Sheriff Joe Arpaio is at it again!

I live in Maricopa county. People here support Sheriff Joe because he is the only one that will enforce the law. We don't always agree with his showboating, however, I think that he is over dramatic because the liberal media, criminals and Ethnic groups are constantly attacking him. I have never found a law abiding person that has not supported him, but I have found a person or two that have spent time in "Tent City" that do support him, because they finally straightened out their life after spending time there. These people said that they did not want to go back. Jail should be a deterrent, not a place that you do not mind going to. My father is in federal prison and he doesn't seem to mind it. If it were "Tent City", I bet he would. In 2008 the sheriff had a slightly lower percentage of the vote due to the amount of Democrats that voted in that election. It will be interesting to see what happens next election. With what is going on today in Washington, his numbers may go up. In this country and in each state, we have the right to put changes to our laws to a vote. Majority dictates this change. Minority has a right to argue their point. That minority must also obey that law until their views become the majorty, of which then they can change the law. As I see on this blog, the hatred at which the liberal minded people display toward their opponents is surprising. I always thought that those
minded people were about Peace,Love and Understanding. I have recently started attending rallies and have seen it first hand. The news media won't even show this stuff on TV. Trust me. Everything that you see on the news is highly edited.

Kidnappings cross border into U.S. cities
Drug trafficking, immigrant smuggling rings fuel violent trend

PHOENIX - A woman leaving an eyeglass store is grabbed in the parking lot by four men who force her, kicking and screaming, into a pickup. The kidnappers demand a $900,000 ransom.

But police soon realize her family is holding something back and isn't fully cooperating with them. Later, investigators find out that relatives have arranged the woman's release on their own. And they discover that members of the family are heavy into marijuana trafficking.

The case illustrates how a terrifyingly common crime in Latin America has moved across the border into the United States: Criminals and their family members are being kidnapped by fellow criminals and held for six-figure ransoms.

The abductions are occurring in the Phoenix area at the rate of practically one per day, and police suspect they have led to killings in which bound and bullet-riddled bodies have been found dumped in the desert.

The kidnap victims are typically drug or immigrant-smugglers, who are seen as inviting targets because they have a lot of money, they can raise large sums of cash on short notice, and they are unlikely to go to the police, for fear their own shady dealings will come to light.

"We have never had a victim that we have investigated that has been as clean as the new driven snow," said Sgt. Phil Roberts, who investigates the kidnappings. "There has always been some type of criminal element to it. Either they are criminals, drug dealers or human smugglers — or a close family member is."

The kidnappers themselves are fellow traffickers who are doing it for the money or to punish their rivals.

Rise in violence, kidnappings
Phoenix had more than 340 such kidnappings reported last year, but police said the real number is much higher because many cases go unreported.

The San Diego area has also seen a rise in kidnappings over the past year, with two or three reported during busy weeks, and some victims were mixed up in drug smuggling. But the hostage-taking appears to be most prevalent in Phoenix, the nation's biggest base of operations for immigrant smugglers.

Story continues:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22614102/

ahh, the prison system. one of the last true growth industries in USSA.

about the only thing I like about that article is what he is doing for shelter animals. that's truly commendable.

but there are a lot of folks in his system that are nonviolent drug offenders that don't deserve jail.

the point is he's an authoritarian on a power trip, and i don't know how someone on a libertarian leaning site could support that.

I'm concerned that Arpaio's methods are getting so much publicity as if they are the model approach, just like the UN sees China as a model for population control.

Here's the scenario I see playing out

basically, you criminalize things like not giving vaccines to your kids, being homeless or unemployed, being in debt, having an unregistered gun in your home, having a garbage bin in your driveway with the lid slightly open, or any other nanny state atrocity. give the legislation some nice sounding name like Reinforcing the Familiness of our Neighborhoods, and Nurturing Communities Environment Act, or the REFINANCE AMERICA ACT. Add in a clause "and for other purposes" to allow you to arrest and force community service or jail time for any violation of this act. mandate this at the federal level and then leave it unfunded at the state level. next, force the states to comply by withholding highway money. vote on this legislation without reading it, then insert a prison lobby supported measure in the final house-senate reconciled version of the bill that would extend a tax credit per inmate to states that outsource inmates to private prisons, under the assertion that this would lead to job creation. next, you introduce the Let's Build Upon the Orwellian Measures in the Previous Act Act and allow the private prisons to put people to work for slave wages. Pay them $.20/hr like they do in China and voila. Pretty much would have zero unemployment and the MNC's would be happy to contract with the prisons to produce their slave goods for the rest of the world to buy, which would thus provide a boost to our ailing manufacturing industry. Combine this with the Real ID, Vehicle Mileage Tax, and RFID ankle bracelets or tags and you have complete and total surveillance of eventually the entire population.

piece of $hit!

"All great truths begin as blasphemies."

this is all propaganda folks. Ignore it. It's all about divide and conquer. It's getting people to fight against each other and hate. Both sides, the ones promoting illegals and the ones against illegals, are being used. I went to a couple of protest rallies a couple years back because of a property rights issue involved, being an old timer I could easily see the game that was being played. Now I won't bite, and the illegal issue is big here in AZ.
Remember too in this Empire of lies everyone is being turned to a criminal. People sit in tent city waiting to appear, without even a conviction. Interesting too how he uses the miltiary tactics of making people less then human and degrading them so it is easier to despise and hate. I personally don't like what has happened with the influx of illegals and what has been allowed to happen, but I do recognize it is all part of a bigger plan and I won't feed the beast with hate.

in this country without permission still a crime?

I would think most people here would applaud him for taking his oath seriously. Since he's one of the few in this country who does.

Are you seriously plugging Joe Arpaio??????!!!!!!!

This guy is a fucking NAZI.

the same guy has put up something like 150 cameras on the freeways. there's so many it's almost dangerous because that's all people are looking for instead of the car in front of them.

there's people going out and burning them with a tire and gas.. lol

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dq_uCsTiKE

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Stock up, it's gonna be a long winter.

Stuck in a system, where everything is made to be a crime, even poverty which is the byproduct of government and they want you that way and someone does this? GOD forbid you ever get throwed into the system. It's coming people. It's bloody coming.

"He has literally taken stray dogs off the street, given them to the care of prisoners, and had them place in dog shows."

Yeah, maybe the Maricopa County Inmate Dog Show.....or the county fair competitions!

Give me a break

"he was reelected last year with 83% of the vote"???

looks like he is becoming less and less popular to me.

2008 election results
Republican Joe Arpaio (incumbent) 55.2%

2004 election results
Republican Joe Arpaio (incumbent) 56.74%

2000 election results
Republican Joe Arpaio (incumbent) 66.49%

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Botched raid

In 2004, the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office SWAT team led a raid on an Ahwatukee home in a gated subdivision, looking for illegal weapons. No illegal weapons were found, but during the raid, the house burned down, SWAT officers forced a dog back into the building where it subsequently died, and an armored vehicle rolled into a neighbor's parked car as a result of brake failure.

Prostitution sting

In an undercover sting operation in November, 2003, sheriff's deputies arrested over 70 people for prostitution and solicitation of prostitution. The officers arrested alleged prostitutes and their alleged customers in more than thirty homes and ten massage parlors in the Phoenix area. Records indicated that several of the officers and civilian posse members disrobed, fondled the breasts and genitals of the alleged prostitutes, and allowed their penises to be touched during the operation in the hopes of convincing the women they were not law enforcement officers. The Maricopa County Attorney's Office stated that the Sheriff's office had gone too far in allowing this behavior, and sixty of the cases were thrown out. Several of the customers in the case were prosecuted successfully.

Conflicts with local news media

Arrest of Phoenix New Times executives

In October 2007, Arpaio's deputies arrested Village Voice Media executives and Phoenix New Times editors Michael Lacey and Jim Larkin on charges of revealing grand jury secrets. In July 2004, the New Times had published Arpaio's home address in the context of a story about his real estate dealings, which the county attorney's office is investigating as a possible crime under Arizona state law. A special prosecutor served Village Voice Media with a subpoena ordering it to produce "all documents" related to the original real estate article, as well as "all Internet web site traffic information" to a number of articles that mentioned Arpaio. The prosecutor further ordered Village Voice Media to produce the IP addresses of all visitors to the Phoenix New Times website since January 1, 2004, as well as what websites those readers had been to prior to visiting. As an act of "civil disobedience,"[66] Lacey and Larkin published the contents of the subpoena on or around October 18, which resulted in their arrests the same day.[67] On the following day, the county attorney dropped the case after declining to pursue charges against the two.[68] The Attorney General's office has since been ordered to appear before Judge Ana Baca due to missing documentation - including the original grand jury subpoenas - in the case file for the investigation of the New Times publication.[69]

On November 28, 2007, Judge Baca ruled that the subpoenas in this case were not validly issued. The special prosecutor filed the grand jury subpoenas without the consent of the grand jury. Baca's justification was a statute that had been clarified by case law and by subsequent legislation to bar such subpoena authority, unless certain reporting requirements are met. The prosecutor had not met those reporting requirements.[70] In April, 2008, the New Times editors filed suit against Arpaio, County Attorney Andrew Thomas and Special Prosecutor Dennis Wilenchik, alleging negligence, conspiracy and racketeering, and State and U.S. constitutional violations of free speech rights, false imprisonment, retaliation by law enforcement and abuse of process.[71]

Alleged harassment of New Times reporter

On June 11, 2008, Ray Stern, a reporter for the Phoenix New Times, was surrounded and intimidated by several deputies while trying to examine public records at the City of Phoenix public records counter.[72] Stern called City Attorney Gary Verburg, who came down and instructed the deputies that Stern had the right to view the records. The deputies then threatened to simply arrest Stern on the spot. Later, a city "conflict resolution manager" walked up and laid down an Arizona law book. She pointed to the section of public records law that essentially says anyone can look at any public record during business hours. City Attorney Verburg told the deputies again that Stern had the right to look at any public record. Upon hearing that, the deputies warned Stern again that if he tried to look at the documents he would be arrested.[73]

The events reported by the New Times are substantively verified in a memo drafted by Maricopa County Sheriff's Office Commander James Miller. In this memo, Miller states that the deputies did threaten to arrest Stern if he touched any of the records, and that he (Miller) held one of the records out in front of Stern, saying "take it", to create a pretense to arrest Stern. Miller also reported that the situation escalated into a standoff with the Phoenix Police, when they warned him not to attempt to arrest Stern.[74]

FOIA requests to mayor and other officials

In situations where government officials have been at odds with Arpaio, his office has used the Freedom of Information Act to make broad requests for records of their email and correspondence. The requests have been targeted against Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard, Maricopa County Court Administrator Marcus Reinkensmeyer, and most recently, Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon.

Starting in March, 2008, Gordon spoke out, in a number of high-profile speeches, against racial profiling by Arpaio. On April 24, Arpaio's deputies issued a public-records request seeking the mayor's e-mails, cell phone records, and meeting calendar, as well as e-mail correspondence for Phoenix Police Chief Jack Harris, City Manager Frank Fairbanks, and all of Gordon's administrative staff. The request covered every e-mail written by more than a dozen Phoenix staffers, from November to the date of the sheriff's demand.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Arpaio#Prostitution_sting
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“A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement” - Thomas Jefferson

"He was neutered, and current on all shots, in great health, and even had a microchip inserted the day we got him. "

This guy is an ass and a criminal. Not one thought of law process or liberty crosses this redneck's mind.
Until a federal lawsuit forced him to stop, he maintained a jail netcam broadcasting female detainees using the toilet. That fact provides a certain nauseating subtext to Arpaio's publicly expressed desire to have authorities in L.A. extradite Paris Hilton to Arizona to serve out her jail term for DUI-related offenses.)
http://freedominourtime.blogspot.com/2009/01/for-two-years-b...

Friggin sick one.

He is a BIG supporter of the War on Drugs an believes that marijuana users, w'/or w/out a prescription for medicinal use should be prosecuted. He is featured on an HBO documentary that was aired about a month and a half ago entitled, "War on Drugs."

You really get a feeling that he isn't as wonderful as he is being made out to be. He enjoys incarcerating people, too much. In my opinion, he's getting his kicks, while at the same time doing some things that may be cost effective. It just happens to be the result of someone who loves the power he gets to wield over people. Most of his prisoners are in for drug related charges(mostly marijuana) and if the laws changed regarding marijuana he'd have a whole heck of a lot fewer prisoners to lord over.

thanks for sharing!

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"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." John F. Kennedy

"It is your duty as loyal Americans to Shut up."– Bill O'Reily