Of course. Mutually Assured Destruction.
Lyle,
While I would generally agree with the number of lawsuits question, (I’m in the medical profession, after all), the type of lawsuits against Arpaio are different than a typical sheriff gets, including the number of “wrongful death or injury” while in custody.
I think the current number of deaths in custody is something like 60 inmates, most under suspicious circumstances.
Scott Norbergs case is the most well known, but there are many more.
Norberg was released from a hospital after coming down off a drug binge. He had been dehydrated and had hypoglycemia, and by the arresting officers report was lethargic and only barely responsive. He was transferred to a county jail, and was dead in something like 12 hours, look at the wounds on his body in this video and then listen to Arpaios response.
The county did not want this case to go to court, and paid the family over 8 million dollars because of it.
I like Arpaios view on convicts, but remember, Norberg hadn’t been convicted of anything at that point. By every account, he was incoherent and unable to properly follow directions.
Norberg had engaged in criminal activity, and he certainly was not a model citizen, but this kind of treatment is crimimal and the people of Maricopa County continue to tolerate it. This is a demonstration on a small scale of what happened to Jews and Gypsies in Nazi Germany, except that Norberg happened to be a white drug addict.
Check out the number of anti-Arpaio blogs and sites, and try to find another Sheriff with that kind of antipathy!
I don’t know the number of lawsuits, but the article I read on (i think) the ABA website stated the Maricopa Sheriff’s office had settled out of court for a total of 40 million dollars under Arpaio.
40 million, 18 years, a little more than $2 million a year. You’d think the voters of Maricopa would be tired of paying out $2 million plus a year on top of his salary!
Seems strange that the chief LEO is paying out claims to that extent, I thought he was supposed to uphold the law?