Homeless in Arizona

Sheriff Arpaio sending armed posse to protect schools

by Jason Volentine

azfamily.com

Posted on December 28, 2012 at 6:24 AM

PHOENIX -- Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio said Thursday that he plans to deploy his armed volunteer posse to protect Valley schools from the kind of violence that happened in the Connecticut shooting tragedy. Arpaio believes having armed law officers around schools will deter would-be criminals from trying anything violent and, possibly, stop them if they do.

“I have the authority to mobilize private citizens and fight crime in this county,” Arpaio said.

Arpaio first started using his posse to protect malls during the holiday shopping season in 1993 in response to violent incidents in prior years. Since then he said malls where his posse members are on patrol have had zero violent re-occurrences and patrols by his all-volunteer squad during the 2012 shopping season netted a record 31 arrests.

Arpaio said since the program has worked so well in malls he believes it will work just as well protecting schools.

“We're not talking about placing the posse in the schools right now but in the outlying -- the perimeters of the school -- to detect any criminal activity.”

The sheriff didn't talk logistics but said he'll use members of his 3,000 strong posse to patrol schools in towns that fall under sole jurisdiction of the sheriff's office – places like Cave Creek, Anthem, Fountain Hills, Sun City, Litchfield Park, Gila Bend, Carefree, Queen Creek, Guadalupe - which he said amounts to about 50 grade, middle and high schools.

“I don't know if they agree [to my plan] or not. I'll coordinate with them,” the sheriff said, admitting he has yet to talk it over with the schools.

Arpaio's plan came the day after his counterpart in Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu and Attorney General Tom Horne said they want to arm teachers and principals.

In response, Arpaio said he'd rather see armed resource officers back in all schools -- a program that's been largely de-funded in recent years. [armed resource officers is a politically correct word for cops or police officers that work in government or public schools]

“I support arming cops in the schools," Arpaio said. "If you have a cop that's armed you don't need a teacher that's armed." [Yea, but teachers are a lot cheaper to pay then cops!]

However, Arpaio stopped short of committing to a stance on arming teachers. [So it sounds like Sheriff Joe Arpaio is a gun grabber who only wants cops to have guns!!!]

“[Politicians] are going to be talking about the guns now for years. But I have certain resources at my disposal and I'm not going to talk about it. I'm going to do it,” Arpaio said about putting his plan into action without the need for political maneuvering.

Source

Sheriff Joe Arpaio aims to put armed posse at Phoenix-area schools

Associated Press Fri Dec 28, 2012 9:47 AM

PHOENIX — An Arizona sheriff has announced plans to deploy an armed volunteer posse to protect Phoenix-area students in the wake of the mass shooting at a Connecticut elementary school.

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio tells KTVK-TV (http://bit.ly/WMVRwn) he has the authority to mobilize private citizens to fight crime but hasn’t talked to specific districts.

He says he doesn’t plan to put posse members inside schools but will have them posted around the perimeters.

Arpaio is known as one of the nation’s most high-profile supporters of strict U.S.-Mexico border policy.

His plan announced Thursday comes after two other Arizona officials released ideas for boosting school security.

Attorney General Tom Horne proposed firearms training for one person in each school. And Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu proposed training multiple educators per school to carry guns.

———

Information from: KTVK-TV, http://www.azfamily.com

Congress repeals 4th Amendment??? - Again

Federal Power to Intercept Messages Is Extended

Federal Power to Intercept Messages Is Extended

By ROBERT PEAR

Published: December 28, 2012

WASHINGTON — Congress gave final approval on Friday to a bill extending the government’s power to intercept electronic communications of spy and terrorism suspects, after the Senate voted down proposals from several Democrats and Republicans to increase protections of civil liberties and privacy.

The Senate passed the bill by a vote of 73 to 23, clearing it for approval by President Obama, who strongly supports it. Intelligence agencies said the bill was their highest legislative priority.

Critics of the bill, including Senators Ron Wyden of Oregon, a Democrat, and Rand Paul of Kentucky, a Republican, expressed concern that electronic surveillance, though directed at noncitizens, inevitably swept up communications of Americans as well.

“The Fourth Amendment was written in a different time and a different age, but its necessity and its truth are timeless,” Mr. Paul said, referring to the constitutional ban on unreasonable searches and seizures. “Over the past few decades, our right to privacy has been eroded. We have become lazy and haphazard in our vigilance. [We haven't become anything. Congress has become tyrannical] Digital records seem to get less protection than paper records.”

The bill, which extends the government’s surveillance authority for five years, was approved in the House by a vote of 301 to 118 in September. Mr. Obama is expected to sign the bill in the next few days. [Obama isn't a freedom fighter anymore then Hitler or Stalin was!!!]

Congressional critics of the bill said that they suspected that intelligence agencies were picking up the communications of many Americans, but that they could not be sure because the agencies would not provide even rough estimates of how many people inside the United States had had communications collected under authority of the surveillance law, known as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

The inspector general of the National Security Agency told Congress that preparing such an estimate was beyond the capacity of his office.

The chief Senate supporter of the bill, Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California and chairwoman of the Senate intelligence committee, said the proposed amendments were unnecessary. Moreover, she said, any changes would be subject to approval by the House, and the resulting delay could hamper the government’s use of important intelligence-gathering tools, for which authority is set to expire next week.

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was adopted in 1978 and amended in 2008, with the addition of new surveillance authority and procedures, which are continued by the bill approved on Friday. The 2008 law was passed after the disclosure that President George W. Bush had authorized eavesdropping inside the United States, to search for evidence of terrorist activity, without the court-approved warrants ordinarily required for domestic spying.

Senator Mark Udall, Democrat of Colorado, said that he and Mr. Wyden were concerned that “a loophole” in the 2008 law “could allow the government to effectively conduct warrantless searches for Americans’ communications.”

James R. Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence, told Congress, “There is no loophole in the law.”

By a vote of 52 to 43, the Senate on Friday rejected a proposal by Mr. Wyden to require the national intelligence director to tell Congress if the government had collected any domestic e-mail or telephone conversations under the surveillance law.

The Senate also rejected, 54 to 37, an amendment that would have required disclosure of information about significant decisions by a special federal court that reviews applications for electronic surveillance in foreign intelligence cases.

The amendment was proposed by one of the most liberal senators, Jeff Merkley, Democrat of Oregon, and one of the most conservative, Mike Lee, Republican of Utah.

The No. 2 Senate Democrat, Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, said the surveillance law “does not have adequate checks and balances to protect the constitutional rights of innocent American citizens.” [Yea, but the 4th Amendment does, and the law flushes the 4th down the toilet]

“It is supposed to focus on foreign intelligence,” Mr. Durbin said, “but the reality is that this legislation permits targeting an innocent American in the United States as long as an additional purpose of the surveillance is targeting a person outside the United States.”

However, 30 Democrats joined 42 Republicans and one independent in voting for the bill. Three Republicans — Mr. Lee, Mr. Paul and Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska — voted against the bill, as did 19 Democrats and one independent.

Mr. Merkley said the administration should provide at least unclassified summaries of major decisions by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

“An open and democratic society such as ours should not be governed by secret laws,” Mr. Merkley said, “and judicial interpretations are as much a part of the law as the words that make up our statute.”

Mrs. Feinstein said the law allowed intelligence agencies to go to the court and get warrants for surveillance of “a category of foreign persons,” without showing probable cause to believe that each person was working for a foreign power or a terrorist group.

Mr. Wyden said these writs reminded him of the “general warrants that so upset the colonists” more than 200 years ago. [Gasp - Are they saying the American government has become tyrannical and needs to be overthrown like the British tyrants were??? - Probably]

“The founding fathers could never have envisioned tweeting and Twitter and the Internet,” Mr. Wyden said. “Advances in technology gave government officials the power to invade individual privacy in a host of new ways.”

City Council members use discretionary accounts to rip off taxpayers???

Source

Discretionary council funds scrutinized

By David Madrid The Republic | azcentral.com Sun Dec 30, 2012 12:16 AM

A Phoenix councilman [Phoenix Vice Mayor Michael Johnson who is a former Phoenix Police Officer] used more than $20,000 to attend conferences.

A West Valley councilwoman [Glendale Councilwoman Norma Alvarez] used $18,000 to pave a road in her district.

A small-city mayor [Surprise Mayor Lyn Truitt] spent nearly $70 to buy shirts and monogram “mayor” on them.

All three tapped so-called discretionary funds, public money that is spent at a council member’s discretion with little public scrutiny.

In the last two years, 10 Valley cities have spent $1.2 million in taxpayer funds for meals, travel, construction projects and iPads, an investigation by The Arizona Republic has found.

The money also was used to pay for more run-of-the-mill expenses like photos, picture frames, candy for a parade and appreciation plaques. [Stuff that is really needed by the taxpayers - at least that's what these royal rulers say]

These purchases were made as recession-battered cities have cut jobs, delayed maintenance and asked residents to cope with fewer services.

Supporters of discretionary funds say they are a useful tool and can pay for neighborhood projects, charity donations, lobbying trips and training for newly elected leaders. [And increasing their income without the taxpayers finding out, well except when articles like this are published]

Critics worry that the main beneficiaries are council members themselves. [and the critics are right] While the funds are just a sliver of a multimillion-dollar city budget, local politicians can use the money to take pricey trips or raise their profile by splurging on favored projects in their districts, some say.

Despite city leaders’ best intentions, discretionary funds are ripe for misuse or even abuse, according to ethics experts and some city leaders.

“You can spend on just about anything you want,” said Surprise City Councilman Mike Woodard, who has been critical of the funds and helped change how they are handled in his city.

“It’s not appropriate,” he said.

How it works

A discretionary account is a pool of money, often taken from a city’s general fund, that is set aside for an individual council member to use at his or her discretion. It’s a common practice among city councils around the country. In the Valley, 10 cities, including Phoenix, Peoria, Glendale, Mesa, Chandler and Avondale, maintain discretionary funds, which range from $500 to more than $30,000 a year.

Council members vote on the amount they are allowed to spend each year. In some cities, mayors receive more than other council members. [If a council member votes themselves a $5,000 pay raise everybody finds out about it. If instead they vote themselves a $5,000 increase in discretionary money nobody finds out.]

Although the amounts are outlined in the city budget, details on how the money is spent is not discussed in public meetings.

Still, most communities have discretionary-fund policies, though they vary widely in the level of oversight. Some cities won’t cut a check unless an expense meets discretionary-fund rules. Others merely ask council members to provide receipts.

Avondale’s policy, for example, is informal. “Council member discretionary funds ... can be used for any legal public purpose such as official City travel, educational opportunities such as training or conferences, support of non-profit organizations, etc.,” it states. [And the taxpayers rarely find out when they are used for illegal purchases]

Several cities allow council members to “roll over” unused dollars to the next year or to borrow money from council colleagues when they run out of cash. [Sounds more like an illegal slush fund then a discretionary fund!!!]

The Phoenix council has an executive assistant who acts as a gatekeeper approving each expense. [Yea, an executive assistant that works for the person spending the money. Ask an accountant if this is a good "internal control" to keep the money from being used illegally and they will tell you it isn't!!!!]

Tracking the spending often falls to a city administrator, who can’t hold a public official accountable, said Judy Nadler, a senior fellow in government ethics at Santa Clara University, in Santa Clara, Calif.

The Republic examined council and mayor discretionary funds with travel and capital spending for fiscal years 2010-11 and 2011-12.

Other Valley city councils without discretionary funds pay for these expenses through the budget process. The Republic did not examine those budgets.

Conferences and travel

The Republic analysis shows that about 15 percent of discretionary funds were spent on travel and conference-related expenses in 2010-11 and 2011-12. [So it's really travel and party money, that is kept secret from the taxpayers???]

Officials in Valley cities without discretionary funds also use taxpayer money to travel but do it through the budget process, allowing public input.

Local leaders who support the out-of-town trips say they help cement federal support for local programs. Conferences help council members learn how to better represent their constituents. [These guys were elected to city government officers, there is no need for them to hobnob with government officials in Washington D.C.]

The benefits of such travel, supporters and critics agree, can be hard to quantify. [And that's why city council members love these discretionary accounts]

Phoenix Vice Mayor Michael Johnson spent more than $22,000 in discretionary funds on conference-related hotels and travel. He spent more discretionary funds on hotels and travel than any other council member or mayor in the Valley. That included hotel bills for National League of City conferences totaling more than $5,000 for two stays at the Washington Marriott Wardman Park Hotel. [Wow! I wonder when he has time to work at his real job in Phoenix as a Phoenix Council member]

For those conferences, he stayed in the hotel for at least a week, said Johnson, who serves on the Advisory Board of the National League of Cities. He was also the president of the National Black Caucus of Local Elected Officials, a group within the league.

The benefits to the city of his trips far exceed the money he spent on travel, Johnson added. [Of course he didn't give the Arizona Republic any hard numbers] In addition to attending the conferences, he met with the state’s congressional delegation and had a sit-down meeting with President Barack Obama.

However, it is difficult to calculate how many dollars exactly those trips brought to Phoenix, Johnson said. “It’s hard to say, ‘Well, can you tell me the exact amount you were responsible for?’ That would be difficult to say,” he said.

Those meetings helped Phoenix get utility subsidies for the poor and allowed the city to keep its share of Community Development Block Grants, a federal program that aims to spur development in low-income neighborhoods, the councilman said. The trips also helped bring the league’s 2011 Congress of Cities conference to Phoenix, which generated $4.5 million in direct spending, Johnson said.

Avondale Mayor Marie Lopez Rogers, who is president of the National League of Cities, said conferences are valuable for new and experienced city leaders alike. At league conferences, council members learn about open-meeting laws, new technological advances and how to handle the relationships between city leaders and city employees, Rogers said. She used discretionary funds for her travel to conferences but was reimbursed for most of it by the national league.

But Phoenix City Councilman Sal DiCiccio said he doesn’t see the value in extensive conference attendance. “Quite frankly, if it was that important for someone to go, you don’t have to have more than one person go to those things to represent your city,” DiCiccio said.

And in the age of teleconferencing, such travel can be reduced, said Kevin McCarthy, president of the Arizona Tax Research Association.

But Rogers said that in politics a conference call is not always as effective as an in-person visit. When Goodyear and Litchfield Park needed to prod federal officials about polluted groundwater or when federal grants to cities were on the chopping block, local leaders had to travel to Washington, she said. [Of course the city council members will use any lame excuse they can to take the money and run.]

“Certainly we can use technology,” she said. “We use technology as much as we can, but politics is about relationships, and if you don’t build those face-to-face contacts, you lose something.”

Construction projects

Some city leaders pour discretionary funds into neighborhoods, using it to pay for projects that might not otherwise receive funding but also to bolster council members’ political profiles. The money can pay to stucco old walls, paint graffiti-covered fences, and help local homeowners associations pay for improvements. For example, Peoria City Councilwoman Joan Evans spent $1,275 for community-pool improvements at Lake Pleasant Estates.

Council members say this is often an ideal way to spend the money, making small, badly needed upgrades in their community. [So if the money is spent this way it means the normal way government operates isn't working???]

Ethics experts warn that this kind of spending may encourage council members to use the money for political advantage.

In February, Glendale Councilwoman Norma Alvarez paid Vulcan Materials Co. $18,138 from her discretionary account to provide asphalt for repairs to Griffin Lane, a quarter-mile-long, dead-end neighborhood street. City workers paved the road. [I bet everybody on that block voted to reelect Glendale Councilwoman Norma Alvarez. Of course she will say the $18,138 wasn't used to buy votes]

It was legitimate discretionary spending: Glendale’s policy allows each council member to spend up to $15,000 on construction or equipment. [Legitimate doesn't mean ethical. ]

Alvarez said that south Glendale is not the city’s priority but that the repaving was something constituents wanted. The city could not otherwise have afforded it at a time when Glendale was cutting library services and recreation programs. [Well if the city couldn't have afforded it she shouldn't have spent the money]

“The project was needed,” she said. “I was told I had miscellaneous money to go to conferences and so forth. ... I have spent all the money in the neighborhoods.”

Stuart Kent, Glendale executive director of public works, said Griffin Lane was on a list of streets identified as below standards and in need of work. City employees repaved the road at Alvarez’s request, he said.

In Peoria, Vice Mayor Ron Aames spends almost 75 percent of his discretionary funds on neighborhood-improvement projects, [buying votes in his district??? I'm sure he will have a lame excuse to deny that] some of which he features prominently in newsletters he sends to constituents. The articles feature photographs of Aames and residents smiling in front of the improvements such as neighborhood-entry signs.

Aames, who was unopposed in his bid for a second term in the November 2010 election, said he isn’t campaigning using discretionary funds. He defended the newsletters, saying his constituents have a right to know what he is doing. [But he didn't say it's a lot cheaper to spend the taxpayers money to get himself reelected, then spending his own money]

“Communication is important,” he said. “I do it primarily so people know who I am and are aware that they can make such requests, and we do this in the district.”

It is difficult to say whether officials are touting such projects to lay the groundwork for their next election, said James Svara, a professor in the School of Public Affairs at Arizona State University. “Is that a project of sufficient importance that it warrants being done, compared with other uses that money could be put to?” he asked. [Then if this stuff is so questionable, then it probably shouldn't be done]

Aames said the projects return tax money to citizens. [Liar, liar, pants on fire???] Using discretionary funds allows him to work directly with residents, instead of directing them to a city program. [And it sure buys a lot of votes when it comes to getting reelected]

Charities

Another popular, and significant, discretionary expenditure is donating money to charity. [There is nothing I hate more then charity at gun point. That's when our government rulers tax you so they can give YOUR money to THEIR favorite charity.]

Especially in bad economic times, discretionary money helps non-profits provide valuable services to residents, council members say. But the donations can raise questions about relationships between city leaders and those who benefit from the gift.

Phoenix City Councilwoman Thelda Williams spent almost $3,000 at Turf Paradise for a dance and dinner to raise money for the Pioneer Arizona Living History Museum and Village, a city park in her district. She said the Pioneer ball raised $15,000 for the museum. [Maybe, since the party was pay with taxpayer money, the public should have been invited to attend it free of charge. But Phoenix City Councilwoman Thelda Williams probably wouldn't like that!!]

“I do an annual fundraiser for them, and we do it there, because they give us the best price,” she said of Turf Paradise, a horse-racing track, which isn’t in her district.

Williams received a $430 campaign donation from Ronald Simms, a co-owner of Turf Paradise. But Williams said the donation had nothing to do withher choosing the racetrack for the event. “You’re talking horses. It’s in the pioneer theme,” she said. [Honest, it's not a bribe. Honest, it's not a bribe]

In 2010, Woodard, the Surprise councilman, donated $1,200 to a holiday-lights extravaganza at a private home known as the “Christmas House.” Woodard said he was criticized for giving money to private citizens, and people speculated that he bought decorations for the house or paid the electric bill. Rather, the money paid for toys to give to hundreds of children who came to see the house, Woodard said.

“I would do it again given the opportunity, but the way it is now, it would have to be approved by the council,” he said.

Another Surprise politician, former Mayor Lyn Truitt, made several unusual purchases using discretionary funds. While Truitt was mayor, the council bought iPads using the funds. He said council members had a choice between iPads or laptops. Other cities have purchased iPads for council members but went through the public budgeting process to buy them.

Truitt also spent $68 on shirts and a jacket, which he had embroidered with his title and name. That way, residents and visitors who didn’t know him could identify him, he said. “I believe it was an appropriate council expenditure,” he said. [and the rest of us believe that he ripped off the taxpayers]

Future accountability

While some city leaders are uneasy about how discretionary funds are being spent, few outside groups monitor them.

The money is a small fraction of overall city budgets. For example, in Phoenix, City Council and mayoral discretionary spending totals about $80,000 annually, while the city budget is $3.5 billion. [I think what they are saying is since the city of Phoenix annually spends $3.5 billion it's no big deal if the members of the Phoenix city council rip off the taxpayers for $80,000 annually???]

Still, some are advocating changes in the way discretionary funds are handled.

In Surprise, Woodard has successfully pushed for change. This year, the council agreed to cut its discretionary budget and pool the money in a community-outreach pot. Any spending from the community-outreach fund requires a council vote.

Earlier this month, Glendale’s City Council offered to reduce each council member’s discretionary fund from $33,000 to $9,000 annually. The decision comes as city leaders consider eliminating 64 full-time positions to save $6 million during the next fiscal year.

Nadler, the university ethics fellow, said she doesn’t see any movement across the country to end discretionary funds or revise how they are handled. But, she said, given cities’ financial struggles, the time has come to do so. “We’ve reduced police forces. We’ve reduced the hours at the library,” she said.

“So we cannot afford to waste one dime on expenses that are not legitimate and that do not advance the work elected officials are charged to do on behalf of the public,” Nadler said.

Phoenix: Spending limit not exceeded - Honest that's what the mayor says!!!!

Phoenix: Spending limit not exceeded

By David Madrid The Republic | azcentral.com Sun Dec 30, 2012 12:13 AM

Former Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon overspent his discretionary funds while he was in office.

Or he didn’t.

City figures show that in fiscal year 2010-11 Gordon spent $17,000 more than the $5,000 limit on the taxpayer-funded account. [I'm sure he will say that this looks bad, but honest, he didn't rip off the taxpayers for $12,000]

A city spokeswoman sees it differently. [Well let's say a city spokeswoman that works for Mayor Gordon and is paid by Mayor Gordon, and is only accountable to Mayor Gordon sees it differently] Since Gordon’s total spending that year was lower than his total $1.6 million mayoral budget, it’s not important if the former mayor overspent in one category.

The Arizona Republic requested discretionary-fund spending data from 10 cities — including Phoenix — that have such accounts for city-council members. The other cities are Glendale, Peoria, Mesa, Avondale, Chandler, Tolleson, Litchfield Park, Goodyear and Surprise.

The funds are supposed to be spent on expenses that ultimately help residents. In many cities, council members and mayors must follow some guidelines. For some, however, there is little oversight and city leaders spend the money as they see fit.

Gordon was Phoenix’s mayor from 2004 to 2012.

Toni Maccarone, a Phoenix spokeswoman, said Gordon’s total office budget in fiscal year 2010-11 was $1,588,202. His year-end actual spending was $1,338,332, she said.

So therefore, Gordon’s office was $249,870 under its budget, she said.

“That is what is important for the overall city budgeting process, not whether one particular line item in the budget was over or under, because departments can make up for it with underspending in other areas of their budgets,” Maccarone said.

In Phoenix, the mayor’s and council members’ budgets are divided into several categories, said Mario Paniagua, Phoenix budget and research director.

Gordon’s overall $1.6 million budget included discretionary funds as well as money for personnel services that covered staff costs, contractual services and office supplies.

The discretionary budget is for the mayor and council’s miscellaneous expenses including constituent services, outreach and travel, Paniagua said.

In an interview, Gordon said he filled out proper paperwork for the discretionary-account expenses, which were approved.

According to city documents, Gordon spent $14,085 of his discretionary funds over the two fiscal years on conferences and business travel.

The rest of his discretionary money paid for event-support services and office supplies.

In addition to the taxpayer-funded money, Gordon controlled an account that was funded by donations from developers and other political supporters.

“What I call my discretionary funds, I raised all privately and had the downtown partnership oversee that,” he said.

Valley officials' purchases using discretionary funds

Valley officials' purchases using discretionary funds

The Republic | azcentral.com Sun Dec 30, 2012 12:08 AM

In the last two years, 10 Valley cities have spent $1.2 million in taxpayer funds for meals, travel, construction projects and iPads, an investigation by The Arizona Republic has found.

Here is a closer look at some of the more unusual uses of discretionary funds:

Phoenix City Councilwoman Thelda Williams spent almost $3,000 at Turf Paradise to help pay for a museum fundraiser. The horse-racing track is co-owned by a campaign donor.

Glendale Councilwoman Norma Alvarez paid more than $18,000 to repave a road. Without her help, she says, the road would have remained a low city priority.

Former Surprise Mayor Lyn Truitt bought an iPad with discretionary funds. He said the council chose to purchase iPads because they are less cumbersome than laptops and help with constituent email and keeping a city calendar.

Truitt also spent $68 on shirts and a jacket, which he had embroidered with his title and name. He said that helped residents because people who didn’t know him were able to identify him when he was in public and could approach him. [Sorry Mayor Truitt a 50 cent name tag would have been a lot cheaper!!!]

Phoenix City Councilman Michael Nowakowski paid $5,822 over two years to a children’s inflatable bounce house business to rent a screen and projector used for a movies in the park program in Southwest Phoenix.

Former Surprise Councilman Mike Woodard, a foe of most discretionary spending, donated $1,200 to the “Christmas House” which featured many holiday lights. Woodard was criticized by residents for giving money to private citizens. He said the money was used to buy toys for children, and he would do it again.

Mayoral and city council discretionary fund spending

Mayoral and city council discretionary fund spending

A discretionary account is a pool of money, often taken from a city’s general fund, that is set aside for an individual council member to use at his or her discretion. The use of discretionary funds is a common practice among city councils around the country.

In the Valley, 10 cities, including Phoenix, Peoria, Glendale, Mesa, Chandler and Avondale maintain discretionary funds. Funds across the Valley range from $500 a year to $33,000.

Some cities allow their councils and mayors to roll over unspent discretionary funds into next year's budgets. Peoria, Glendale and Avondale all allow for this. Avondale and Goodyear allows council members to give some of their discretionary budget to other members.

The following individuals spent more than their budgets in either Fiscal Year 2011 or Fiscal Year 2012: Avondale Mayor Marie Lopez Rogers went over $500 in FY 2012 and Vice Mayor Stephanie Karlin went over her FY 2011 budget by $872.

Phil Gordon went over his FY 2011 budget of $5,000, spending $21,955.53.

In Mesa, Mayor Scott Smith spent $23,227.94 in FY 2012, going over his $18,000 by $5,227.94. [This is the same Mayor Scott Smith who is going to help the Feds reign in their spending and balance the budget??? What a joke!!!!]

[To see the graphs that came with this article check out the original article in the Arizona Republic here]

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Tucson gun buyback effort raises legal questions

As the article points out ALL the guns bought back MUST be returned to their owners or resold. Well if the city of Tucson follows Arizona law, and you can't count on that. Our royal government masters frequently think they are above the law.

Source

Tucson gun buyback effort raises legal questions

Associated Press Sat Dec 29, 2012 12:43 PM

TUCSON — An effort to raise money for a gun buyback program in Tucson is prompting questions about a change in state law.

Councilman Steve Kozachik is raising $5,000 so Tucson residents may have a way to dispose of unwanted firearms while making money in the process.

“With the success other cities have had with voluntary gun buybacks, I want to test the water to see how Tucson residents respond,” Kozachik told the Arizona Daily Star. “The rules are simple: Bring in your gun on a totally voluntary basis, no questions asked, and you’ll trade it for a Safeway $50 gift card.”

But Todd Rathner, a member of the National Rifle Association’s board of directors, said any buyback program would be meaningless since the police department would be required to return or resell the weapons under a change made earlier this year to state law.

“The police would have to take the guns and run them through the national database. If they are stolen, they are returned to the owner,” he said. “If they are not stolen, (the Tucson Police Department) is mandated by state law to sell them to the public.”

The police department checks every gun it receives to ensure they aren’t stolen or have been used to commit a crime. Spokeswoman Sgt. Maria Hawke said the department holds several “destruction boards” throughout the year to dispose of things such as illicit drugs and guns and the same process would hold true for guns purchased through a buyback program.

Hawke said the department is researching how the statute applies to its practices regarding the disposal of firearms.

Rathner contends that destruction of firearms would put the department in violation of the law.

“If they are in violation of state law, we will see them in a courtroom or we will change the law and have them sanctioned financially,” he said.

City Attorney Mike Rankin believes the law is intended to apply to guns seized by police, not those firearms voluntarily surrendered by their owners.

Kozachik said he doesn’t understand why the NRA would oppose a voluntary program like the one he’s proposing.

Ken Rineer, president of Gun Owners of Arizona, said he has reservations over losing guns committed during a crime, people unwittingly selling antique firearms and the legal issues regarding who is a licensed gun dealer when large numbers of weapons are purchased.

“I don’t know if these issues can be laid to rest if they follow the no-question policy,” Rineer said. He added that buyback programs work well as symbolism but have minor impacts in the real world.

Reasonable Restrictions on your First and Second Amendment rights

Imagine that the First Amendment is subject to just a few 'reasonable restrictions.'

All you have to do, it turns out, is apply for a federal Churchgoing License, a federal Prayer Permit, a federal Publication Permit, or a federal Letter-to-the-Editor License, whichever is appropriate.

The forms are free! Of course, you have to submit to fingerprinting. You have to mail in with your application and your fingerprint card a signed letter from your local sheriff or chief of police, stating he has no objections.

The application fee is $200. The waiting period to hear whether you've been approved generally runs about six months.

If you ask me there are NO reasonable restrictions on your rights.

Simple Things to Protect Your Privacy

10 Incredibly Simple Things You Should Be Doing to Protect Your Privacy

By Kashmir Hill | Forbes – Mon, Dec 31, 2012 10:55 AM EST

Over the weekend, I wound up at Washington, D.C.’s Trapeze School with a group of friends. Before one of them headed up a ladder to attempt a somersault landing from the trapeze bar, she handed me her phone and asked me to take photos. “What’s the password?” I asked. “I don’t use one,” she replied. My jaw dropped as it often does when someone I know tells me they’re choosing not to take one of the very simplest steps for privacy protection, allowing anyone to snoop through their phone with the greatest of ease, to see whichever messages, photos, and sensitive apps they please.

So this post is for you, guy with no iPad password, and for you, girl who stays signed into Gmail on her boyfriend’s computer, and for you, person walking down the street having a loud conversation on your mobile phone about your recent doctor’s diagnosis of that rash thing you have. These are the really, really simple things you should be doing to keep casual intruders from invading your privacy.

1. Password protect your devices: your smartphone, your iPad, your computer, your tablet, etc. Some open bookers tell me it’s “annoying” to take two seconds to type in a password before they can use their phone. C’mon, folks. Choosing not to password protect these devices is the digital equivalent of leaving your home or car unlocked. If you’re lucky, no one will take advantage of the access. Or maybe the contents will be ravaged and your favorite speakers and/or secrets stolen. If you’re not paranoid enough, spend some time reading entries in Reddit Relationships, where many an Internet user goes to discuss issues of the heart. A good percentage of the entries start, “I know I shouldn’t have, but I peeked at my gf’s phone and read her text messages, and…”

2. Put a Google Alert on your name. This is an incredibly easy way to stay on top of what’s being said about you online. It takes less than a minute to do. Go here. [ http://www.google.com/alerts ] Enter your name, and variations of your name, with quotation marks around it. Boom. You’re done.

3. Sign out of Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, etc. when you’re done with your emailing, social networking, tweeting, and other forms of time-wasting. Not only will this slightly reduce the amount of tracking of you as you surf the Web, this prevents someone who later sits down at your computer from loading one of these up and getting snoopy. If you’re using someone else’s or a public computer, this is especially important. Yes, people actually forget to do this, with terrible outcomes.

4. Don’t give out your email address, phone number, or zip code when asked. Obviously, if a sketchy dude in a bar asks for your phone number, you say no. But when the asker is a uniform-wearing employee at Best Buy, many a consumer hands over their digits when asked. Stores often use this info to help profile you and your purchase. You can say no. If you feel badly about it, just pretend the employee is the sketchy dude in the bar.

5. Encrypt your computer. The word “encrypt” may sound like a betrayal of the simplicity I promised in the headline, but this is actually quite easy to do, especially if you’re a MacHead. Encrypting your computer means that someone has to have your password (or encryption key) in order to peek at its contents should they get access to your hard drive. On a Mac, you just go to your settings, choose “Security and Privacy,” go to “FileVault,” choose the “Turn on FileVault” option. Boom goes the encryption dynamite. PC folk need to use Bitlocker [ technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc766295%28v=ws.10%29.aspx ].

6. Gmailers, turn on 2-step authentication in Gmail. The biggest takeaway from the epic hack of Wired’s Mat Honan was that it probably wouldn’t have happened if he’d turned on “2-step verification” in Gmail. This simple little step turns your phone into a security fob — in order for your Gmail account to be accessed from a new device, a person (hopefully you) needs a code that’s sent to your phone. This means that even if someone gets your password somehow, they won’t be able to use it to sign into your account from a strange computer. Google says that millions of people use this tool, and that “thousands more enroll each day.” Be one of those people. The downside: It’s annoying if your phone battery dies or if you’re traveling abroad. The upside: you can print a piece of paper to take with you, says James Fallows at the Atlantic. Alternately, you can turn it off when you’re going to be abroad or phone-less. Or you can leave it permanently turned off, and increase your risk of getting epically hacked. Decision’s yours.

7. Pay in cash for embarrassing items. Don’t want a purchase to be easily tracked back to you? You’ve seen the movies! Use cash. One data mining CEO says this is how he pays for hamburgers and junk food these days.

8. Change Your Facebook settings to “Friends Only.” You’d think with the many Facebook privacy stories over the years that everyone would have their accounts locked down and boarded up like Florida houses before a hurricane. Not so. There are still plenty of Facebookers that are as exposed on the platform as Katy Perry at a water park. Visit your Facebook privacy settings. Make sure this “default privacy” setting isn’t set to public, and if it’s set to “Custom,” make sure you know and are comfortable with any “Networks” you’re sharing with.

9. Clear your browser history and cookies on a regular basis. When’s the last time you did that? If you just shrugged, consider changing your browser settings so that this is automatically cleared every session. Go to the “privacy” setting in your Browser’s “Options.” Tell it to “never remember your history.” This will reduce the amount you’re tracked online. Consider a browser add-on like TACO to further reduce tracking of your online behavior. [If the police arrest you or get a search warrant they will definitely look at your browser history. Erase it to make life difficult for police who want to make life difficult for you. Also remember that even if you erase your browser history, many web sites keep logs showing each time you visited their sites. ]

10. Use an IP masker. When you visit a website, you leave a footprint behind in the form of IP information. If you want to visit someone’s blog without their necessarily knowing it’s you — say if you’re checking out a biz competitor, a love interest, or an ex — you should consider masking your computer’s fingerprint, which at the very least gives away your approximate location and service provider. A person looking at their analytics would notice me as a regular visitor from Washington, D.C. for example, and would probably even be able to tell that I was visiting from a Forbes network address. To hide this, you can download Tor [ https://www.torproject.org/ ] or use an easy browser-based option.

These are some of the easiest things you can do to protect your privacy. Ignoring these is like sending your personal information out onto the trapeze without a safety net. It might do fine… or it could get ugly. These are simple tips for basic privacy; if you’re in a high-risk situation where you require privacy from malicious actors, check out EFF’s surveillance self-defense tips [ https://ssd.eff.org/ ].

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Do we need a cop that is paid $96,200 at every high school????

Do we need a police officer that is paid $96,200 at every high school????

Do we need a school resource officer that is paid $96,200 at every high school????

Funding affects West Valley school-resource officers

By Melissa Leu and Eddi Trevizo The Republic | azcentral.com Thu Dec 27, 2012 9:47 AM

Some West Valley schools have police officers on campus, an idea that got a renewed push by the National Rifle Association.

The NRA is advocating for armed guards on every school campus after the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn., where a gunman killed 20 children and six educators this month.

Currently, there is a divide among high schools. Those in such cities as Avondale, Peoria and Surprise have police officers, called school-resource officers, on campus, while many high schools in Glendale do not.

It comes down to money. [So it sounds like most schools will gladly have a cop, police officer or school resource officers on their campus - As long as the school doesn't have to pay the cops $96,200 yearly salary]

As the recession hit, funding for school-resource officers dried up, causing the Glendale Police Department to pull back its officers from schools.

State funding for school officers was cut nearly in half amid tight finances the past five years. A Democrat state lawmaker is calling to renew that funding.

Beyond money, the proposal is one that is sure to spark conversation in West Valley communities and beyond.

“Obviously, we think it’s the right thing to do to have a police officer there for our middle schools and high schools — because they already are there,” said Christy Agosta, a school-board member in the Deer Valley Unified School District.

Whether to have armed guards in elementary schools is a tougher question.

“As a parent, as well as a school-board member, having my kids have to go by armed security arriving at schools is kind of a heartbreaking thought,” Agosta said. “I’m mixed. … If there had been an armed guard standing outside Sandy Hook, those parents still might have their children. So it’s hard to say we shouldn’t.”

She said such a decision would have to come after a community conversation.

School-resource officers are armed and have the authority of a police officer [and they ARE POLICE OFFICERS], but their duties go beyond security. They offer lessons on law-related issues and add a friendly face on campus for students and staff to turn to for advice.

Police officials credit them with reducing the number of student disciplinary problems.

In 2011, before Centennial High School in Peoria hired its resource officer, the school reported 318 disciplinary incidents. That dropped to 147 incidents, according to Peoria police.

Centennial resource Officer Dave Fernandez typically starts his day at 6:30 a.m. in the school parking lot, helping parents navigate traffic. [Why do you need a cop that is paid an average of $96,200 a year to help parents navigate traffic???]

After about an hour, he heads to his office to answer e-mails, and if nothing major is happening, he walks the campus. [So most of the time he does nothing. Well other then answer e-mails and help parents navigate traffic. And this guy is paid an average of $96,200]

“The best way to see if there is an issue is to be outside looking and talking to people,” Fernandez said.

He said the Sandy Hook shootings were a tragedy. “But we think about these things constantly not just after something has occurred.”

Dale Nicol, principal at Sunrise Mountain High School in Peoria, said resource officers act as a preventive measure.

“He can gather (information) as a result of making connections with students. [I suspect teachers and other school employees can also gather (information) as a result of making connections with students. Do you really need a cop that is making an average of $96,200 a year to do that???] Consequently, we can intervene and stop negative behaviors before they escalate,” Nicol said.

But a divide exists among the Peoria district schools, which stretch across Glendale and Peoria.

The district partners with the city to pay for resource officers in its Peoria-based high schools, but Glendale does not provide funding.

“The police department’s budget is not able to support funding of these positions at this time,” Glendale police spokeswoman Tracey Breeden said.

She noted districts can hire off-duty officers to work in schools.

For the Peoria district, the cost of having officers in Glendale high schools is beyond its budget.

“Grant opportunities are scarce. It becomes funding issues for both the city and the school district,” said Steve Savoy, Peoria’s administrator for K-12 academic services.

The salary of Peoria’s school-resource officers averages $96,200 per year including benefits, Peoria police spokeswoman Amanda Jacinto said. In the past, it was paid by a combination of grants and school district and city budgets.

When the money disappeared, the Peoria district and police partnered to continue the program. The district pays about $30,000 toward the officers’ salaries, and Peoria police pay the rest.

The district relies on neighborhood patrol officers at its Glendale high schools.

The Deer Valley district shoulders the cost of paying officers $30 to $35 an hour for each of its five high schools and three middle schools in Glendale and Phoenix, said Bill Gahn, the district’s director of school operations.

The district earmarks about $300,000 in its budget, which is supplemented through event ticket sales.

An officer is almost always on campus during school hours and after-school events, but the same officer doesn’t always work every day of the week, Gahn said.

“It adds a calming presence on campus,” Gahn said.

Two years ago, Glendale Union had to eliminate its school-resource officers. At one point, the district had officers at seven of its nine campuses in Glendale and Phoenix, district spokeswoman Kim Mesquita said.

That number declined with state grant funding. When the district failed to win the grant last school year, the officers disappeared completely. The district now relies mostly on teachers and administrators to pick up the slack.

Avondale’s Agua Fria Union High School District has a resource officer at each school, funded with state grants and shared costs with local police departments.

Surprise’s Dysart Unified School District has resource officers at each of its four high schools with grant funding.

The district’s 20 elementary schools do not have resource officers, Dysart spokesman Jim Dean said.

Resource officers are rare in elementary schools.

Sometimes it’s simply hard to fill the position, said Jim Cummings, spokesman for the Glendale Elementary School District.

His district received federal funding five years ago for officers at Challenger and Landmark schools, but had to return some of that money because of a lack of candidates, Cummings said.

As a result, schools rely on patrol officers.

“When we call, (police are) here in minutes,” Cummings said.

School officials note that elementary schools typically have less of a need for officers than in high schools, where drugs, theft and violence may be more common.

Patrol officers assigned to Peoria and Glendale neighborhoods regularly check in with elementary principals and students, Peoria’s Savoy said.

The Litchfield Elementary School District used to provide resource officers for its middle schools in partnership with the Avondale and Goodyear police departments and the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office.

The program was cut amid budget constraints in 2009.

“We would approve of armed security at our schools if the state or federal government paid for it,” said Litchfield Elementary spokeswoman Ann Donahue, noting the district would not be able to cover the costs.

Whether that happens remains to be seen.

State Superintendent John Huppenthal on Friday noted the NRA’s proposal would be a large expense to an already financially stressed education system.

House Minority Leader Chad Campbell, D-Phoenix, said he plans to introduce legislation in 2013 to fully fund and train school resource officers at every Arizona school.

Meanwhile, conversations will continue over what parents and residents want for their schools.

Dysart school board member Jerry Enyon said concerns are high, but school officials go through training and routinely practice safety drills.

“They know what to do to keep the kids as safe as possible,” Enyon said.

Reporter Anne Ryman contributed to this article.

Sheriff Joe wants to send troops to Mexico????

Joe Arpaio propone enviar tropas a México para frenar la violencia

Aseguró que se necesita más que apoyo económico.

El alguacil de Maricopa, Joe Arpaio, famoso por sus posturas antiinmigrantes, se refirió a la violencia generada por el narcotráfico, señalando que para frenar ese problema el gobierno de Estados Unidos debería enviar tropas a México.

Arpaio, de 80 años y quien comenzó su carrera como agente antinarcóticos, concedió una entrevista telefónica al diario Excélsior, en la que dijo que México necesita más que dinero y helicópteros contra el crimen.

"Creo que debemos de ayudar a México entrando allí con nuestra Patrulla Fronteriza y nuestros militares, trabajando juntos para tratar de aliviar las masacres de los cárteles", señaló.

Además, agregó que el hecho de enviar tropas estadounidenses a territorio mexicano no significa una invasión.

"No estoy hablando de invadir a México. Si podemos ser operativos en Afganistán y en Irak, ¿por qué no podemos ayudar a nuestro vecino a ser operativo y darle equipos?"

"Siempre estamos diciendo: ‘Les dimos equipo, les dimos entrenamiento’. Siempre ha sido lo mismo en los últimos 50 años y nada ha cambiado", dijo Arpaio durante la entrevista, quien en noviembre fue reelegido por sexta vez consecutiva como sheriff.

Podría reunirse con el presidente Peña Nieto

Durante la conversación con Excélsior, el alguacil aseguró estar dispuesto a reunirse con el presidente Enrique Peña Nieto y sugirió enviar apoyo militar y policiaco estadounidense para enfrentar a los cárteles de la droga.

Tras recordar que hace unas décadas ejerció actividades operativas en México, dijo estar dispuesto a venir a hablar con el presidente sin temor a los tres o cuatro cárteles de la droga que le han puesto precio a su cabeza.

En otro tema, Joe Arpaio, se refirió a la ley antiinmigrante SB1070, la más estricta en la historia de Estados Unidos, señalando que si tanto molesta esa ley a los mexicanos, que negocien para cambiarla, pues su deber como policía se limita a hacerla cumplir, no a legislar.

"¿Por qué la gente del Consulado General de México no viene a verme? Yo acostumbraba llevarme bien con los otros cónsules generales de México. ¿Por qué les da miedo venir a ver al sheriff? El cónsul viene a ver a algunos alcaldes, pero no viene a ver al sheriff cuando yo soy el que pone a los mexicanos en las cárceles", dijo vía telefónica desde la ciudad de Phoenix.

Propuso negociar soluciones concretas

Asimismo, añadió que "la inmigración ilegal se convirtió en un gran acontecimiento político hace varios años. La gente empezó a hablar de eso, los políticos hablaron de eso, el presidente Obama habla de eso. Todo el mundo habla de eso, pero nunca se ha hecho gran cosa al respecto".

A un mes de haber sido reelegido por sexta vez consecutiva como alguacil del condado de Maricopa, Arpaio se pronunció por negociar soluciones concretas a la inmigración indocumentada y el narcotráfico en vez de hablar y hablar sin lograr nada.

"Creo que debemos de ayudar a México entrando allí con nuestra patrulla fronteriza y nuestros militares, trabajando juntos para tratar de aliviar las masacres de los cárteles, las matanzas de gente inocente y para darles los recursos juntos. No estoy hablando de invadir México", dijo.

México presentó recurso contra la SB1070

El escrito de "Amigo de la Corte" busca bloquear que el transporte y albergue de indocumentados sea un delito.

El Gobierno de México anunció su apoyo judicial a un recurso legal presentado ante un tribunal de apelaciones de Estados Unidos contra varias disposiciones de la ley de Arizona que criminalizan el transporte de inmigrantes ilegales.

La Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores de México (SRE), dijo en un comunicado que había presentado un escrito como "amigo de la Corte" ante el Tribunal de Apelaciones del Noveno Circuito de Estados Unidos.

La intención es, según explicó, apoyar "un nuevo recurso legal interpuesto por una coalición de organizaciones de la sociedad civil estadounidense contra la Ley SB1070 de Arizona".

Vigencia a medias

La SB1070 de Arizona fue promulgada el 23 de abril de 2010 por la gobernadora Jan Brewer. Algunas de sus polémicas disposiciones fueron rechazadas por la Corte Suprema de Justicia y Cortes Federales, pero permite, por ejemplo, que policías arresten a individuos si tienen duda razonable que se trate de indocumentados.

El fallo la Suprema Corte emitido a finales de junio frenó la sección quinta de la SB1070 que criminaliza el transporte y alojamiento de inmigrantes sin autorización para permanecer legalmente en el país. Sin embargo, en noviembre el gobierno de Arizona presentó una impugnación para aplicar la sección, al tiempo que varias organizaciones sociales estadounidenses presentaron un recurso para que se mantenga suspendida.

El escrito enviado por México lo convierte en "Amigo de la Corte" (Amicus Curiae), una instancia que realizan terceros ajenos a un litigio para apoyar la demanda entablada por organizaciones defensoras de los derechos de los inmigrantes contra los intentos del gobierno estatal de Arizona de criminalizar el transporte y albergue de indocumentados.

Depende de la corte

Queda en manos del tribunal que ventila la demanda admitir o no la petición presentada por el gobierno de México.

"El Gobierno de México reitera que la entrada en vigor de la sección cinco de la Ley SB1070 incidiría negativamente en las relaciones bilaterales e impediría la colaboración bilateral efectiva", explicó la Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores en el comunicado.

"crearía normas migratorias distintas a las previstas en la legislación federal, que criminalizarían la migración y tendrían el potencial de propiciar su aplicación selectiva, lo que afectaría los derechos fundamentales de los nacionales mexicanos que residen o visitan Arizona", añadió.

México dice también que continuará defendiendo "los derechos fundamentales de todos los mexicanos en el exterior, sin importar su condición migratoria".

Estados Unidos tiene una población estimada de 11 millones de inmigrantes indocumentados. De ellos, cerca del 59% es de origen mexicano.

Arizona reacciona

Horas después de la petición hecha por la cancillería de México, Matt Benson, portavoz de la gobernadora Brewer, dijo que la prohibición dispuesta en la ley de inmigración de Arizona es congruente con la ley federal, y aseguró que México interfiere sobre el particular en los tribunales federales estadounidenses.

"La misma ley de inmigración de México es considerablemente más severa que cualquier medida impuesta como resultado de la SB1070. ¿Cree el gobierno mexicano que la ley federal estadounidense casi idéntica perjudica las relaciones diplomáticas entre Estados Unidos y México?", preguntó Benson.

No es la primera vez que México y otros gobiernos extranjeros intervienen en disputas en torno a leyes de inmigración que castigan severamente la inmigración indocumentada en Estados Unidos.

Gun Grabbing Gabrielle Giffords

Recovering Giffords takes on new fight

By Shaun McKinnon The Republic | azcentral.com

Wed Jan 9, 2013 12:56 AM

Two years after being shot in the head, former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona still struggles to speak, even as she and her husband, Mark Kelly, add their voices to one of the more lopsided debates in American politics, pledging to take on the influential gun lobby.

On Tuesday, the second anniversary of the mass shooting outside Tucson that killed six and wounded 13, Giffords and Kelly offered a new glimpse into her steady but clearly frustrating recovery.

In an interview with ABC News, Giffords struggled at times to express herself, acknowledging that her ability to speak couldn’t yet keep up with her thoughts.

“Slowly, so slowly,” she said of her progress. She nodded eagerly when Kelly or Diane Sawyer, the ABC anchorwoman, helped her complete a sentence or an idea. Her one-word answer to a question about gun violence — “Enough” — lit up news accounts and social media in advance of the interview.

Giffords and Kelly, a former space-shuttle commander, used the ABC interview and a newspaper column to launch Americans for Responsible Solutions, a political-action committee that the couple said will support elected officials who want to pursue gun-control measures.

“Until now, the gun lobby’s political contributions, advertising and lobbying have dwarfed spending from anti-gun-violence groups. No longer,” Giffords and Kelly wrote in a column published in USA Today and The Arizona Republic on the second anniversary of the Jan. 8, 2011, shooting.

Speaking with Sawyer, Giffords and Kelly said they were moved to act after the December attack that killed 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. The couple met with victims’ families last week.

“When it can happen to children in a classroom, it’s time to say — ” Sawyer prompted.

“Enough,” Giffords said.

Sawyer asked Giffords about comments in an earlier interview that she wasn’t angry about what had happened to her. Do you still feel that way, Sawyer wanted to know.

“No,” Giffords said. She does get angry now. “Complicated.”

Giffords was shot in the head during the attack at a constituent event outside a grocery store near Tucson. The gunman, Jared Loughner, was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic and was sentenced in November to seven life terms in prison.

Kelly used Loughner’s sentencing to criticize elected officials for ignoring gun violence. He issued a stronger statement after the Newtown attack and delivered the bluntest assessment yet in the newspaper column Tuesday, accusing Congress of failing to act even after one of their own was shot.

“Special interests purporting to represent gun owners but really advancing the interests of an ideological fringe have used big money and influence to cow Congress into submission,” the couple wrote.

The political-action committee is intended to help balance the power and money wielded by gun-rights organizations, such as the National Rifle Association. Gun-rights groups have in recent years outspent gun-control advocates by as much as 10-to-1, according to an analysis by the non-profit Center for Responsive Politics.

One of the nation’s most prominent gun-control organizations commended Giffords and Kelly in a statement Tuesday.

“Gabby and Mark have shown incredible courage and commitment since that tragic day in Tucson two years ago,” said Dan Gross, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. “They have increased their effort to ending senseless gun violence.”

The NRA and other gun-rights groups have said they will not back away from their position that attempting to control guns violates the Second Amendment to the Constitution. Some of Giffords’ former House colleagues remain opposed to sweeping gun legislation.

“We need to look at the cause of the problem,” said Apryl Marie Fogel, a spokeswoman for Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz. Even with gun control, “people with untreated mental illness would be committing the same types of crimes but with other weapons.”

Video from the interview showed Giffords walking alongside Kelly and a service dog named Nelson. They said Giffords has been able to ride a horse and could soon reclaim one of her favorite activities, riding a bicycle.

Giffords told Sawyer she works daily with “physical therapy, yoga, speech therapy.”

“Gabby works very hard in her rehab,” Kelly told Sawyer. “Now we intend to work very hard on this new project.”

Republic reporter Rebekah L. Sanders contributed to this story.

More on Gun Grabbing Gabrielle Giffords

Gabrielle Giffords takes aim at the NRA

For a woman who has difficulty speaking, Gabby Giffords came through loud and clear on Tuesday, calling for a national conversation about gun violence and taking direct aim at the National Rifle Association.

All of a sudden there is hope that something substantive might actually be possible in the wake of Newtown and Aurora and Tucson and too many other places where hideous attacks have gone unanswered by the people who claim to lead us.

Now there is Giffords, finding her voice.

“Special interests purporting to represent gun owners but really advancing the interest of an ideological fringe have used big money and influence to cow Congress into submission,” she and husband Mark Kelly wrote Tuesday, on the second anniversary of the Tucson massacre. “Rather than working to find the balance between our rights and the regulation of a dangerous product, these groups have cast simple protections for our communities as existential threats to individual liberties. Rather than conducting a dialogue, they threaten those who divert from their orthodoxy with political extinction.”

After Columbine, there were calls to plug the gun-show loophole that allows anybody – nut or not — to buy a gun from a private source, no questions asked. But in Congress, cue the crickets.

After Virginia Tech, there was a movement to flag would-be gun buyers with documented mental problems. But it never led to more rigorous background checks.

After Tucson, there was all-too-brief talk about outlawing high-capacity magazines. Since then we’ve seen Aurora and now Newtown, where extended magazines contributed to extended, heart wrenching carnage.

So what does the NRA suggest? Posting armed volunteers at the schools.

Not good enough, Mr. LaPierre. Not this time.

We need to have a calm, considered conversation in this country, about guns and about mental illness and about what we can do to at least try to prevent another massacre. (And yes, I’m aware that nuts can resort to putting bombs in their underwear and in their fertilizer. But I refuse to accept that as an excuse to do nothing.)

Rick Stein of Scottsdale, a longtime NRA member, says a ban on guns that resemble military assault weapons would be nothing more than feel-good legislation. “What we oppose,” he told me on Tuesday, “is any sort of effort to call the gun the problem.”

Stein believes the answer lies in better reporting of those with mental illness and in holding parents and others criminally liable when they know someone is a danger yet do nothing to prevent that person from getting a gun.

Stein makes an important point. The problem is guns in the hands of the wrong people.

But Sam Polito of Tucson, makes an important point as well. He, too, is a longtime NRA member, one who advocates plugging the gun-show loophole and banning extended magazines such as the 33-round affair that Jared Loughner used to shoot Giffords and 18 other people.

“If he had had a ten-round clip or an eight-round clip for that type of pistol,” Polito said, “he wouldn’t have harmed so many people because when he went to change magazines, you will recall they took him down.”

And saved lives.

Surely we can agree that we need to toughen laws that allow the mentally ill to legally obtain weapons – and even to get them back after the police confiscate them, as Kristi Stadler’s story on Sunday so sadly illustrated.

Surely, we can agree to have a rational conversation about what might work. Unfortunately, it’s a conversation the NRA and the politicians who reside in its hip pocket seem determined to thwart. Instead, they whip up citizens to believe the government is coming after grandpa’s hunting rifle.

But now comes Giffords, a gun owner and longtime Second Amendment supporter who seems determined not the let the conversation fade away. Not this time. Not when an entire class of first graders lies dead in their graves.

Giffords and Kelly have formed Americans for Responsible Solutions, a political-action committed aimed at balancing out the money that allows the NRA to control politics in this country.

“We can’t just hope that the last shooting tragedy will prevent the next,” they wrote. “Achieving reforms to reduce gun violence and prevent mass shootings will mean matching gun lobbyists in their reach and resources.”

It’s an ambitious plan, trying to break the hold of the NRA and inject some sanity into our gun laws. Others have tried and failed. An empty first-grade classroom demands that we try again.

It seems somehow fitting, almost ordained, that Giffords would lead the way.

Who better, after all, to pull off a miracle than the woman who is a miracle?

A rant from gun grabber EJ Montini

Posted on January 7, 2013 4:03 pm by EJ Montini

The only gun reform that will work

Gov. Jan Brewer says that she is willing to consider some form of legislation aimed at curtailing gun violence. Good for her.

The same is true of the federal government.

There no doubt will be a series of suggestions, but there is only one type of gun reform that has a chance to work.

Just one.

It is this: Every gun sale, EVERY ONE, whether from a dealer or from a private owner, must include a background check.

That’s it.

There are other areas of reform that will help in small ways (officers in schools, better mental health screening) but without requiring a background check for every transaction all of those reforms are more about what feels good rather than what actually DOES good.

It is estimated that roughly 40 percent of firearm purchases are made between two private individuals, not licensed gun dealers.

If that is allowed to continue, there is no reasonable way to prevent a mentally ill person from acquiring a weapon.

Or a criminal. Or a terrorist. Or a kid. Or anyone else.

We can close the so-called gun show loophole, which currently allows individuals at gun shows to purchase weapons without background checks when buying from private individuals.

But that wouldn’t prevent people from answering gun-sale ads online or purchasing weapons any number of other ways.

We need a universal background check for every sale.

Would requiring a background check for every single gun sale be a burden for private sellers and private purchasers?

Yes.

Would it prevent people from selling or buying weapons?

No.

A system could be worked out.

Would requiring background checks for every sale prevent all potentially dangerous people from getting weapons?

No.

There will always be those who break the law.

But that is true of every law.

A background check for every sale will make it more difficult for the wrong people to acquire weapons.

That’s the best we can hope for.

It’s the only strategy that has a chance to do good rather than simple make us feel good.

Although, honestly, would any of us feel good about a series of gun violence “reforms” that would still allow 40 percent of weapons sales to go on completely unregulated?

FBI changes focus of firearms training

Source

FBI changes focus of firearms training

By Kevin Johnson USA Today Tue Jan 8, 2013 9:06 PM

QUANTICO, Va. -- The FBI has broken with its long-standing firearms training regimen, putting a new emphasis on close-quarters combat to reflect the overwhelming number of shootings in which suspects are confronting officers at point-blank range.

New training protocols were formally implemented last January after a review of nearly 200 shootings involving FBI agents during a 17-year period. The analysis found that 75 percent of the incidents involved suspects who were within 3 yards of agents when shots were exchanged.

The move represents a dramatic shift for the agency, which for more than three decades has relied on long-range marksmanship training. Apart from the new shooting regimen, agents are also being exposed to technology borrowed from Hollywood.

The technology helps agents apply skills acquired on the shooting range to virtual scenarios involving the pursuit of armed suspects in schools, office buildings, apartment complexes and other potential targets.

The virtual simulation technology, developed by Georgia-based Motion Reality Inc., won a 2005 Academy Award for technical achievement in character animation.

In its law enforcement adaptation, virtual scenarios are fed from computers in agents’ backpacks to viewfinders. This transforms an empty room into virtual worlds where agents are pitted against animated armed suspects — many of them in close-range encounters.

John Wilson, chief of the FBI’s virtual simulation program, says the system is also capable of “negatively rewarding” trainees’ bad decisions by transmitting jolts to their bodies that simulate gunshots.

FBI training instructor Larry “Pogo” Akin, who helps supervise trainees on the live-shooting range, said, “The thing that jumps out at you from the (shooting incident) research is that if we’re not preparing agents to get off three to four rounds at a target between zero and 3 yards, then we’re not preparing them for what is likely to happen in the real world.”

The FBI’s research predates more recent fatal shootings of local law enforcement officers, many of whom were victims of close-range ambush attacks while answering calls for service or serving warrants.

A Justice Department analysis of 63 killings of local police in 2011 found 7percent were ambush or execution-style assaults.

Bud Colonna, chief of the FBI’s Firearms Training Unit, said FBI Director Robert Mueller personally oversaw the live-firearm training changes, meeting with instructors at the bureau’s sprawling training facility here and taking part in the actual shooting drills.

Until last January, the pistol-qualification course required agents to participate in quarterly exercises in which they fired 50 rounds, more than half of them from between 15 and 25 yards. The new course involves 60 rounds, with 40 of those fired from between 3 and 7 yards.

The new live-fire training is separate from the virtual simulation unit, housed in a converted storage room in Quantico since its launch in February. But the missions of both training units underscore the new emphasis on armed confrontations in close quarters.

For now, the simulation system serves to teach agents the proper way to enter and clear rooms in search of potential suspects, confront armed assailants and determine when deadly force is appropriate.

“When you are in these exercises, people forget that these are virtual scenarios,” said Tom McLaughlin, Motion Reality’s chief executive. “The brain believes this is real. We make these to be as close as you would find in the real world.”

The system can build in blueprints and schematics of any known suspect hideout or hostage location.

Once built, the system would allow agents to train before launching operations against suspected targets. Until now, rehearsals for some major operations required the full or partial physical construction of target locations.

Last month, Wilson said, the FBI’s elite Hostage Rescue Team, began using the simulator.

“The possibilities are endless,” Wilson said.

Maricopa County Supervisor Andy Kunasek shakes the county down for $123,000

Source

Kunasek gets $123,000 settlement from Maricopa County

By Michelle Ye Hee Lee The Republic | azcentral.com Tue Jan 15, 2013 10:39 PM

Maricopa County has agreed to pay Board of Supervisors Chairman Andy Kunasek $123,110 in attorneys’ fees and defense costs to settle a claim against the county stemming from failed investigations into county administrators and judges by Sheriff Joe Arpaio and former County Attorney Andrew Thomas.

The payment will come from the county’s self-insured risk trust.

Kunasek put the county on notice in 2010 that he might file a claim, signing an agreement to suspend relevant statutes of limitations and allowing him to sue at any time over the actions of Arpaio and Thomas.

Kunasek said he waited to file his notice of claim because he anticipated being a witness in potential criminal prosecutions of various other county officials. However, federal prosecutors last September announced they had closed their four-year criminal investigation and grand-jury probe without filing charges.

“I didn’t want to have any kind of financial interest out there clouding up my testimony,” Kunasek said.

Kunasek was re-elected in November.

He filed his notice of claim, a precursor to a lawsuit, in December. Kunasek was the last to file a claim tied to those investigations, and the quickest to get a payout approved. Most of the related lawsuits took years to settle. Some continue to linger.

The risk trust fund Board of Trustees approved the settlement last Friday. The trustees can settle claims of up to $200,000 without supervisors’ approval. The county would not immediately release a copy of the settlement, saying it will be released publicly next week.

Kunasek’s claim stems from the so-called government-corruption investigations by Thomas and Arpaio between 2008 and 2010 that targeted county administrators, supervisors and some judges. Ten people targeted in those probes sued the county, and seven of their suits were settled for at least $2.3 million, not including litigation fees.

Included in that sum is Supervisor Mary Rose Wilcox’s $975,000 settlement, which is under dispute in court. It has not been paid and has been accruing interest since June, increasing the pending amount to over $1 million.

Kunasek signed an affidavit saying the former county manager who signed Wilcox’s settlement did not have authority to do so, and voted to appeal her settlement. He has maintained supervisors should recoup only attorneys’ fees, and has said he believes Wilcox’s settlement exceeded her attorneys’ fees.

“I said all along I think everybody that was victimized by these people should have their fees and costs covered,” Kunasek said.

The new county manager, Tom Manos, has authority to settle claims relating to the Thomas and Arpaio abuse-of-power cases, but deferred the handling of Kunasek’s claim to the risk trust fund Board of Trustees.

“To me, especially given that I work for Supervisor Kunasek, to maintain the public trust, I think it was a better option to have a group of citizens (whose) sole purpose is to review and evaluate claims and settle claims within their authority,” Manos said.

Manos said a state statute requiring one county supervisor and the county treasurer to sign off on claims made by county supervisors, such as reimbursements, would apply to Kunasek’s legal claim.

Thomas pursued indictments against Kunasek, among others, but a grand jury refused to indict. Kunasek testified during last year’s State Bar disciplinary hearings against Thomas and two former deputies that he believed he was the third of five supervisors targeted by Thomas in an attempt to jeopardize the Board of Supervisors’ voting quorum. Thomas ultimately was disbarred.

In Kunasek’s notice of claim, criminal-defense attorney David Derickson outlined physical and financial damages to Kunasek and his family.

“Mr. Kunasek was targeted, not because he had committed a criminal act, but because Arpaio, Thomas and their agents believed they could ‘decapitate’ county government by indicting three of the five supervisors or force the board to give financial benefits to their offices,” Derickson wrote. “Despite the existence of significant physical and financial loss to Mr. Kunasek, he is limiting his demand to the actual attorney fees and costs he has incurred in defending himself for the past four years.”

Worlds largest gun show is in Las Vegas

SHOT Gun Show - Shooting, Hunting, Outdoor Trade Show

Their web site is here: www.nssf.org

You can register for the show here: www.shotshow.org and here

Source

Defiance, discretion at Vegas gun show

Justin Berton

Updated 7:26 am, Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Las Vegas -- A month after the elementary school massacre that threatens to change the American gun industry, a group based where that atrocity took place mixed defiance with discretion Tuesday in opening the doors to the world's largest gun show.

More than 60,000 gun dealers, retailers and apparel makers are in Las Vegas this week for the annual Shooting, Hunting, Outdoor Trade Show, hosted by the National Shooting Sports Foundation of Newtown, Conn.

The four-day "SHOT Show" is not for the public - it's for those who sell to the public. With the killings of 20 schoolchildren and seven adults in Newtown prompting the Obama administration to move quickly on proposing changes in federal gun laws, the attitude in Las Vegas this week is a combination of aggressiveness, attention to image and adaptation to a new environment.

"You didn't cause the monstrous crime in Newtown and neither did we," Steve Sanetti, president and CEO of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, told members in opening-night remarks. A new product

On the floor of the Sands Expo and Convention Center, browsers gripped sleek new AR-15 rifles, such as the latest version of the Bushmaster Predator, which has an automatic option and can fire 30 rounds in a few seconds. Retailers showed off new inventions, including the iPhone case that doubles as a stun gun, a woman's bra that can holster a handgun - and a product from a Florida company designed to protect schoolchildren from a killer with a gun.

Unlike in past years, the SHOT Show isn't going out of its way to attract attention. Foundation officials declined interview requests from non-trade outlets and denied credentials to mainstream media a month before the trade show opened. A spokesman said a large media presence would be a distraction for people trying to do business at the show.

Gun control proponents interpreted the silence as an attempt to limit coverage of the convention, where assault weapons are on display and the latest military-style weaponry is geared up to amaze potential clients. Not 'puffed up' now

Josh Sugarmann, executive director of the Violence Policy Center, said industry executives were "puffed up" last year and happy to be interviewed on the convention floor after they reported record sales and estimated the value of the sporting gun industry at $4.1 billion.

"This industry is circling the wagons now," Sugarmann said. "The last thing the industry wants America to see and to think about right now is that these are the very guns the industry is promoting. Most people today would be shocked by what the gun industry has become - primarily marketing military-style weapons because that's the profit center."

Sanetti, the SHOT Show organizer, was among industry leaders who met Thursday with Vice President Joe Biden, who is leading an administration group that will recommend changes in federal gun laws.

On Monday, Sanetti issued a statement saying, "A prerequisite to any dialogue involving our industry and its products is an honest recognition of the legitimacy of what we do and the important part of the national culture we represent. Hunting and the recreational shooting sports are here to stay. And so are we."

The national debate dominated the concerns of conventioneers on the first day of the SHOT Show.

Gregg Thompson, co-owner of Crye Precision of Brooklyn, N.Y., which makes camouflage-pattern apparel including vests and helmets, said foot traffic appeared to be light.

"We are not in a good environment for what we do," said Thompson, whose sales team wore T-shirts that took a dig at the Obama administration: "Freedom Was Awesome 1776-2008."

Thompson added, "We should be looking for the solutions that give us more freedoms, not take them away."

Bad rap for rifle

For others, the trade show was an opportunity to network and try to put a new face on the gun industry.

Chris Cheng, a San Francisco resident and winner of the History Channel's reality marksman competition, "Top Shot," said he hoped to show that competitive shooters come from diverse backgrounds.

Cheng, an Asian American who left a job at Google to pursue his career as a marksman, uses the AR-15 as his primary rifle. It's the same gun that was used by Newtown killer Adam Lanza, which AR-15 fans say has given it a bad rap.

"Not only do thousands of other competitive shooters use the AR-15, but it is also the most popular modern sporting rifle in America," Cheng said. "That's an important piece of information to understand why talk of an 'assault weapons' ban is resonating with many gun owners."

Cheng was mindful of presenting a positive picture of gun owners. He answered questions through e-mail after his responses were vetted by his History Channel sponsors, and he declined to be photographed next to a poster of hunting rifles at the show.

School market

With the gun control debate focusing on the elementary school killings, Mike Hengstebeck was earning a lot of attention at his booth with a new item for schoolteachers called the LAD - Lockdown and Defend.

The $795 device resembles a fire extinguisher when it's not in use. If a teacher hears gunshots, Hengstebeck said, he or she can unfurl a bullet-resistant 2-by-4-foot sheet from LAD. The device also has two doorstops, which can be used to try to bar a gunman from breaking into the classroom.

Hengstebeck said the teacher can also hang the canvas over the window to protect the class or use it as a shield while students huddle behind it.

He said his company, SRT Supply of St. Petersburg, Fla., had just completed the product days before the show started and had already won the attention of local lawmakers.

"Unfortunately, a lot of times the people who get killed in school shootings are in the hallway," Hengstebeck said. "They hear the shots and they go running. With LAD, we're telling them to lock it down and defend themselves to give them a chance."

Justin Berton is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: jberton@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @justinberton

Group launches Sheriff Arpaio recall effort

By JJ Hensley The Republic | azcentral.com Thu Jan 31, 2013 12:56 PM

A political group called Respect Arizona has filed paperwork with the Arizona Secretary of State’s office to launch a campaign to recall Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

Petition Partners, one of the largest petition-circulation companies in Arizona, posted a social-media message earlier in the week stating that Respect Arizona had “$1.3 million dedicated to the recall of Joe Arpaio.”

Respect Arizona will need to collect more than 350,000 valid signatures in the next 120 days to force a recall election, according to the petition gatherers.

Arpaio was elected in November to his sixth consecutive term in office, in one of the closest races he has endured. Arpaio received nearly 680,000 votes to best his closest opponent, former Phoenix police Sgt. Paul Penzone, who finished with nearly 600,000 votes. A third candidate, former Scottsdale police Lt. Mike Stauffer, received about 62,000 votes.

Arpaio filed paperwork last week indicating that he plans to run again in 2016, when he will be 84 years old.

Arpaio’s campaign manager released a statement in response to the recall election questioning why the effort was undertaken months after the election, and calling on the recall campaign to release the names of donors.

The group held a news conference Thursday about the recall effort and organizers were not immediately available for comment. The group’s treasurer has spoken out against Arpaio at County Board of Supervisors meetings in the past, and Randy Parraz, a vocal Arpaio opponent who also participated in an effort to recall former Senate president Russell Pearce returned a phone call to the group’s headquarters.

It will not be the first time Arpaio has faced a recall effort.

The Committee to Recall Arpaio formed in 2005 and disbanded in 2006 without forcing a recall election.

Arizonans for the U.S. Constitution and Recall of Joe Arpaio formed in 2007 and disbanded in 2008, also without forcing a recall election.

-----------------------------------------

The following URL is a response put out by Sheriff Joe on the recall.

www.azcentral.com/ic/pdf/0131arpaio-recall.pdf

I bet those donors can expect a 3 am visit from Sheriff Joe's goons.

Just like when Sheriff Joe's goons paid the owners of the Phoenix New Times a late night visit by armed police thugs driving cars with Mexican license plates.

Arpaio spooked by recall threat of ‘extremists’

EJ Montini

Arpaio spooked by recall threat of ‘extremists’

The same people who ousted former Senate President Russell Pearce from office have filed paper work to recall Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio. First reported by Phoenix New Times, the group calling itself Respect Arizona must collect roughly 350,000 signatures in four months.

It won’t be easy.

But these are determined individuals (the sheriff calls them “radical extremists”) and they have Arpaio spooked.

He’s already sent out a fundraising letter (see it here) seeking donations to fight the effort. [Let's face it politics is all about money and a recall effort is a great excuse to raise more money]

Among other things, Arpaio says, “These sore losers just never stop. They figure if they can force an election in an off-year they’ll be able to turn out every pro-illegal immigrant voter and steal this election. We saw them do the very same thing to an Arizona State Senator just over a year ago.” [Hey, if it works I thinks it's a great idea. Anything to get rid of Sheriff Joe]

How disturbing is it that channeling the political ghost of Russell Pearce might actually bring donations?

“You were such an important part of my victory last year even though we faced insurmountable odds,” ["insurmountable odds??? What BS!!! Sheriff Joe is the most popular politician in Arizona, and probably also the most hated"]

Arpaio tells the folks on what must be his massive campaign e-mail list. “I certainly did not plan on this recall, but I have to ask you again for your support. The fight starts now. Over the next several months I am going to be bombarded with negative attacks and lies. ["Lies??? Sheriff Joe's terrorist acts against Mexicans and Latinos are well documents. And even Sheriff Joe admits them] I must have the necessary resources to defend my record and run a winning campaign.”

The Respect Arizona folks must feel great.

Whether they force a recall election or not they will have managed to distract the sheriff’s attention and put him back in campaign mode until Spring.

That could keep him from doing too many of the things for which they’d like to have him removed from office.

Recall election or not, that’s a win.

Arpaio recall already?

Laurie Roberts

Posted on January 31, 2013 3:37 pm by Laurie Roberts

Arpaio recall already?

Three weeks into a new term and there’s already an effort underway to oust Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

Three weeks and the group that launched the successful recall of Russell Pearce in 2011 is now ready to recall the sheriff.

Arpaio was vulnerable last year. Between his immigration sweeps, his bizarre birther investigation, rogue political probes and sex crimes sitting on a shelf – not to mention a quality candidate in Paul Penzone – it looked as if Arpaio’s fifth term might be his last.

Voters, however, decided otherwise.

So what, in three weeks, has happened that would make those voters want to rethink their selection?

The answer, of course, is nothing.

On this, I agree with Chad Willems, Arapio’s campaign manager.

“Voters will be scratching their heads wondering why a group that calls itself Respect Arizona has no respect whatsoever for voters or the political process,” Willem said in a press release today.

They’ll be doing more than scratching their heads. They’ll be getting out their checkbooks to support our sheriff/showman in chief.

This is not like the Pearce recall, wherein a legislator was elected in a primary by a small percentage of the electorate in his district. Arpaio was elected by a majority of the county’s voters — a slim majority but a majority still. [I have to disagree with Laurie Roberts here. Russel Pearce is an ex-cop who is a police state thug just like Sheriff Joe and they are both law and order terrorists. Both Russell Pearce and Sheriff Joe have a small but vocal minority group of law and order nut jobs who always show up at the polls and vote for them. That's why they get elected over and over. I suspect that over 50 percent of the registered voters dislike both Sheriff Joe and Russell Pearce, but those folks don't show up at the polls, while that minority nut job law and order crowd that loves Pearce and Sheriff Joe always shows up at the polls cause Sheriff Joe and Russell Pearce to win. I suspect if you had an election where ALL the registered voters showed up and voted, both Sheriff Joe and Russell Pearce would lose. But only by a small amount. After all there are a lot of law and order nut jobs out there!!!]

Respect Arizona should have had enough respect for voters to at last wait until Arpaio did something bizarre or outrageous enough to warrant asking voters to rethink their selection. [Huhhh??? Arpaio has been doing nutty, bizarre and outrageous things ever since he was elected 20 years ago. That is a good enough reason for me to want to recall him any time or any place]

Let’s face it, this is Arpaio. The group probably wouldn’t have had to wait all that long.

As it is, beware of backfires, Mr. Parraz – and of acting like the bully you accuse him to be.

Thu, Feb 7 - Medical Marijuana Support Rally at the Arizona Capital

Medical Marijuana Support Rally

Summary of the event

Rep John Kavanagh has introduced legislation in the Arizona House to repeal the Medical Marijuana Act. He cites a flawed study and would have Arizona taxpayers pay for yet another vote on whether or not to allow medical marijuana.

Mr. Kavanagh, the citizens of Arizona have spoken 3 times already. Yes to medical marijuana, yes to allowing Arizona citizens the right to choose an alternative to the legal, harmful pharmaceuticals available.

Medical Marijuana patients, advocates, activists and friends are invited to join in this rally and guided tour of the Arizona House of Representatives.

If you have any questions about the event please contact

Rain Baker
(623)349-0482

Phoenixisnorml@gmail.com

More information on this event

Meet Up

Arizona Weekly Weeder

Camp 420

70 percent of Phoenix's general fund is spent on the police!!!!

That is because the county governments in Arizona are mandated by the state to carry out a large number of government functions that city governments don't do.

Wow!!! 70 percent of Phoenix's general fund is spent on cops or the police!!!!

"70 percent of the city’s general fund is spent on public safety"

Councilman Michael Nowakowski

I think when you consider the total budget as opposed to the general budget the figure is about 40 percent of it. Most city fire departments grab the next 20 percent of the total budget, with all other departments combined grabbing splitting up the final 40 percent of the budget up.

Now considering that two thirds of the people in prison are there for victimless drug war crimes, you could easily tell the police to stop arresting pot smokers and not affect public safety at all!!!!

And of fire a whole bunch of unneeded cops at the same time and save a whole bunch of money.

Of course the war on drugs is a jobs program for cops and the police union would hate that!!!! Even if those jobs are 100 percent unneeded the police union is not going to let them go without a fight!!!

Repeal the stinking sale tax. We don't need those cops!!!

Source

Food-tax repeal may hit Phoenix hard

By Dustin Gardiner The Republic | azcentral.com Fri Feb 1, 2013 10:38 AM

As political pressure builds to repeal Phoenix’s food tax, city officials have outlined several financial obstacles that could complicate such a move.

City Manager David Cavazos this week sent a memo to the mayor and City Council listing major budget constraints to ending the tax, including concerns that it could affect the city’s perfect credit rating or result in a loss of revenue needed to help support police and fire services. [screw the credit rating, I want lower taxes. and it certainly wouldn't hurt to fire a bunch of cops who mainly arrest people for victimless drug war crimes]

The update comes as some council members have renewed calls to repeal the tax this spring, roughly two years before its 2015 sunset. The 2 percent tax on residents’ grocery bills is shaping up to be a contentious point of spring budget negotiations.

Mayor Greg Stanton, who pledged during his 2011 campaign to repeal the tax by April, has been a focus of much of the debate. He has yet to take a definitive position on the issue and could provide the crucial fifth vote needed to abolish the tax early.

“We still have significant challenges,” Stanton said, describing the city’s murky budget picture. “The economy is not bouncing back as quickly as people had hoped.”

He said Cavazos’ memo points out the “stark circumstances” Phoenix faces as it weighs the food-tax repeal: revenue for the current budget year is less than projected. Stanton said he hopes the city can still eliminate or reduce the tax but that he plans to review detailed spending-cut options before making a decision.

Two of the council’s more fiscally conservative members, Jim Waring and Sal DiCiccio, said the city could immediately repeal the tax without affecting public-safety services. DiCiccio has questioned why the city spent tens of millions of dollars on employee raises and bonuses these past few years, costs that are fixed as part of the city’s contracts with unions.

“Delaying the promised repeal of the food tax is the kind of tactic that hurts the middle class and working families,” DiCiccio said. “If the food tax is to be removed by April 1, the public needs time to consider the details of how that will be done without affecting public safety, as promised.”

Council members created the emergency food tax in February 2010 as Phoenix was facing an unprecedented $277 million general-fund shortfall. The tax was proposed as a way to prevent large layoffs of public-safety personnel and keep libraries and senior centers open. [really the expense of libraries and senior centers is insignificant compare to the cops of paying police officers who account for 70 percent of Phoenix's budget] So far, it has generated about $127 million in additional revenue, or about $50million per year.

Although some council members hoped to remove the tax by April, Cavazos’ proposed time line makes that appear unlikely. He plans to present options for cutting the tax on March 26, along with the rest of his trial budget for the next fiscal year, which starts July 1. The council would have months to make a final decision.

City officials said two primary challenges will be maintaining the city’s AAA bond rating and continuing to provide support for public safety.

Phoenix has relied on money from the food tax to help pay for about $30 million in general-fund expenses per year, most of which goes toward public safety and court expenses. On top of that, $8 million goes to help support specialty police and fire funds that have run a negative balance.

“Because 70 percent of the city’s general fund is spent on public safety, I am concerned about how it would be affected by a possible repeal of the tax,” Councilman Michael Nowakowski said recently. “Phoenix’s leaders must consider that and all other consequences in the process.”

A loss in revenue from the food tax could also hurt how credit-rating agencies evaluate Phoenix, Cavazos said. A lower credit rating would require the city to pay higher interest rates when it borrowed money.

Cavazos and city budget staff will spend the next several weeks outlining the council’s specific options, including a budget with recommended service levels and another with cuts to compensate for the loss of the food tax. He said both options will be shown to residents at numerous public meetings.

“I think it’s pretty clear that we have lots of constraints, ” Cavazos said. “We have to work very carefully with our departments and listen very carefully to the public before we can fully identify what those consequences are.”

Gun Grabbing Phoenix Area Mayors

Most of them pretend to support the Second Amendment, and say "I support the 2nd Amendment but ... " and of course the but is followed by a whole bunch of reasons that show they don't support the Second Amendment.

Remember their names, and when you vote throw these tyrants who want to flush the Second Amendment down the toilet out of office.

Source

Valley mayors weigh in on gun reform

By Maria Polletta The Republic | azcentral.com Sat Feb 2, 2013 11:23 PM

Valley mayors have joined the national chorus of officials saying when it comes to gun violence, something has to give.

But there’s no consensus on what that something is.

The mayors, who range from avid hunters and National Rifle Association members to those who have never owned a firearm, have suggested tentative solutions as diverse as their backgrounds.

Some have hesitated to offer any sort of directive, and most have held off on membership in gun-control organizations. Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton for a time was the only Valley representative in the Mayors Against Illegal Guns coalition until Tempe Mayor Mark Mitchell recently joined.

“There’s just a lot of dialogue right now, and it’s hard to bring it all together,” said Gilbert Mayor John Lewis.

Lewis said he prefers to wait and weigh in on specific legislation, such as a 2012 guns-on-campus bill he opposed, rather than sign on to more sweeping efforts.

Mesa Mayor Scott Smith, a former NRA member and a gun owner for most of his life, also worries that acting too quickly on the gun issue would lead to an inadequate or ineffective solution. He said he refuses to “jump on the gun-control bandwagon,” lamenting what he described as the U.S. tendency to seek knee-jerk solutions after major crises.

Still, Smith and other mayors have said they’d support or at least be open to certain measures to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people, in effect limiting firearm privileges to responsible citizens.

Glendale Mayor Jerry Weiers, a hunter, NRA member and gun-safety instructor, said he supports efforts to curtail the spread of illegal guns, for instance. “If it’s an illegal gun, it’s an illegal gun,” he said. “Why wouldn’t everybody support trying to stop (that)?”

Smith also believes the law has a legitimate role in forbidding the willful sale of guns to criminals and forbidding “straw buyers” who would channel weapons inappropriately.

Other mayors, such as Phoenix’s Stanton, have looked to the types and grades of weapons people are allowed to own. President Barack Obama recently unveiled a broad set of proposed gun-control measures that include bans on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.

Stanton has described requiring universal background checks as a “good, commonsense approach.” Checks are not done now on users who purchase firearms at gun shows and through other private sales.

Glendale’s Weiers and Peoria Mayor Bob Barrett have said training is a key component of responsible gun ownership. Weiers argued that gun-safety classes for youngsters make for “better citizens and … less problems.”

Barrett, a gun owner, has opposed legislation to allow guns in schools and city buildings and said training should be required to carry a concealed weapon.

“When you are under stress, when you are under fire … you’re more likely, A, to miss or, B, to hit somebody else,” Barrett said. “The idea of people walking around with concealed weapons and no training is not a good thing.”

Barrett contends that any initiative focused solely on how and which guns are obtained will help little if the country does not start placing a greater emphasis on mental-health care. Changing that, he said, would go further than trying to eliminate extended magazines and military-style weapons.

“What I think we need to do as a society is make mental-health treatment regarded the same way physical-health treatment is,” he said. “There is a sense of shame connected with getting counseling and getting help.”

Chandler Mayor Jay Tibshraeny said that “a lot of these folks that have done this (mass shootings) are seriously mentally disturbed” and mental-health-care funding is a “a factor that I look at on this issue.”

“At the state level, better reporting of mental-health records would be good,” Tibshraeny said. “We’ve got folks that are unstable and applying to get guns. A lot of their health history is on record, and it needs to go into a database that is checked as they’re applying.”

All Valley mayors said they believe a balance between protective measures and Second Amendment rights is vital as the gun-control debate moves forward, especially in Arizona, with the state’s historically pro-gun culture.

“I am a gun owner and a supporter of the Second Amendment,” said Surprise Mayor Sharon Wolcott. “But my right to own and carry a gun does not trump your right to live in a safe and civil society.”

Republic reporters Gary Nelson, Parker Leavitt, Dianna Náñez, Allie Seligman, John Yantis,Jen Kuhney and Paul Giblin contributed to this article.

Mayor's for Knife Control???

How many of these mayors think you should have to pass a Brady Bill test before buying really a sharp steak or cooking knife.

Or perhaps a $200 tax on the purchase of any weapons grade knives which would include steak and cooking knifes.

Or have a two week waiting period before picking up the steak or cooking knife you just purchased.

Or banning minors from using anything but dull table knives.

Source

Stabbed Scottsdale bouncer dies, played ASU football

By By D.S. Woodfill and Paola Boivin Arizona Republic-12 News Breaking News Team Sat Feb 2, 2013 10:24 PM

Those who remembered a former Arizona State University football player who died a week after he was stabbed at Scottsdale nightclub described their friend as a gentle giant.

Tyrice Thompson, a former tight end and wide receiver, passed away surrounded by friends and family at about 8:30 a.m. Saturday at Scottsdale Healthcare Osborn Medical Center.

Thompson, a 27-year-old former tight end and receiver for ASU from 2003 to 2007, was working as a bouncer at Martini Ranch in Scottsdale at 1 a.m. on Jan. 27 when a scuffle started between patrons, police said.

Although details of the investigation are still not clear, police said at some point during the scuffle, someone stabbed Thompson 5 times in the back hip and arm.

In a statement released Saturday, Martini Ranch said Thompson had become a member of the family who had a “remarkable ability to connect with people and will always be remembered for his warm smile, sense of humor and positive attitude.”

The business has created a Facebook page to help raise money for his loved ones. That can be found at https://www.facebook.com/remembertyrice

It was sadly ironic way for such a good-natured person to die, said Marques Elliott, a friend of Thompson’s since college.

“He always was a very calm, kind individual,” Elliott said. “He’s always been extremely humble, soft spoken (and) has always had a very clear head on his shoulders. (He was) a very good human being.”

Doug Yazzie, a close friend Thompson who was with his family when he passed away, said Thompson was a kind and positive man.

“He could fill any room with light,” Yazzie said.

Yazzi, who said he is the godfather to Thompson’s 2-year-old son Takai, would likely have forgiven his attacker.

“He didn’t have an angry bone in his body,” he said.

Dennis Erickson, Thompson’s coach during his senior year of school, was heartbroken over the death of his former player.

“He was an unbelievable guy, so coachable,” Erickson said. “Everything we asked, he did. It's so sad.”

Police reported that no one at the bar the night of the attack, including employees, identified who stabbed Thompson and no knife was found at the scene.

Police on Tuesday arrested, but then released pending further investigation, a 26-year-old Tempe resident Ian MacDonald.

“During interviews, Mr. MacDonald admitted to fighting with the bouncers, but denied stabbing Mr. Thompson,” a police statement said.

“Police have questioned all those we believe were witnesses or involved in the incident,” said Sgt. Mark Clark in a statement. “MacDonald remains the sole suspect at this time.”

“We are waiting for lab results to forward charges to the MCAO,” he added.

Thompson, a Laveen resident, played with 13 games his senior year as a Sun Devil, catching 15 passes for 272 yards. He was a key special teams player his final two seasons at Arizona State.

Thompson was signed as an undrafted free agent by the Indianapolis Colts, but did not play an NFL game.

Stan Ogwel mentored Thompson, who was a sophomore at South Mountain High School in Phoenix, as part of public service work he performed with his ASU fraternity.

Ogwel said Thompson was alert before he died, but unable to talk because he was on a respirator.

“I held his hands and prayed with him,” he said. “ I was able to at least spend about 10 minutes with him in the room.”

ASU Associate Athletic Director Mark Brand released a statement that said “the Thompson family is in the thoughts of everyone in the Sun Devil Athletics family.”

“The words of his teammates, our fans and media who came in contact with him are true measures of how much his smile was appreciated,” the statement said.

The Associated Press contributed to this article.

Obama loves HIS guns????

Like Obama, most government rulers love guns. They love guns, because guns allow them to stay in power. Ask Hitler, Stalin and Mao if they loved guns and they will all say yes.

The only people that rulers like Obama, Hitler, Stalin and Mao don't want to have guns are the serfs they rule over.

Source

White House photo shows Obama firing shotgun

By Zachary A. Goldfarb and Howard Schneider, Published: February 2

On his 51st birthday last August, President Obama hit the links with a group of buddies and then flew by helicopter to Camp David. There, he changed into jeans and picked up a shotgun. And then, before it got too dark, he started a round of clay target shooting.

You’d be forgiven if you didn’t think this was headline-worthy news. But on Saturday morning, the White House released and promoted a photograph of Obama shooting skeet at the presidential retreat in Maryland.

White House aides were trying to end a growing distraction just as the president plans to make a fresh push to rally public support behind his ambitious agenda to tighten gun laws, traveling to Minnesota on Monday.

The photo, taken by White House photographer Pete Souza, depicts a sunglasses-wearing Obama firing what appears to be a Browning Citori 725, the shotgun wedged against his left shoulder, a pillow of white smoke emerging from the barrel.

The photo was published a week after Obama claimed in an interview with the New Republic that he routinely shoots skeet at Camp David. The surprising assertion — Obama’s golfing and basketball hobbies are far better known — instantly stirred the political zeitgeist.

Jay Carney, Obama’s press secretary, was asked for evidence in the White House briefing room. “The Daily Show’s” Jon Stewart poked fun at the president’s apparent hobby. Gun-rights activists dismissed it, and some were skeptical that Obama was a routine skeet shooter.

A Republican congresswoman even challenged the president to a shooting contest.

“I’m sure they released the photo because there were folks raising questions about his answer, and those questions are a silly distraction in the midst of a serious debate,” David Axelrod, a longtime adviser to Obama, said in an e-mail.

“I know him pretty well. He doesn’t embellish,” Axelrod added. “If he says he’s done some shooting up there on occasion, I’m sure he has. He’s not a hunter or marksman and doesn’t pretend to be.”

The White House did not say how often Obama has gone shooting.

In the interview with the New Republic, Obama was asked if he had ever shot a gun.

“Yes, in fact, up at Camp David, we do skeet shooting all the time,” he said.

Asked if his whole family goes shooting, Obama replied: “Not the girls, but oftentimes guests of mine go up there. And I have a profound respect for the traditions of hunting that trace back in this country for generations. And I think those who dismiss that out of hand make a big mistake.”

But while the White House made clear Saturday that the president has shot skeet at least once, the release of the photo seemed more likely to inflame passions around the issue than douse them.

Current and former advisers to Obama compared skeptics of Obama’s skeet-shooting prowess to a group of conservatives, known as birthers, who cast doubt on whether Obama was born in the United States and kept exerting pressure until the president released a long-form birth certificate showing he was born in Hawaii.

“Attn skeet birthers. Make our day — let the photoshop conspiracies begin!” David Plouffe, Obama’s senior adviser until last week, wrote on Twitter early Saturday. Later in the day, he wrote, “Day made. The skeet birthers are out in full force in response to POTUS pic. Makes for most excellent, delusional reading.”

Dan Pfeiffer, Obama’s senior adviser, coined a term for those who didn’t believe Obama had gone shooting: “skeeters.”

On the other side, Obama’s critics in the gun-rights community were not impressed by the photo.

“One picture does not erase a lifetime of supporting every gun ban and every gun-control scheme imaginable,” said Andrew Arulanandam, a spokesman for the National Rifle Association.

Ladd Everitt, a spokesman for the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, regarded the whole episode as a sideshow.

“If that’s something the president enjoys doing, God bless him,” he said. “I’m no more offended by this photo than by one showing him throwing a Frisbee.”

The White House would not confirm what firearm Obama used. But gun dealers and enthusiasts said that from the picture, it appeared to be a Browning Citori, a model popular among those involved in the sport.

The “over and under” design features two barrels, one on top of the other, allowing the gun to hold and fire two shotgun shells.

The smoke in the photo is emanating from air vents in the barrel, a feature known as “porting” that reduces recoil shock and allows for steadier aim.

Gun dealers said the shotgun appeared to be a stock model of the Browning, which retails for $2,000 to $3,000. According to the Browning Web site, some of the Citori models are made in a left-handed version, with a slight bend near the butt — though it was not apparent from the photo whether the left-handed president was using one of those.

“It looked like he was shooting regular American skeet,” said Michael Hampton Jr., head of the National Sporting Clays Association. “It’s a gun that is used for this discipline — a good middle-of-the-road gun, very functional and very standard.”

The sport originated early in the 20th century when hunters were looking for ways to practice and improve their marksmanship.

Over time, the activity developed as a sport of its own. There are several variations, all involving a shooter attempting to down a roughly three-ounce clay disk that has been launched from a spring-loaded machine.

In skeet shooting — the activity the White House said Obama was pursuing at Camp David — the clay targets are launched at different heights and travel across the shooter’s field of vision.

Hampton said that even novices can get quick satisfaction. In a 100-target session, he said even beginners will hit 25 or 30 targets and quickly develop 50-50 proficiency.

Supreme Court to hear fight over taking DNA from arrested people

The Fifth Amendment says:

nor shall [any person] be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Sadly I suspect the same thing will happen with DNA tests.

Source

Supreme Court to hear fight over taking DNA from arrested people

Supreme Court to hear DNA challenge

By David G. Savage, Washington Bureau

February 2, 2013, 10:12 p.m.

WASHINGTON — On a cold February night three years ago, police in suburban Arlington, Va., received a frantic call. A young woman said her roommate had been abducted at gunpoint by a short, clean-shaven man who sped away in a silver SUV.

At dawn, a motorist spotted the victim in a snowy field near a highway, raped and strangled, but alive. An alert officer, hearing the lookout report, recalled that he'd jotted down the license tag of a silver Dodge Durango whose driver lurked near bars at midnight, leading to the quick arrest of a short, clean-shaven Marine named Jorge Torrez.

Ten years ago, Virginia became the first state to require, upon arrest for a serious crime, a mouth swab for DNA. The sample from Torrez, sent to a state crime lab and entered into the FBI's DNA database, confirmed he was the rapist. A few weeks later a DNA match also led to charges against him in the rape and murder of two girls, ages 8 and 9, in Zion, Ill., where Torrez had gone to high school. Jerry Hobbs, the father of one of the girls, had been in prison for the crimes.

This month, the U.S. Supreme Court will take up a privacy rights challenge to taking DNA from people who are arrested. The case could either end the practice or make it the norm nationwide.

Arlington County Deputy Police Chief Daniel Murray says the Torrez case shows the value of taking DNA when someone is arrested for a serious crime. "It's extremely important to quickly identify someone who would be a danger to society if he were on the loose," he said. And in this instance, he said, the DNA match freed an innocent man.

Nationwide, DNA samples are taken from people who are convicted of violent crimes.

Going further, the federal government and 28 states, including California, Illinois and Florida, now take DNA samples from some or all who are arrested but not yet convicted of serious crimes. Besides taking fingerprints, the standard jail booking now often includes taking a DNA swab, which prosecutors say is as simple and painless as brushing your teeth.

Last month, President Obama signed into law the Katie Sepich Enhanced DNA Collection Act, which will help pay the start-up costs for other states to begin testing people who are arrested.

"The whole purpose of this is to find serial rapists and murderers and to get them early to save innocent lives," said Jayann Sepich, a New Mexico mother whose daughter Katie was raped and murdered. Her attacker was arrested several times, but he was not identified until he was convicted of another crime and his DNA was taken.

California prosecutors say arrests for nonviolent crimes, including drug offenses, credit card fraud and burglary, have led them to rapists and murderers, thanks to DNA tests.

But the constitutionality of taking DNA upon arrest remains in doubt, particularly when it is not needed to identify the suspect. For example, police do not need DNA to identify someone who is caught with drugs or breaking into a house.

A state appeals court in San Francisco and a federal judge in Sacramento ruled it was unconstitutional to require a DNA sample from someone who had been arrested but not convicted. The California Supreme Court and the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals have put the issue on hold pending a ruling from U.S. Supreme Court.

The justices will hear the case of Maryland vs. King to decide whether requiring DNA from someone taken into custody but not convicted is an "unreasonable search" forbidden by the 4th Amendment.

In 2009, Alonzo King from Salisbury, Md., was arrested for waving a shotgun in a threatening manner. That was a felony charge, calling for a DNA test. He later pleaded guilty to a lesser charge for which no DNA test was required. But the DNA sample taken upon arrest pointed to him as the man who had broken into a house and raped a woman six years earlier. King was convicted and given a life term.

But Maryland's high court threw out his conviction and ruled police may not take DNA without a search warrant and some reason to believe the suspect had committed another offense. "DNA samples contain a massive amount of deeply personal information," far more than a fingerprint, the state judges said.

Civil liberties advocates have urged the court to hold the line and to bar DNA searches until someone has been convicted.

"This could be an unprecedented expansion of search power. The rule has been the government has to have a specific suspicion before they search," said Erin Murphy, a DNA law expert at New York University. "If you are arrested for a drug crime, that doesn't mean the police can walk into your house looking for evidence of other crimes."

But victims rights groups, the Obama administration and the top state attorneys from California and 48 other states have urged the court to rule that routine DNA testing upon arrest is reasonable and constitutional. They say the mouth swab is a minor invasion of privacy at most and that it has an extraordinary potential for solving heinous crimes.

david.savage@latimes.com

Nude photos of Tucson cop Lt. Diana Lopez

I wonder when these cops ever have time to hunt down real criminals.

Now I said real criminals, and I meant real criminals, not busting harmless pot smokers and other victimless drug war criminals which account for two thirds of the people the police send to prison.

I don't have a problem if Tucson cop Lt. Diana Lopez wants to shoot naked photos of her self and send them to her co-workers, but maybe she should limit these activities to her off time and not do it at work.

And the same for here boyfriend cop. I don't have a problem if he and his buddies look at naked pictures of Lt. Diana Lopez, but they shouldn't be doing it at work.

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Tucson policewoman demoted after explicit videos

Associated Press Mon Feb 4, 2013 7:47 PM

TUCSON — A Tucson police lieutenant has been demoted after allegedly taking sexually explicit photos and videos of herself wearing her police uniform.

Police said Monday that Lt. Diana Lopez used her personal cellphone to send videos and photos to a subordinate officer with whom she was in a relationship. They say Lopez was reduced to the rank of sergeant following an investigation that began last August.

The Arizona Daily Star (http://bit.ly/WMXjxM ) says anonymous letters sent to the police department about Lopez prompted the probe.

A police report says Lopez’s boyfriend apparently showed the videos and photos to other officers from May 2011 through August 2011.

Police say Lopez violated several department regulations, code of ethics and professional standards. They say a recommendation was made to reduce her in rank.

Source

Tucson policewoman demoted over sexually explicit photos, video

Carmen Duarte Arizona Daily Star

A Tucson police lieutenant was demoted after officials said she took sexually explicit videos and sexually provocative photos of herself wearing her police uniform and sent them to a subordinate officer with whom she was in a relationship, department officials said Monday.

Lt. Diana Lopez, a former public information officer for the department, was reduced to the rank of sergeant following an investigation that began in August 2012. Anonymous letters sent to the department about Lopez prompted the probe, according to a report that was released Monday.

The department did find that Lopez took sexually explicit videos and at least one provocative photo where she was wearing a Tucson police uniform shirt. She sent those images and videos using her personal cell phone to the subordinate officer.

That officer then apparently showed the videos and photos to other TPD officers, the report said. This happened between May 2011 through August 2011, the report said.

Lopez violated several department regulations, code of ethics and professional standards and a recommendation was made to reduce her in rank from lieutenant to sergeant, the report said.

"Justice Dept justifies killing Americans if they pose ‘imminent threat

Of course you have to remember that MSNBC reports the news as objectively and unbiased as the FOX network reports it so you have to take that with a grain of salt.

Here is a link to the 16 page document is titled “Lawfulness of a Lethal Operation Directed Against a U.S. Citizen Who Is a Senior Operational Leader of al-Qaeda or An Associated Force.” which was released by NBC. [http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/msnbc/sections/news/020413_DOJ_White_Paper.pdf ]

Source

Justice Dept. document justifies killing Americans overseas if they pose ‘imminent threat’

By Karen DeYoung, Published: February 4

The United States can lawfully kill a U.S. citizen overseas if it determines the target is a “senior, operational leader” of al-Qaeda or an associated group and poses an imminent threat to the United States, according to a Justice Department document published late Monday by NBC News. [http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/msnbc/sections/news/020413_DOJ_White_Paper.pdf ]

The document defines “imminent threat” expansively, saying it does not have to be based on intelligence about a specific attack since such actions are being “continually” planned by al-Qaeda. “In this context,” it says, “imminence must incorporate considerations of the relevant window of opportunity” as well as possible collateral damage to civilians.

Guiding the evolving U.S. counterterrorism policies: White House counterterrorism adviser John O. Brennan is compiling a “playbook” that will lay out the administration’s evolving procedures for the targeted killings that have come to define its fight against al-Qaeda and its affiliates.

The memos outline the case for the targeted killing of U.S. citizens in counterterror operations overseas.

It says that such determinations can be made by an “informed, high-level official of the U.S. government.”

NBC said the document was provided by the Obama administration last summer to members of the Senate Intelligence and Judiciary committees as a summary of a classified memo on targeted killings of U.S. citizens prepared by the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel.

The memo was written months prior to a September 2011 drone strike in Yemen that killed Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S.-born Muslim cleric accused of helping al-Qaeda’s Yemeni affiliate plan attacks against the United States. Three other Americans, including Awlaki’s 16-year-old son, have also been killed in U.S. strikes in Yemen.

The Obama administration, in decisions upheld in federal court rulings, has repeatedly denied demands by lawmakers, civil rights groups and the media to release the memo and other information on targeted killings — or even to acknowledge their existence. Senators are expected to closely question John O. Brennan, President Obama’s chief counterterrorism adviser, on drone strikes, the memo and the Awlaki killing during Brennan’s confirmation hearing Thursday on his nomination to become Obama’s new CIA director.

Justice officials could not be reached for comment on the document, which NBC posted on its Web site. The 16-page document is titled “Lawfulness of a Lethal Operation Directed Against a U.S. Citizen Who Is a Senior Operational Leader of al-Qaeda or An Associated Force.”

In announcing Awlaki’s death, Obama described him as the leader of “external affairs” of Yemen-based al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

The American Civil Liberties Union on Monday night called the document a “profoundly disturbing” summary of “a stunning overreach of executive authority — the claimed power to declare Americans a threat and kill them far from a recognized battlefield and without any judicial involvement before or after the fact.”

The ACLU sought the original Justice Department memo as part of a case dismissed last month by a federal judge in New York. Last Friday, the ACLU filed a notice of appeal in that case.

“Needless to say, the white paper is not a substitute for the legal memo. But it’s a pretty remarkable document,” ACLU Deputy Legal Director Jameel Jaffer said. [http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/msnbc/sections/news/020413_DOJ_White_Paper.pdf ]

Source

Justice Department memo: Drone strikes on U.S. citizens can be legal

By Cheryl K. Chumley

The Washington Times

Tuesday, February 5, 2013

The U.S. Justice Department finds it legal to target American citizens with drone strikes under certain circumstances, according to a memo that just surfaced.

The undated memo, titled “Lawfulness of a Lethal Operation Directed Against a U.S. Citizen who is a Senior Operation Leader of al Qaeda or An Associated Force,” was obtained by NBC News. The memo defines as legal drone attacks on U.S. citizens who were involved in violent attacks, according to United Press International. [ The memo can be viewed here http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/msnbc/sections/news/020413_DOJ_White_Paper.pdf ]

Specifically, the memo states: “The condition that an operational leader present an ‘imminent’ threat of violent attack against the United States does not require the United States to have clear evidence that a specific attack on U.S. persons and interests will take place in the immediate future,” according to UPI. Citizens who present such “imminent threats” were defined as those who participated in violent acts — and maintained the views that led to their violent acts, according to UPI.

In those instances, a fatal drone attack would be considered a “legitimate act of national self-defense that would not violate the assassination ban,” according to the memo.

The memo was distributed to various members of Senate and House intelligence committees.

Source

Drone strikes on Americans on U.S. soil are LEGAL, says confidential Justice Department memo

By Damian Ghigliotty

PUBLISHED: 23:58 EST, 4 February 2013

The U.S. government can order the killing of American citizens if they are believed to be ‘senior operational leaders’ of the Islamic terrorist organization Al Qaeda or ‘an associated force,’ according to a confidential Justice Department memo leaked on Monday.

The U.S. government can do so even if there is no clear evidence that the American targeted is engaged in an active plot to attack the U.S.

The news was first reported by NBC’s Open Channel, which obtained a copy of the 16-page document and released it to the public.

The undated memo, which is not an official legal document, sheds new light on the reasoning behind a reported increase in the number of drone strikes used against Al Qaeda suspects in recent years -- including those aimed at American citizens -- under the Obama administration.

The memo, ‘Lawfulness of a Lethal Operation Directed Against a U.S. Citizen who is a Senior Operational Leader of Al Qa’ida or An Associated Force,’ was reportedly provided to members of the Senate Intelligence and Judiciary committees in June by unnamed administration officials.

It was provided on the condition that authorities keep the memo confidential and not discuss its contents publicly, according to NBC.

‘The condition that an operational leader present an “imminent” threat of violent attack against the United States does not require the United States to have clear evidence that a specific attack on U.S. persons and interests will take place in the immediate future,’ the memo states.

Insight: The document sheds new light on the legal reasoning behind a reported increase in the number of drone strikes used against al-Qaida suspects in recent years, including those aimed at American citizens

Insight: The document sheds new light on the legal reasoning behind a reported increase in the number of drone strikes used against al-Qaida suspects in recent years, including those aimed at American citizens

The Justice Department told MailOnline that it would not comment on the news.

The Obama administration has remained relatively hush about reports of increased drone strikes carried out since 2008.

The Long War Journal reports that the U.S. has been conducting a covert program to target and kill Al Qaeda and Taliban commanders in Pakistan's northwest region.

‘The US ramped up the number of strikes in July 2008, and has continued to regularly hit at Taliban and Al Qaeda targets inside Pakistan,’ the non-profit news outlet writes.

‘There have been 332 strikes total since the program began in 2004; 322 of those strikes have taken place since January 2008.’

The New York Times reported in November that the Obama administration had been mapping out a strategy weeks before the presidential election to develop definitive rules for the targeted killing of terrorists by drones, so that a new president would ‘inherit clear standards and procedures’ if Obama was not re-elected.

The secrecy surrounding such strikes may soon be unraveled, as indicated by the release of the 16-page Justice Department memo.

Proponent: John Brennan, Obama's pick for CIA director, has called drone strikes 'consistent with our inherent right of national self-defense'

John Brennan, a White House counter-terrorism adviser, one of the leading architects behind the government’s drone policy and Obama’s pick to become the country’s new CIA director, is expected to face tough questions about his involvement in Obama’s drone program during his Senate confirmation hearing on Thursday.

Brennan was the first administration official to formally acknowledge drone strikes in a speech he gave at the Woodrow Wilson Center in April 2012, calling drone strikes ‘consistent with our inherent right of national self-defense.’

A bipartisan group of 11 senators wrote a letter to Obama on Monday asking his administration to provide its legal justification for its use of drone strikes over the past four years.

‘We ask that you direct the Justice Department to provide Congress, specifically the Judiciary and Intelligence Committees, with any and all legal opinions that lay out the executive branch's official understanding of the President's authority to deliberately kill American citizens,’ the senators lead by Democrat Ron Wyden of Oregon wrote in their letter.

Political blogger Marcy Wheeler, who says she has closely tracked the group’s repeated requests, writes that it was at least the 12th time Congress had asked for those documents.

Among the overseas attacks that have killed U.S. citizens with terrorist ties on Obama's watch, a September 2011 missile strike in Yemen took out alleged Al Qaeda members Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan.

Both men were U.S. citizens who had never been indicted by the U.S. government or charged with any specific crimes.

Read the full Justice Department white paper released on Monday night here. [http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/msnbc/sections/news/020413_DOJ_White_Paper.pdf ]

Papers Please - 27 arrested in false-ID probe at Tempe business

Source

27 arrested in false-ID probe at Tempe business

By Danielle Grobmeier The Arizona Republic-12 News Breaking News Team Fri Feb 8, 2013 4:51 PM

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio said his deputies arrested 27 people at a Tempe business where investigators suspect employees were working under false identities.

Arpaio announced the arrests on Twitter at about 2 p.m., shortly after officials said they would serve search warrants at Sportex Apparel in the 2000 block of West 4th St.

The operation followed a seven-month investigation that resulted in 23 people arrested on suspicions ID theft and being in the country illegally, as well as four others for outstanding arrest warrants, officials later confirmed.

The investigation began after a caller reported the company was hiring unauthorized workers.

Source

MCSO arrests 27 workers at Tempe apparel company

Posted: Friday, February 8, 2013 7:19 pm

Associated Press

Maricopa County sheriff's deputies have raided a Tempe company and arrested 27 employees.

Sheriff's officials say 23 workers at Sportex Apparel were taken into custody Friday afternoon on suspicion of identity theft and being in the country illegally.

They say four other employees were arrested on outstanding criminal warrants.

Search warrants were served at the company after sheriff's officials were alerted that unauthorized workers were employed by Sportex Apparel.

Sportex Apparel officials didn't immediately return calls Friday on the raid and the employee arrests.

Sheriff Joe Arpaio says it was his office's 71st false identification operation.

Arpaio recall campaign to restore Arizona's good name

Arpaio recall campaign to restore Arizona's good name

By William James Fisher Mon Feb 11, 2013 7:29 AM

As chairman of the Respect Arizona campaign to recall Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, here’s my response to the Feb. 3 Arizona Republic editorial, “No need for new vote on Arpaio”:

1. Respect Arizona is a grassroots organization of Republicans, Democrats, Anglos, Lations, African-Americans, business owners and workers who are fed up with our sheriff and the mismanagement of his office. We are not extremists. We are not radicals. We are funded by mostly small donations. So far we have raised a little less than $100,000 (not the $1.3 million reported in the editorial).

2. State law allows for a recall election if enough signatures can be mustered by voters. We believe there are enough disgruntled voters to have such a recall election. If we are wrong, we will be stuck with Joe.

3. Joe Arpaio was, in fact, elected (but only by a small margin). To that, there is no doubt. A recall election will allow voters to be much more cognizant of the issues surrounding the Sheriff’s Office. They won’t be distracted by a national election. Most likely there will be only two candidates in a recall election. Both candidates will have to debate each other to win.

Arpaio’s record would come to light in a much more dramatic manner through a recall. The voters will know about the millions of dollars Joe Arpaio has cost this state in lawsuits caused by his antics. They will become much more aware of the accusations of malfeasance, intimidation, incompetence and downright corruption committed by Arpaio.

The voters will learn exactly where Arpaio’s funding is coming from. In this election, all votes will be counted.

4. Respect Arizona is aware of the cost to hold a recall election. However, when you take the cost to hold an election against what will be lost in needless lawsuits and the cost of mismanagement from a continuing Arpaio administration, the amount is well worth it.

A recall is our right, assuming we get enough valid signatures. A recall election will bring back new respect for the Arizona voter and in Arizona as a state. Hopefully, we will cease to be the laughing stock of the rest of the nation and the world. That, my fellow Arizonans, is what this campaign is about.

William James Fisher, an attorney, is chairman of Respect Arizona.

Cops over react to trivial comments as they always do.

Police take precautions for trivial Dobson HS bomb threat

But don't think of it as a waste of our tax dollars. I am sure the cops who do this view it as a jobs program to justify the high pay they receive.

And of course H. L. Mencken had it nailed perfectly with his comment:

"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."

Incidents like Dobson HS bomb threat force schools, police to take extra precautions

Posted: Saturday, February 9, 2013 8:12 am

By Michelle Reese, Tribune

Just one day after schools in Tempe were put into lockdown, Mesa’s Dobson High School was partially evacuated Friday following a bomb threat.

School and police officials said they collaborate to determine when to ask school principals and teachers to lock their doors and keep students away from potential harm.

“We work together with the schools to try to determine, for the safety of the students and staff, when it would be best to lockdown a school, depending on the situation,” said Mesa Police’s Det. Steve Berry.

Friday’s lockdown of Dobson High was prompted after a student made a comment about a bomb during class, Berry said. It was heard by students and his teacher, who contacted the school resource officer — a licensed Mesa Police officer — who was on campus.

“The boy was detained. The wheels were set in motion to make sure this was not a credible threat,” Berry said. “Once he realized he was going to be taken serious, that this was not a joke, he tried to recant. That’s not going to stop us from moving forward to assure everything is safe.”

After students were evacuated from parts of the school — and other parts were put on lockdown — police determined it was safe to return to class.

Since December’s tragic shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., East Valley school officials say they are fielding more calls and questions from parents about safety.

“Since December, many people are on heightened alert mode,” Tempe Elementary School District spokesperson Monica Allread said. “Parents want to know anything that happens at the school that’s out of the ordinary. We’re working hard to make sure they know that.”

Mesa Unified School District spokesperson Helen Hollands said there are a few reasons for lockdowns in a school.

“There are lockdowns that happen because of an external incident. That would be if police are dealing with a suspect in an area. Those are always called by the law enforcement agency,” she said. “The other would be if we go into a lockdown for a campus related or internal reason. Most of the time, it’s a collaboration between the school district and the police or law enforcement agency to decide if it’s appropriate to go into lockdown.”

A school principal may also put a school in lockdown if there is an active situation, she said.

“If the event is active and there is an immediate threat or danger, the site administrator would call the lockdown immediately and then notify police,” she said.

After the Sandy Hook shooting, the Mesa school district decided to move up plans to do a campus-by-campus safety analysis. The Mesa school district governing board will hear that report Tuesday during a work study session that begins after an executive session at 5 p.m.

“That will look at what we need to do to make our sites physically more safe for students and staff,” Hollands said.

The district is also looking at the policies, procedures, practices and protocol that are used on campuses.

“That’s underway right now. That will be a report that could change protocol. Sometimes it’s helping to close a gap between practice and protocol,” she said.

Tempe’s Allread said during the last two school years, she sent out three letters each year notifying parents that a lockdown took place. This year, including Thursday’s incident, she has already sent out five.

A handful of schools in Tempe were put on lockdown while police searched an area for a suspect from a road rage incident.

Mesa didn’t have a count of the number of lockdowns used so far this school year as of press time.

Allread said the Tempe Elementary School District looked at its safety and security measures last summer.

“But we’re always looking a safety and security and certainly after what happened in December, we took a look at what they had in place and tried to learn any lessons we could,” she said.

The 16-year-old student detained by police could face charges, Mesa Police’s Berry said. The student could also face punishment from the district, from a short suspension to expulsion, depending on the circumstances, Hollands said.

“At this point, without having any due process evaluation, I couldn’t say where within this guideline it would fall. It has a range, because you need to take into account all the mitigating circumstances,” she said.

Contact writer: (480) 898-6549 or mreese@evtrib.com

A serial killer speaks out against the death penalty

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Ex-Virginia executioner becomes opponent of death penalty

By Justin Jouvenal, Published: February 10

Jerry Givens executed 62 people.

His routine and conviction never wavered. He’d shave the person’s head, lay his hand on the bald pate and ask for God’s forgiveness for the condemned. Then, he would strap the person into Virginia’s electric chair.

Former executioner opposes death penalty: Jerry Givens executed 62 people in Virginia’s electric chair. Since leaving his job he has become one of the state’s most visible — and unlikely — opponents to capital punishment.

Givens was the state’s chief executioner for 17 years — at a time when the commonwealth put more people to death than any state besides Texas.

“If you knew going out there that raping and killing someone had the consequence of the death penalty, then why are you going to do it?” Givens asked. “I considered it suicide.”

As Virginia executed its 110th person in the modern era last month, Givens prayed for the man, but also for an end to the death penalty. Since leaving his job in 1999, Givens has become one of the state’s most visible — and unlikely — opponents of capital punishment.

His evolution underscores that of Virginia itself and the nation. Although polls show that the majority of state residents still support the death penalty, Virginia has experienced a sea change on capital punishment in recent years that is part of a national trend.

The state has had fewer death sentences over the past five years than any period since the 1970s. Robert Gleason, who was put to death Jan. 16, was the first execution in a year and a half. As recently as 1999, the state put 13 to death in a single year.

Nationwide, the number of death sentences was at record lows in 2011 and 2012, down 75 percent since 1996, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Five states have outlawed capital punishment in the past five years, and Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) affirmed plans to push for a moratorium there. Gallup polls show support for capital punishment ebbing.

Givens’s improbable journey to the death chamber and back did not come easily or quickly for the 60-year-old from Richmond. A searing murder spurred his interest in the work, but it was the innocent life he nearly took that led him to question the system. And he was changed for good when he found himself behind bars.

His story helps explain how a state closely associated with the death penalty for decades has entered a new era.

“From the 62 lives I took, I learned a lot,” Givens said.

The first execution

Friends and strangers regularly ask Givens the essential question: What is it like to take another man’s life? In answering, he vividly recalls his first execution, in 1984.

That it involved one of America’s most notorious killers helped solidify Givens’s feelings then that the death penalty was just.

Linwood Briley was one of three brothers in a gang responsible for one of the bloodiest murder sprees — and death row escapes — in state history.

The day before Briley’s execution, Givens said, the death row team began a standard 24-hour vigil, monitoring Briley at the now-shuttered Virginia State Penitentiary in Richmond. The goal, as Givens put it, was to keep the condemned from killing himself before the state could. [Wow, those government folks will do anything to get their bloodthirsty wish of killing people they consider scum]

Nevertheless, the first execution took a toll. Givens said the most difficult part of that execution — or any other — was something he called the “transformation.”

Givens worked as a prison guard “saving lives” most of the time, as he put it, but when he took on the role of executioner, he had to become a killer.

Before Briley was put to death, he asked to be baptized, Givens said. The death team took him to the penitentiary’s chapel, and Givens prayed alongside the man whose life he would soon end.

Find Virginia executions from 1982 to present by year, method of execution and by the victims’ names.

“We don’t know our day and time, but these guys do,” Givens said of death row inmates. “They can repent. This is the advantage they have.”

The team moved Briley to the death chamber, and he was strapped in the electric chair. Givens took up a position along a wall outside, where the button was located. He could see Briley’s back through a small window.

At these moments, Givens said, he would empty his mind to avoid fear, insecurities or regret. He was solely focused on the grisly mechanics of electrocution.

“You are concentrating on the body itself,” he said. “With that much electricity, you are going to get burning and smoke. You want to make sure the current is right.”

At 11 p.m. Oct. 12, 1984, Givens pushed the button. He saw Briley’s body spasm through the window. And then it was over. He had taken his first life.

Inevitably, Givens said the emotion of an execution would come flooding back.

“You are not going to feel happy,” Givens said. “You feel for the condemned man’s family and the victim’s family. You have two sets of families that are losing someone.”

The chamber and back

Givens grew up in the Creighton Court housing complex in Richmond, where he also graduated from high school in the early 1970s. By 1974, he had gotten a job at a Philip Morris plant and then lost it after fighting with a co-worker.

He recalled someone telling him that he should apply for a job at the state penitentiary before he got sent there. Givens did just that.

After two years as a prison guard, he said, a supervisor approached him about working on death row. He would not be paid extra, but he accepted the job. The deciding factor, he said, was an event that marked him early in life.

When he was 14, Givens said, he was at a house party in Creighton Court. He spied a girl next to a window, and as he was trying to get up the confidence to ask her to dance, a gunman burst up a flight of stairs.

The man was looking for someone at the party, but he fired randomly and killed the girl.

Givens was furious. The incident left him with a firm conviction: Killers such as that shooter deserved to die.

In the years ahead, Givens said, he would recall the girl’s shooting each time he had to prepare for an execution. It was a touchstone that helped him carry out the grim work of the death chamber.

After Briley, the executions would come in quicker succession through the 1980s and 1990s. Givens executed Linwood Briley’s brother James in 1985. In 1993, it was Syvasky Poyner, who killed five women during an 11-day spree in southeast Virginia, and David Mark Pruett, who admitted to raping and killing his best friend’s wife.

Ultimately, though, it was a man he didn’t execute who would make the biggest impression. Earl Washington Jr. was sentenced to death in 1984 in the rape and killing of a 19-year-old mother of three in Culpeper.

Washington, who has an IQ of about 69, admitted to the killing, although many of his answers were inconsistent with the facts of the case. Just days before his scheduled execution in 1985, lawyers secured a stay based on doubts about his guilt.

In 1993, DNA tests provided strong evidence that Washington was not the killer. Then-Gov. L. Douglas Wilder (D) commuted his sentence to life in prison. After testing with a more advanced forensic science, Washington was cleared and eventually granted an absolute pardon, making him the first person on Virginia’s death row to be exonerated by DNA evidence.

It was a landmark moment locally and nationally. The case was among the first in a wave of exonerations based on post-conviction DNA testing. There have been 302 such cases across the nation, including 18 death row inmates, according to the Innocence Project.

Experts and opponents of the death penalty say the exonerations have been a key factor in the recent decline in death sentences in Virginia and elsewhere. They say judges and juries have become more sophisticated about how the system can fail and therefore more leery of applying a penalty that cannot be reversed.

The DNA testing “was a scientific process totally outside the system that said, ‘You’ve got the wrong guy,’ ” said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center and an opponent of the death penalty. “The fact that you had the entirely wrong person was a revelation to some people.”

The man who would have been Washington’s executioner was one of them. Givens said the case shook his faith in the justice system. He came within days of putting an innocent man to death.

“If I execute an innocent person, I’m no better than the people on death row,” Givens said.

From executioner to inmate

Despite his growing reservations, Givens continued to work as Virginia’s chief executioner through the late 1990s. He had risen to the rank of captain in the Department of Corrections, raised a family and become an assistant football coach at a Richmond area high school.

But then it fell apart. Givens was charged with money laundering and lying to a federal grand jury about it in 1999. Prosecutors said Givens and an old friend from Creighton Court purchased a car together using proceeds Givens knew came from drug dealing. Givens was put on trial.

“There’s a fine line between lawfulness and unlawfulness,” the U.S. attorney reportedly told the jury in the case. “There are a lot of good things about Jerry Givens. He is by no means the worst criminal any of us will ever meet, but he did cross the line.”

Givens maintains his innocence, but he was convicted and forced to resign from the Department of Corrections. His distrust of the justice system was cemented.

The prison guard became an inmate and spent four years behind bars.

“This was God’s way of waking me up,” Givens said.

His incarceration gave him time to think and deepened his Baptist faith. He said he read the Bible more often — the story of Jesus’s crucifixion held a lot for a man who had spent his adult life putting people to death.

Givens said a pivotal moment came one day as he was walking around the prison track, where he often talked with God. He said God asked him a thorny question: Would Givens have executed His son if He were on death row?

Givens said he could give only one reply: No, because Jesus was the son of God. He said he realized what he had done as executioner was not compatible with Jesus’s teachings of forgiveness. He realized that he could no longer support the death penalty. He said God told him to share his story.

Evelyn Givens said she thought her brother’s change was possibly the result of guilt about what he had done and a desire to spare others from “walking in his shoes.”

“He doesn’t want anyone else to feel what he felt,” she said.

After he was released from prison in 2004, he found work as a truck driver. Jonathan Sheldon, a lawyer and former executive director of Virginians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (VADP), recalls hearing about Givens through a mutual acquaintance.

They agreed to meet at a Burger King off Interstate 95 outside Richmond. The activist and the former chief executioner sat across from each other, talking about the death penalty.

“It was quite a funny meeting,” Sheldon said.

It also planted a seed that would grow in the coming years.

Givens started attending VADP meetings and joined the board about 2009. He began giving speeches across the country about his experiences as chief executioner and his newfound opposition to the death penalty.

The work hit a high point in 2010, when he testified at a state legislative hearing on a bill that would expand the death penalty to accomplices in murders. Givens’s emotional testimony about the impact of death row work helped defeat it.

“The people who pass these bills, they don’t have to do it,” Givens said afterward. “The people who do the executions, they’re the ones who suffer through it.”

Sen. J. Chapman “Chap” Peterson (D-Fairfax) said it was a key moment.

“It was so dramatic, you could have heard a pin drop,” Peterson said. “No one knew who he was, and then he announced he had been the state’s chief executioner and gave an emotional and raw speech. It was something out of Dickens.”

All the while, Virginia was changing as well.

David Bruck, a law professor at Washington and Lee University’s law school and an opponent of capital punishment, said a number of other factors have contributed to the decline in use of the death penalty in Virginia.

Like most states, Virginia has enacted sentences of life without parole, giving juries and prosecutors an alternative. The creation of the state’s capital public defender system has given those facing the death sentence better representation.

Bruck also said the state’s prosecutors, who are elected in Virginia, feel less public pressure to pursue the death penalty than in years past because it has faded as a key political issue.

“Our death sentencing rate is becoming similar to states like Colorado that have the death sentence on the books but hardly use it,” Bruck said.

That’s good news to someone such as Givens. He said he has gained a measure of peace through his new calling. He wrote a book about his experiences, which was released last year.

Nevertheless, he still wonders whether there were any innocents among the 37 people he executed via the electric chair and the 25 by lethal injection. The man who prayed for the forgiveness of each of the condemned said he may need it himself.

“The only thing I can do is pray to God to forgive me if I did,” Givens said. “But I do know this — I will never do it again.”

Sheriff Joe's murderers cost us another $550,000

$550K settlement OK’d for family of Arizona inmate

By JJ Hensley The Arizona Republic Mon Feb 11, 2013 11:10 AM

County supervisors approved a $550,000 settlement offer for the family of an inmate who died after an altercation with jail detention officers and Phoenix police near the booking area of the Fourth Avenue Jail in late 2011.

But the family’s lawyer said the county’s “offer of judgment” is a procedural step that will not keep the family from going to trial.

Ernest “Marty” Atencio, 44, died five days after the altercation took place. Atencio’s family filed a lawsuit last fall that noted the jail system’s repeated failures to offer adequate medical care for inmates and treatment for the mentally ill in jail.

The family had previously filed a notice of claim offering to settle for $20 million.

Mike Manning, an attorney representing Atencio’s surviving family members, said the county’s decision could impact the amount of money awarded to the family following a trial if a jury’s verdict comes back in the family’s favor, but will not prevent the family from moving forward with the lawsuit.

“This was a complete unilateral act on their part, it had nothing to do with us,” Manning said.

Manning said the two sides are still going through the discovery process and a trial date has not been set.

The elected officials approved the settlement offer on a 4-0 vote Monday morning, with Supervisor Denny Barney absent from the meeting.

Supervisor Mary Rose Wilcox said she approved the offer because she wants to move forward “and see if we can settle this case.”

Atencio was jailed on assault allegations in mid-December 2011. He died at a hospital five days later following a scuffle with officers in which Atencio was struck several times and shocked near his heart with a Taser, according to the lawsuit. Atencio’s family has called the incident a “jailers’ riot”.

The family’s lawsuit claimed he was exhibiting signs of mental illness. Police reports, which mention that Atencio would become distracted and attempt to chase cars while talking to officers, support that claim.

But jail health-care workers failed to recognize Atencio’s signs of mental illness, according to the lawsuit, denying him the medical treatment he needed and sending him through the booking process where officers allegedly made fun of Atencio’s mental state before becoming physically engaged with him.

The Maricopa County Medical Examiner last year issued a report that concluded that Atencio died of cardiac arrest, acute psychosis, medical problems and “law-enforcement subdual,” but the report did not list a manner of death.

The absence of a manner of death- such as homicide or natural causes- in the Medical Examiner’s report was notable, Manning said.

“It was conspicuous that he didn’t list homicide,” Manning said. “The law-enforcement subdual did it.”

Sheriff Joe - Don't blame me for this f*ck up!!!!

Source

MCSO report: Blame the system for botched sex-crime cases

By JJ Hensley The Republic | azcentral.com Tue Feb 12, 2013 12:14 AM

A five-year investigation that produced nearly 10,000 pages of documents draws no clear conclusion on who is to blame for hundreds of botched sex-crime investigations by the Maricopa County sheriff’s special-victims unit.

The Sheriff’s Office on Monday released results of its long-running probe into why the unit mishandled sex-crime cases. It concluded that no single person was responsible for systemic failures that resulted in hundreds of cases being reopened.

Last year, an Arizona Republic investigation into the 400-plus reopened cases revealed that the Sheriff’s Office failed to adequately investigate reports of sex abuse and assault — in some cases never interviewing suspects or running background checks on known offenders.

Some sex-crime complaints were completely ignored. In other cases, files were later found gathering dust in a drawer or in a deputy’s garage. Those shortcomings, combined with lengthy delays in resolving cases, left alleged predators free to find other victims — sometimes for years.

The report concluded that detectives who failed to file reports or who improperly stored evidence at home were no more responsible for flawed investigations than supervisors who failed to check log books or who signed off on incomplete case-clearance sheets.

“The deficiencies identified ... were not problems that stemmed from the conduct of one or a few individuals. Rather, I have determined that ... the MCSO sex-crimes unit was inadequately resourced to complete its tasks. The systemic problem could not then, and cannot now, be properly addressed or corrected by disciplining a few individuals,” sheriff’s Deputy Chief Brian Sands wrote last week to detectives at the center of the internal investigation.

An agency spokesman declined to comment on the report, providing instead a statement noting “corrective actions” the Sheriff’s Office has taken since the problems first came to light in late 2007.

“The internal investigation shows that the problems were not unique to this agency and were systemic in nature,” the statement read. “It is the policy of the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office to seek continual improvement in all its operations.”

As part of the sheriff’s efforts to resolve problems in the unit, investigators reopened more than 400 cases from 2002 through 2008.

Delays may have led to some cases never being prosecuted. For example, the Sheriff’s Office delayed for five years an investigation into an allegation against a convicted rapist. While the inquiry was on hold, another agency received an allegation that the same suspect had assaulted a teenage girl. In another case, the Sheriff’s Office ignored for a year one girl’s allegation that a horse trainer had molested her. The suspect was accused of molesting three more girls before being indicted.

The investigation laid some of the blame for those flawed cases on Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s former chief deputy, David Hendershott, who ran the office’s day-to-day operations until his ouster for alleged misconduct in 2011. After his departure, Hendershott was blamed for many failures during his tenure.

The internal investigation refers often to Hendershott, saying he ignored concerns about staffing in the unit responsible for sex-crime investigations.

In response to similar allegations stemming from The Republic series, Hendershott said the chiefs of the agency’s various divisions set staffing levels.

“Once we learned of the problems, the sheriff and I did everything right,” he said.

Notes in Monday’s report cast doubt on when sheriff’s administrators first learned of staffing issues and other problems in the unit. The report states that questions arose in November 2007 about the quality of the unit’s work. Concerns came after El Mirage police reviewed cases that deputies had worked while the Sheriff’s Office was under contract as the West Valley community’s primary law-enforcement agency.

But the report includes a July 2006 e-mail string between the unit’s supervisors that mentions problems the unit was having in El Mirage.

The Republic’s series determined the flawed investigations were not limited to El Mirage. They occurred Valley-wide, with dozens in Mesa, Queen Creek and Litchfield Park.

The sheriff’s investigative report also blames Hendershott for failure to approve overtime or shift resources to aid the overtaxed unit. The Republic reported that, in fiscal 2007, the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors approved $600,000 for new positions that could have eased the caseload for sex-crimes detectives.

Sheriff’s administrators have said they have no explanation for what became of those positions, and the investigative report does not reveal where the positions went. But the report notes the impact it could have had on the unit’s five investigators, each carrying workloads of 55 to 60 cases. The new positions would have reduced those caseloads to fewer than 30 per detective, according to the report.

Records released with the report indicate investigators initially sought suspensions for several supervisors and detectives in the unit, sending each letters that identified the violations of office policy and corresponding punishment.

But at least one of the division’s former supervisors, Lt. Kim Seagraves, who was a sergeant in the unit from June 2006 until February 2008, made clear that she would legally fight any attempt to hold her responsible for the unit’s failures.

“I made improvements within the unit and made recommendations requiring additional staffing to meet the needs of the unit but was continually denied. In fact, I was told to ‘shut ... up’ about it,” Seagraves wrote. “I would challenge any objectively reasonable person to point out where it is demonstrated that those deficiencies were a result of any negligence on my behalf, as opposed to the identified staffing deficiencies.”

As part of the report, Sands explained the steps the Sheriff’s Office has taken to address shortcomings: increasing the number of supervisors and detectives, collaborating with other law-enforcement and emergency-services agencies on sex-crime investigations at a West Valley family-advocacy center, and purchasing new equipment to help investigators and administrators better track cases.

Another reason, or two, for an Arpaio recall

Another reason, or two, for an Arpaio recall

Now you know why there is a recall effort against Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

You’re probably seen news articles about a group of local activists (RecallArpaio.com) hoping to get enough petition signatures to force a recall election for Sheriff Arpaio, which seems odd given the fact that Arpaio was just reelected in November.

Why the recall so soon after an election?

Well, one reason might be the fact that county supervisors just approved a $550,000 settlement offer for the family of Ernest “Marty” Atencio, 44, who died days after an altercation with jail detention officers and Phoenix police.

It’s just the latest in a long, long line of such cases, with millions in payouts and too many deaths. And the fact that supervisors approved the money doesn’t necessarily mean that Atencio’s family will accept it. They could take the case to court.

And that’s not all.

Another reason for the recall just might be the more than 400 sex-crimes cases from throughout the county that were reported to the Sheriff’s Office between 2002 and 2008 but were not investigated. Or given only the most cursory look. The sheriff’s office is only now releasing the 10,000 pages of documents related to its internal investigation into that horror.

The recent election hasn’t eased the pain of the ignored victims or their families. It hasn’t lessened the ire of those pursuing a recall.

The attorney for the Atencio family is Michael Manning, who has represented a number of clients against the sheriff.

The revelations from such cases, along with a number of huge settlements, haven’t prevented Arpaio from being reelected.

Prior to the November election, Manning told me. “But if you step back on all the cases we have handled and you overlay them with the 400 uninvestigated sex crimes, and the attacks on the judiciary, and all the other problems in the Sheriff’s Office, you hope that people, voters, will see what is going on under this sheriff’s watch, and see what the victims went through. You hope that speaks to people. Wakes them up.”

Not yet.

But if enough signatures are collected, maybe they’ll wake up … next time.

Sheriff Joe Arpaio still covering up in sex-crime cases

Sheriff Joe Arpaio still covering up in sex-crime cases

Posted on February 12, 2013 8:39 am by Laurie Roberts

At long last, The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office is releasing the report on why it bungled more than 400 sex crimes, many of them involving children.

Reports stashed on dust shelves while rapists were free to pursue new victims. Reports stuffed under desks and in garages while perverts walked free.

The internal investigative report, released at 3 p.m. Monday, is 10,000 pages which will take awhile for reporters to digest. But already a couple of outrageous things are clear:

1. Sheriff Joe Arpaio seems to think he can keep the report under wraps — or at least make it more difficult for the public to see. He’s charging $5,000 for a copy of this public document. Or, you can go sit over at the the sheriff’s office and read it. The sheriff could put the thing on a flash drive or a CD and sell it for $10, as the Department of Economic Security does for its lengthy reports. That Arpaio isn’t doing that tells me something and it should tell you something, too. Remember, these are PUBLIC documents and you are entitled to view them. It shouldn’t cost $5,000.

And 2. Deputy Chief Brian Sands says the sex-crimes unit was understaffed and thus no one was to blame for the ignored cases, which spanned from 2002 to 2008. Really, he says that.

“The deficiencies identified …were not problems that stemmed from the conduct of one or a few individuals,” he wrote. “Rather, I have determined that … MCSO was inadequately resourced to complete its tasks. The systemic problem could not then, and cannot now, be properly addressed or corrected by disciplining a few individuals.”

The systemic problem, as he calls it, occurred for six years and it happened right under the nose of Arpaio, who was busy deploying his troops not in search of rapists who prey on children but on dishwashers and cooks who snuck into the country and on political vendettas which are now costing us millions in legal settlements.

The deficiencies identified, Chief Sands, were problems that stemmed from the conduct of one or a few individuals. One, in particular, who didn’t have control over his then-chief deputy (Dave Henderschott) or his office.

What’s that old saying…the buck stops here?

How sad that we don’t have a sheriff who even now, can acknowledge the fact that he failed these children and in so doing, failed us all.

Dorner manhunt: Officers opened fire on mother, daughter

Look I will trust the teachers with a gun any day of the year, but I wouldn't let these trigger happy cops get anywhere near the school campus

Source

Dorner manhunt: Officers opened fire on mother, daughter

February 9, 2013 | 7:47 am

In their pursuit of a fugitive ex-cop, at least seven officers opened fire on what turned out to be a mother and daughter delivering newspapers on a quiet residential street, law enforcement sources told The Times.

It was "a tragic misinterpretation" by officers working under "incredible tension," LAPD Chief Charlie Beck said Friday in an interview with The Times. Margie Carranza, 47, and her mother, Emma Hernandez, 71, were the victims.

Early Thursday morning, Christopher Jordan Dorner, 33, allegedly shot three police officers, one fatally. And, in an online posting authorities attributed to him, Dorner threatened to kill more police and seemed to take responsibility for the slaying over the weekend of the daughter of a retired LAPD captain and her fiance.

Then around 5 a.m. Thursday in Torrance, police from nearby El Segundo saw a pickup truck exit a freeway and head in the general direction of the Redbeam Avenue residence of a high-ranking Los Angeles police official, which was being guarded by a group of LAPD officers.

A radio call indicated that the truck matched the description of Dorner's gray Nissan Titan. As the vehicle approached the house, officers opened fire, unloading a barrage of bullets into the back of the truck. When the shooting stopped, they quickly realized their mistake. The truck was not a Nissan Titan, but a Toyota Tacoma. The color wasn't gray, but aqua blue. And it wasn't Dorner inside the truck, but Carranza and her mother delivering copies of the Los Angeles Times.

Beck and others stressed that the investigation into the shooting was in its infancy. They declined to say how many officers were involved, what kind of weapons they used, how many bullets were fired and, perhaps most important, what kind of verbal warnings — if any — were given to the women before the shooting began.

"How do you mistake two Hispanic women, one who is 71, for a large, black male?" said Richard Goo, 62, who counted five bullet holes in the entryway to his house.

Glen T. Jonas, the attorney representing the women, said the police officers gave "no commands, no instructions and no opportunity to surrender" before opening fire. He described a terrifying encounter in which the pair were in the early part of their delivery route through several South Bay communities. Hernandez was in the back seat handing papers to her daughter, who was driving. Carranza would briefly slow the truck to throw papers on driveways and front walks.

As bullets tore through the cabin, the two women "covered their faces and huddled down," Jonas said. "They felt like it was going on forever."

Hernandez was shot twice in her back and is expected to recover. Her daughter escaped with only minor wounds from broken glass.

Beck said he had not yet received a detailed briefing, which typically occurs a few days after officer-involved shootings to give investigators time to collect evidence and put together the basic summary of what happened. But he did say that the gunfire occurred in two bursts: The first came from an officer positioned down the block from the LAPD official's residence, and the second when Carranza accelerated away from the gunfire and toward other officers.

After the investigation is completed, Beck and an oversight board will decide if officers were justified in the shooting or made mistakes that warrant either punishment or training.

Understaffing cited in botched sex-crime probes by Arpaio's office

Source

Understaffing cited in botched sex-crime probes by Arpaio's office

Posted: Tuesday, February 12, 2013 8:37 am

Associated Press

A report examining more than 400 sex-crime cases that were inadequately investigated or not looked into at all by the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office attributes the failures to understaffing and mismanagement, including hundreds of pieces of evidence intended for storage that were instead left in offices or taken home by detectives.

The internal affairs report released Monday blamed officers on Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio's sex-crimes squad for some failures and noted the squad was "overworked and understaffed." But the report said officials were rescinding earlier letters that threatened to discipline the officers in question.

"This systematic problem could not then, and cannot now, be properly addressed or corrected by disciplining a few individuals," Arpaio aide Brian Sands wrote in a new letter Monday to one of the squad members. Sands wrote that officers fell short in their duties because they were assigned an overwhelming volume of complex, time-consuming cases to investigate. The squad had too few detectives, and budget restrictions limited overtime hours.

The report also attributed the failures to detectives marking cases as cleared when investigations were still under way, and to a supervisor who didn't use the agency's case tracking system and instead relied a written log that often lacked key information and made it virtually impossible to determine the status of each case.

According to the report, a box containing 47 pieces of evidence was found underneath a sex-crimes detective's desk. If the box hadn't been found — an internal investigator looked for it for two weeks — prosecutors could have been forced to drop all charges against a suspect, the report said.

When another detective was transferred out of the sex-crimes squad, he took a box of evidence home with him, the report said. The detective stored the box in his garage for a while before moving it to a locker at his patrol district office. He claimed the original copies were in evidence storage, according to the report.

The sheriff's office issued a statement Monday saying it worked to correct the problems once they were pointed out.

"The internal investigation shows that the problems were not unique to this agency and were systemic in nature," the agency said. The statement didn't address the issue of understaffing.

In November 2011, the sheriff's office sent letters to former sex-crimes squad supervisor Kim Seagraves and four other people who served on the squad, saying the agency was considering suspending them for alleged incompetency, neglect of duty and other conduct violations. But on Monday, the sheriff's office sent the officers a new letter saying it was rescinding the previous letter that threatened to discipline them. Seagraves' attorney, Kathryn Baillie, declined to comment on the report.

The internal investigation was launched in May 2008 after the city of El Mirage, which paid Arpaio's office for police services, said it discovered at least 32 reported child molestations in which the sheriff's office failed to follow through, even though suspects were known in all but six cases.

El Mirage, a heavily Hispanic community near Phoenix, alleged there were many cases in which sheriff's investigators wrote no follow-up reports, collected no additional forensic evidence and made no effort after the initial crime report was taken.

Arpaio's office eventually reopened more than 400 of its sex-crime cases countywide after finding they were inadequately investigated or not examined at all. The botched investigations have been an embarrassment to a department whose sheriff is the self-described "America's toughest sheriff" and a national hero to conservatives on immigration issues.

Arpaio apologized in December 2011 for the bungled cases, and his office has since said it has moved to clear up the cases and taken steps to prevent the problem from happening again.

The internal investigation launched in May 2008 was stopped after its investigator was pulled away at the direction of David Hendershott, Arpaio's then-top aide, to help with another matter. The probe was reopened in December 2010 while Hendershott was on medical leave.

The botched investigations were mentioned in a lawsuit by the U.S. Justice Department that alleges a range of civil rights violations in Arpaio's immigration patrols and jails.

The Justice Department accused the sheriff's office of failing to adequately respond to reports of sexual violence and focusing intensively on low-level immigration offenses over more serious crime. Arpaio's office has denied the allegations.

Arpaio's critics used the bungled investigations to hammer on the sheriff last year as he was campaigning for a sixth term. He was forced to plow millions of dollars into the race to fend off the challenge. In the end, Arpaio won by a six-point margin.

Last month, a group launched a campaign to call a recall election against the six-term sheriff.

Arizona AG Tom Horne wants his hit and run case tossed

Source

Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne wants traffic case tossed

Associated Press Wed Feb 13, 2013 5:10 PM

PHOENIX — Lawyers for Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne asked a judge Wednesday to dismiss a misdemeanor hit-and-run case against him, arguing he’s being singled out for prosecution and FBI agents who witnessed the incident while tailing him are refusing to answer questions.

A court filing obtained by The Associated Press accused the FBI’s top agent in Arizona of personally calling Phoenix Police Chief Daniel V. Garcia and asking him to investigate after FBI agents tailing Horne saw him back into another vehicle and leave. Horne’s lawyer, Michael D. Kimerer, wrote in his court filing that police did so even though it violated their own written policy of not investigating cases involving less than $5,000 in private property damage.

Kimerer wrote that singling out Horne for prosecution violates the U.S. Constitution’s Equal Protection clause. The only logical explanation for doing so when others are not investigated or prosecuted for similar crimes is that Horne is an elected official.

Horne is accused in Phoenix city court of not stopping or leaving a note after he backed a borrowed car he was driving into another vehicle. FBI reports released by Phoenix police in October say he left the scene because he was having an affair with a female employee who was in the car and he didn’t want their relationship to be reported.

Horne has declined comment on allegations of an affair and repeatedly said he didn’t know he had caused any damage. He declined comment Wednesday, referring instead to the court filing.

The agents who were following Horne in March 2012 had apparently been doing so during the course of a campaign finance investigation, although agents interviewed by Kimerer refused to say that was the case.

The FBI waited seven months before notifying Phoenix police, until after the Maricopa County attorney’s office filed civil charges in the campaign finance case.

“It just shows animus the way they pursued this,” Kimerer said in an interview. “They were just rabid to get him.”

In the campaign finance case, Horne and employee Kathleen Winn are accused of illegally coordinating with an independent expenditure committee during the 2010 election. Horne is appealing Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery’s findings that Horne illegally coordinated his 2010 campaign with a group that was supposed to be operating independently. The group aired television advertising critical of Horne’s general election opponent.

Montgomery is demanding that Horne’s 2010 campaign and the other group, Business Leaders for Arizona, return up to $513,000 of contributions. There also could be large civil fines.

Because of the alleged coordination, the contributions made to a group headed by a Horne ally who now works in his office actually were contributions that exceeded campaign finance limits on money given to candidates, Montgomery said. Candidates aren’t allowed to discuss strategy or other matters with so-called independent expenditure committees, but there’s evidence that Horne was involved in both raising money and deciding how to spend it on advertising by Business Leaders for Arizona, Montgomery said in October.

Horne, a lawyer who is the top-elected law enforcement official for the state, denied any coordination. He had been considering running for governor but now says he’ll seek re-election in 2014.

Sassing a cop is constitutionally protected free speech!!!

Sassing a cop may be unwise, but it’s constitutionally protected

Talking back to a police officer while you’re under arrest is usually not the smartest move, a bit like tugging on Superman’s cape, or spitting into the wind. But it’s legal, according to a federal appeals court — and if the officer retaliates in some way, like hauling you off to jail instead of giving you a ticket and letting you go, you might be entitled to damages.

“Police officers may not use their authority to punish an individual for exercising his First Amendment rights,” the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said in a 2-1 ruling Feb. 8 that reinstated a lawsuit against the city of Yakima, Wash., and two of its policemen.

Eddie Ford, an African American who grew up in the central Washington community, was driving to his night-shift job at a bottling company in July 2007 when a police car came up from behind and stopped him, apparently for playing his stereo too loud. As Officer Ryan Urlacher approached, Ford got out of the car shouting that the stop was racially motivated. Urlacher told him to get back in the car, then said he would arrest Ford for violating a city noise ordinance, and commented, according to the court, that “he might only get a ticket if he cooperates.”

Ford kept talking for awhile after Urlacher handcuffed him, put him in the patrol car and threatened to jail him unless he shut up. He quieted down, but the officer drove him away and booked him at the suggestion of a superior officer, telling Ford that “your mouth and your attitude talked you into jail.” Urlacher later testified that he jailed Ford because of “his rageful … behavior towards the law enforcement,” which, the officer said, put public safety at risk.

Ford went to trial on the noise-violation charge, was found not guilty, and then sued for damages. A judge dismissed the suit, ruling that Urlacher had acted reasonably and had not punished Ford for freedom of speech, but the appeals court said a jury might conclude otherwise.

The Constitution protects “a significant amount of verbal criticism and challenge directed at police officers,” the court said, quoting a 1987 Supreme Court ruling. Even if police had reason to arrest Ford in the first place, they were not entitled to jail him in retaliation for speaking his mind, said the court majority, Judges Procter Hug and Dorothy Nelson.

Dissenting Judge Connie Callahan looked at the case through the other end of the telescope, the viewpoint of the officers. Once someone is under arrest, she said, that person’s free-speech rights are reduced, and police are entitled to jail someone like Ford based on what he says, which might indicate he posed a danger to himself or others. In this case, Callahan said, Urlacher may have simply been trying to give Ford “an opportunity to change his attitude,” and the court oversteps its bounds when it tries to “impose such etiquette upon peace officers.”

Robert Christie, a lawyer for the city and its police, said they agreed with Callahan and were considering whether to ask the full appeals court for a rehearing. Ford’s lawyer, William Pickett, said the court had reaffirmed a basic constitutional principle.

“Citizens have an absolute right to be critical of law enforcement, and they can vocalize that criticism without any fear of being retaliated against,” Pickett said.

The ruling can be viewed here.

Let the police decide which rights we have???

Vanessa Goldberg thinks the police should decide which rights we are allowed to have

And of course the police are the arm of government that tyrants use to force their will on us.

So if we let the "police" pick and choose which "rights" we get to keep, we will soon have no rights.

Source

Listen to police, not NRA

Wed Feb 13, 2013 9:08 PM

Listen to the police on the weapons issue!

Who would know the weapons issue better than the police, who are on the front lines of combating gun-related crimes and dealing with the horrific aftermaths? Should we not therefore listen to what they have to say about the question of gun control?

Should we not be made thoughtful by the fact that the International Association of Chiefs of Police has historically backed gun-control measures?

Their IACP website recently stated: “Our membership was, and remains, a leading proponent of universal background checks for gun purchases, the ban on military-style assault weapons, high-capacity magazines, and ensuring that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (and Explosives) has both a permanent director and sufficient resources to enforce our nation’s gun laws.”

I ask my fellow readers: Should we listen to police chiefs or to the NRA?

— Vanessa Goldberg

Scottsdale

Drones will be coming to the "drug war" in Arizona???

Of course later on in the article it says there will be exceptions for cops in the "drug war".

When you consider that two thirds of the people in American prisons are their for victimless drug war crimes, that means the police will be allowed to use drones in two thirds of police work they do which is about drug war crimes.

I am a little bit more negative on this issue, and my question is when will the police begin using drones to murder suspected "drug war" criminals, like the American government uses drones to murder suspected "terrorists" in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and other countries throughout the world.

Source

Arizona seeks to be a key player in drone work

By Alia Beard Rau The Republic | azcentral.com Wed Feb 13, 2013 11:35 PM

Arizona lawmakers are bidding to make the state a center for aerial-drone research, but they also want to make sure local police don’t use the unmanned surveillance aircraft to spy on Americans.

As the sophisticated eye-in-the-sky technology deployed by the military in the war on terror in Afghanistan and against drug cartels on the Mexican border becomes a Pentagon fixture, state lawmakers have introduced several bills this session to ensure that the state is part of the high-tech revolution, without turning Arizona into a “police state.”

The U.S. military has used drones around the world for more than a decade, patrolling hot spots, gathering evidence and launching airstrikes. The unmanned craft are nothing new to Arizona, either.

The federal government has used them within the state to help fight forest fires and patrol the border. The Fort Huachuca Army base in southern Arizona houses the largest unmanned-aircraft-system training center in the world, according to the Army, employing hundreds of private contractors and civilian instructors and training more than 1,300 students a year.

Arizona-based defense contractors are cashing in on what has become a $4 billion-a-year investment for the military alone, not to mention the growing private and foreign government uses.

And local universities are pushing to develop the necessary workforce. Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, the University of Arizona and Arizona State University offer programs related to drones.

Arizona lawmakers are doing their part via legislation to prepare for greater growth.

House Concurrent Resolution 2009, sponsored by Rep. Tom Forese, R-Chandler, reinforces Arizona’s push to be selected by the Federal Aviation Administration as one of six national drone- testing sites.

The National Defense Authorization Act, which President Barack Obama signed in 2011, authorized the establishment of sites where officials could test drones in civil airspace near commercial air traffic. The sites were scheduled to be chosen in December, but the FAA delayed a decision indefinitely, saying it needed to address safety and privacy concerns.

Arizona officials said they are hopeful the state will still be chosen. HCR 2009 has passed the House Public Safety, Military and Regulatory Affairs Committee with unanimous bipartisan support. It now awaits a vote of the full House.

Officials are also preparing for what they fear could be a worst-case scenario in the future of drone technology.

House Bill 2574, sponsored by Rep. Jeff Dial, R-Chandler, makes it illegal for state or local law-enforcement officials to use a drone to collect information unless they have a search warrant.

It also makes it illegal to monitor individuals inside their homes or places of worship. It has exceptions for law-enforcement officials investigating human trafficking or drug smuggling as long as they are doing so on public property or with permission on private property.

Dial said he is working on the bill and expects to make some changes. It has been assigned to the House public-safety committee but is not yet scheduled for a hearing.

Rep. Carl Seel, R-Phoenix, also introduced a bill that would forbid the state and local governments from assisting in any way with enforcing portions of the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 that allows the military to detain a U.S. citizen. But Seel said he is putting his support behind Dial’s bill.

The bills come amid controversy surrounding a White House legal argument justifying drone-missile strikes against U.S. citizens who are part of terrorist groups overseas.

“We need to protect something called the Fourth Amendment,” Seel said, adding that he has heard “unverified” reports of drones being used to survey citizens in Arizona. The Fourth Amendment protects citizens from unreasonable searches.

He said the bills restricting drones are not intended to limit the federal government’s use of drones to protect the border.

Dial said his bill is intended to be pre-emptive.

“What I want to do is protect citizens’ rights,” he said. “We don’t want to live in a police state. We don’t want to have drones everywhere in society.”

Dial also supports the resolution seeking to make Arizona a test site and efforts to promote drone research and business opportunities in the state. “I want the jobs here, and there are definitely uses for drones,” he said. “But I don’t want civil liberties and privacy invaded.”

He said the two bills address separate issues and can work together.

“The problem isn’t technology,” Dial said. “It’s how humans use the technology.”

Assistant House Minority Leader Ruben Gallego, D-Phoenix, a former Marine who serves on the House public-safety committee, said he wants to see the final details of Dial’s bill but supports the effort in general.

“Technology is always advancing, and we have to put safeguards in place to protect people’s civil liberties while still allowing drones to be used as a law-enforcement tool,” he said. “As long as we can find that balance, I don’t have any problem with the bill.”

Tom Horne continues to self destruct

But sadly the police routinely selectively enforce the law. The police routinely apply the full force of the law to people they dislike while ignoring the same violations committed by other people that are not on the police hate list.

Of course one group of people the police routinely let violate the law are elected officials, and government employees. Cops are rarely if ever arrested and put on trial for crimes they commit. Source

Posted on February 14, 2013 8:25 am by Laurie Roberts

Tom Horne continues to self destruct

The attorney general of the state of Arizona is asking a judge to dismiss his misdemeanor hit-and-run charge.

Tom Horne says he’s being singled out because the head of the FBI in Arizona actually called the Phoenix police chief and asked him to investigate after his agents saw Horne back into a Land Rover and drive away without even checking for damage. Then, the Phoenix police chief actually agreed to investigate.

Oh, the agony, the utter unfairness of it all.

Horne’s attorney, Mike Kimerer, says police violated their own policy of not investigating such cases when the damage is less than $5,000.

And so it seems Horne’s constitutional rights have been trampled, shredded into bits just like his credibility.

There certainly are questions about why the FBI was following Horne in March 2012, as he and one of his employees at the AGs office were en route for a little lunchtime rendezvous at her apartment. Perhaps Horne will escape a misdemeanor conviction given the oh-so-outrageous conduct of the FBI and police chiefs.

Horne has denied doing anything wrong and pointed out that the damage, if any, was minor.

Perhaps so, as far as the Land Rover goes.

But damage to Horne’s career? That’s significant — and getting worse all the time as the top law enforcement official in the state attempts to wiggle his way out of responsibility for his own actions.

Arpaio ‘army’ prepares for war

EJ Montini | azcentral opinions

Posted on February 14, 2013 10:42 am by EJ Montini

Arpaio ‘army’ prepares for war

Sheriff Joe Arpaio has 700 deputies under his command, along with roughly 2,000 detention officers and a volunteer posse said to number 3,000.

Apparently, that’s not enough to combat his latest enemy: Voters.

The sheriff’s friends in the county Republican Party are mustering volunteers for yet another Arpaio army. They are hoping to attract recruits to a gathering over the weekend where, according to an e-mail sent to Arpaio supporters:

“The purpose of the meeting is to muster and organize a ‘shadow army’ of ‘shadow warriors’ that are willing to volunteer their time to stand toe-to-toe at the majority of the locations here in Maricopa County where the paid progressive socialists are collecting petition signatures to recall Sheriff Joe.”

Not long ago some of the same people who successfully recalled former Senate President Russell Pearce announced they would launch a recall effort against Arpaio, who was reelected to his six term in November.

Arpaio immediately cranked up his political campaign machine, sending out a fund-raising letter to his many donors that read in part:

“These sore losers just never stop. They figure if they can force an election in an off-year they’ll be able to turn out every pro-illegal immigrant voter and steal this election. We saw them do the very same thing to an Arizona State Senator just over a year ago.”

The sheriff’s friends want to bolster his campaign war chest by putting boots on the ground.

The e-mail seeking “shadow warriors” calls local activist Randy Parraz and the rest of those behind the Arpaio recall “domestic terrorists” and “thugs.”

“What are they so afraid of?” Parraz told me. “If Joe is such a great guy why would they even give the recall a second thought? It sounds like what they have planned will just give us an opportunity to catch people doing illegal things on video tape. At the Pearce recall it got ugly. You can’t try to intimidate people. If they do that we’ll get it on tape.”

One of those helping to organize Arpaio’s army, John DeCarlo, said volunteers will be respectful when trying to convince folks not to sign a recall petition.

“The idea is to have a presence and be informative but not get in anyone’s way,” DeCarlo told me.

He works in the same office as Arpaio’s campaign manager, Chad Willems, although Willems said his people are not in command of the “shadow army” but only offering advice and assistance.

“What happened is that there is a group of very active supporters of the sheriff who have been wanting to do something to stop the recall,” he told me. “The chairman of the county (Republican) party said that he would like to send people out and stand next to circulators and voice their opinions. Our phones have been ringing off the hook with people wanting to know that they can do.”

What will these “shadow warriors” tell voters trying to decide whether to sign a recall petition?

“One thing will be the cost,” DeCarlo said.

The price of a recall election has been estimated at over $5 million.

Parraz calls that a small amount compared to what Arpaio has cost the county in lawsuits over the years, not to mention department’s other problems, like the 400-plus uninvestigated child sexual abuse cases about which the sheriff just released a 10,000-page report.

“The election in November doesn’t wipe away what Arpaio has done,” Parraz told me. “People know why they should sign a recall petition. We don’t have to persuade them. These Arpaio people are just drawing attention to why Arpaio should be recalled. They’re helping us.”

No petitions are being circulated yet. The recall group, like the Arpaio group, is meeting this weekend. [That is WRONG!!!! I already signed a recall Sheriff Joe Arpaio petition]

Recall supporters have 120 days to collect roughly 350,000 signatures. It won’t be easy.

“We don’t have the resources they have but we have a lot of support,” Parraz said.

The odds of success are heavily against a ragtag guerilla force taking on a well-equipped, well-funded army. At least that’s what military and political strategists have been saying since way back in – When was that? — 1776.

Legal Loophole Could Hold Up $1M Christopher Dorner Reward

Legal Loophole Could Hold Up $1M Dorner Reward

By RUSSELL GOLDMAN | ABC News

A legal loophole could prevent good Samaritans, instrumental in ending the manhunt for a fugitive ex-cop accused of killing four people, from claiming more than $1 million in reward money because Christopher Dorner died and was not captured.

Last weekend, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa pledged $1 million, sourced from private individuals, companies and unions, "for information that will lead to Mr. Dorner's capture."

The L.A. City Council followed up with its own promise of a $100,000 reward, for information "leading to the identification, apprehension and conviction of Christopher Dorner."

But Dorner, accused of killing four people and threatening the lives of several dozen more, was never captured, apprehended or convicted. Instead, he died following a standoff with police near Big Bear, Calif., when the cabin in which he was barricaded burned down with him inside.

The mayor's office has not yet determined if the reward could still be paid out given Dorner died.

"At this time, no decision has been made on the reward," Villaraigosa's spokesman Peter Sanders told ABC News.com in an email.

So far, none of the privately sourced "funds have been deposited into the City's 'Special Reward Trust Fund,'" according to the Frank T. Mateljan, spokesman for the city attorney.

That still leaves an additional $100,000 that the city council could pay with municipal money, but there legal questions there, as well.

"The reward is definitely still on the table," said Jessica Tarman, spokeswoman for Councilman Daniel Zine.

But there are still plenty of questions.

The council ultimately decides how and to whom the reward will get paid. If its members are feeling generous, they could interpret the language of the original offer to make sure a worthy recipient gets paid.

"Arguably, city law is broad enough to allow payment to persons who assisted in the "identification, apprehension OR arrest and conviction" of a suspect," Metaljan said in an email [emphasis his].

If the city decides to honor the reward, there are still multiple steps before a claimant can be paid.

Anyone who thinks they are worthy must apply in writing. That claim would then be reviewed by the LAPD robbery and homicide division, and a recommendation would be made to the police commissioner. The commissioner would tell the council to consider the claim, and the council would vote on it.

So far, no one has come forward to ask for the reward. More than 1,000 leads were called to a city hotline

One couple seems most deserving, if they decide to seek the reward. Jim and Karen Reynolds, a couple in whose Big Bear, Calif., home Dorner is believed to have hidden for days, called in the tip Tuesday that ultimately put police on the trail to Dorner's final location.

On Tuesday, the couple found Dorner at their home. He briefly held them captive, but they managed to escape and call in their tip.

Report on MCSO sex crimes cases proves the system is broken

Source

McClellan: Report on MCSO sex crimes cases proves the system is broken

Posted: Friday, February 15, 2013 8:03 am

Guest Commentary by Mike McClellan

It was the system.

The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office recently released a 10,000 page report on its horribly botched, horribly run, Special Victims Unit.

A complete and total mess.

And who’s at fault for this fiasco, one that left rapes uninvestigated, one that left, at least in one case, rapists to rape again?

The “system.”

No, not any specific MCSO official, no detective, not the Sheriff, of course.

The system.

It was a systemic failure, not a failure of individuals. Says the MCSO investigator Brian Sands, “This systematic problem could not then, and cannot now, be properly addressed or corrected by disciplining a few individuals.”

One news report noted, “Sands wrote that officers fell short in their duties because they were assigned an overwhelming volume of complex, time-consuming cases to investigate. The squad had too few detectives, and budget restrictions limited overtime hours.”

So the system failed, eh? But the report contradicts itself.

The released documents, for example, identify specific detectives who deep-sixed sex crime investigations, one even taking evidence boxes home with him, storing them in his garage.

Who in the “system” repeatedly ignored pleas from SVU supervisors asking for more personnel, with the existing detectives overwhelmed by their caseloads?

Who knows? The report doesn’t identify who ignored the repeated requests.

And who in the “system” was responsible for diverting almost $600,000 provided by the County Board of Supervisors, money earmarked for six more detectives in the SVU? And where did that money go? Did the “system” just swallow it up?

Who knows? The report cannot account for either where that money actually went or who made the decision to divert it elsewhere?

And who in “the system” diverted resources and personnel from the SVU to animal-abuse crimes? And why did MCSO place so much emphasis on crimes against animals but ignored rapes?

Who knows? The report doesn’t explain.

And in the “system” diverted resources and personnel from the SVU to the illegal immigrant “crime suppression sweeps” so popular within the MCSO?

Who knows? The report doesn’t explain.

Nope, no single individual within the MCSO bears any responsibility for the fiasco.

Well, one does, but he’s long gone. Arpaio henchman/Chief Deputy David Hendershott is named occasionally in the report.

I believe that is called “a fall guy.”

But if the Buck Stops Here, at the top, isn’t Sheriff Joe Arpaio ultimately responsible for the fiasco? I’ll leave it to you to answer that question.

The cost to see public records

The article or blog was written by Stephen Lemons who uses the title the "Feathered Bastard".

According to the article Sheriff Joe is charging $5,000 to get a copy of the 10,000 page report on the botched investigations of hundreds of sex crimes in Maricopa County.

Per the Arizona Public Records law you are allowed to view public records anytime a government office is open.

Normally the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office is open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday thru Friday.

But just to make it difficult for you to view the report for free, Sheriff Joe has changed the office hours to 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. in the morning and 1 p.m. to 4 p.m in the afternoon.

Many government agencies will take a report like this which is very interesting to the media, scan it and put it on a CD and let the public have it for the cost of the CD, which is usually under a dollar.

Of course Sheriff Joe Arpaio doesn't want you to see the report and that is why he is only selling pages of the report for 50 cents a copy or $5,000 for the whole report.

Hay víctimas pero no hay culpables

Hay víctimas pero no hay culpables

Phoenix, Arizona

por Eduardo Bernal - Feb. 15, 2013 11:21 AM La Voz

Pese a que una investigación interna de la Oficina del Sheriff del Condado Maricopa de al menos 10 mil documentos revela que no existe "un solo culpable" y se le atribuye el problema al sistema, la controversia sigue rodeando a esta agencia del orden público que busca desesperadamente deslindarse de acusaciones de negligencia al no haber investigado casos de abusos sexual a menores.

La Oficina del Sheriff del Condado Maricopa (MCSO, por sus siglas en inglés), reveló los resultados de la investigación, que duró más de 5 años, el pasado lunes 11 de febrero, y en la misma se concluye que fue la falta de recursos monetarios y humanos, lo que provocó que más de 400 casos de abuso sexual no fueran investigados adecuadamente o no investigados del todo.

La investigación fue iniciada en 2008 debido a que se acusó de negligencia a la oficina de Arpaio en numerosos casos de abuso sexual, la mayoría en contra de menores de edad.

Brian Sands, jefe de personal de MCSO, explicó que: "las deficiencias identificadas no fueron problemas que resultaron de la conducta de un individuo o varios, sino por que la unidad de crímenes sexuales estaba inadecuadamente equipada con los recursos para acompletar sus tareas", explicó a agentes encargados de la investigación interna.

Por su parte líderes comunitarios explican que Arpaio, una vez más está esquivando responsabilidades. "Arpaio nuevamente no está tomando responsabilidad y nos está diciendo mentiras", explicó Randy Parraz, organizador comunitario.

Los casos en cuestión fueron reportados en un periodo de dos años (2005-2007), lapso en el que la población de El Mirage contrató los servicios de MCSO por más de 2 millones de dólares para que se encargara de la seguridad de esa comunidad.

Es decir, cobraron por un trabajo que no hicieron y no hay un solo culpable. Además, MCSO señaló que los detectives y supervisores de la Unidad de Víctimas Especiales que manejaron estos casos no enfrentarán ningún tipo de reprimenda.

De acuerdo con Lydia Guzmán de Respect/Respeto, organización que forma parte de una coalición que busca destituir a Arpaio, es mentira que MCSO no tuviera los recursos suficientes, pero fueron gastados en pagos relacionados con demandas y en redadas antiinmigrantes.

Arpaio, quien fue reelegido por sexta vez el pasado mes de noviembre, se encuentra en una situación en la que tiene que lidiar con demandas millonarias, arreglos fuera de corte y una posible destitución.

Sheriff Arpaio’s unit was sloppy in sex-crimes cases

Review: Sheriff Arpaio’s unit was sloppy in sex-crimes cases

By JJ Hensley The Republic | azcentral.com Sun Feb 17, 2013 10:53 PM

Poor training, sloppy record-keeping, interpersonal conflicts, office politics and ignorant or indifferent administrators were to blame for hundreds of sex-crimes cases that were inadequately investigated by the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office, a review of more than 10,000 pages of records shows.

Officially, the Sheriff’s Office found no single individual or group of employees responsible for the poor investigation of sex crimes that the agency’s overburdened special-victims unit handled in the past decade.

But the internal-affairs report produced last week makes clear that a sloppy culture took root in the overburdened special-victims unit and was overlooked by key administrators.

As a result, the agency was forced to reopen more than 400 sex-crimes cases that were improperly handled between 2002 and 2008.

Some of those continue to be the subject of criminal investigations and prosecutions.

The Sheriff’s Office was among 22 law-enforcement agencies in the county to sign an agreement in 2004 that laid out a uniform approach to child-abuse investigations.

But the supervisor of the unit during a 20-month stretch, when many of the problem investigations were discovered, was unfamiliar with that protocol when she arrived in 2006 from the homicide division.

Lt. Kim Seagraves, who was originally a target of the internal investigation and threatened legal action against the office if she alone were held responsible, was also unfamiliar with the way cases were assigned to detectives in the special-victims unit and how investigators tracked their progress.

Seagraves said she received little guidance from her predecessor.

“When I first came to sex crimes, I knew nothing about sex crimes,” Seagraves told investigators. “If I had some sort of ... packet of information or if he had a (case log) book going, I certainly wanted to keep the continuity up. He told me he didn’t have a book.”

“As a matter of fact, the majority of the cases that were assigned to ... each detective went through Cheryl ... the gal that answers the phone,” Seagraves said. “She’s the one who was receiving, reviewing and assigning cases.”

The cases were farmed out by that administrative assistant to each of five detectives in the unit.

One of those detectives, according to Seagraves, had no business doing the stomach-turning work required of the special-victims unit.

The detective was also found to have boxes of evidence, including some originals, stored in the garage at his home.

But Seagraves’ concern about the detective’s work in the unit came long before that discovery, the investigation shows.

The detective’s supervisor thought he let his devout adherence to religion cloud his judgment when it came to victims and suspects in the often-complex cases.

Seagraves said it impacted the steps he was able to take during investigations.

“One family went to church and had a very clean house, and the other family was a meth house, and they were extremely dysfunctional. He would charge one and not charge another because in his mind … they were religious,” Seagraves said. “He’s a good person, but … he doesn’t want to look at the porn that comes in. We have to look at that because it’s spliced … child pornography with regular porn.”

Technological shortcomings in the Sheriff’s Office made things worse for the ill-prepared personnel in the special-victims unit.

Those problems were compounded in 2005 when the office took on police duties in El Mirage without increasing staff or taking the steps to ensure that its technology was up to the task, the report states.

Seagraves’ superior, Lt. Hank Brandimarte, claimed Seagraves was “intimately more familiar” with the office’s Records Management System than he was — though she told investigators she did not know how to use that internal case-tracking database when she arrived in the unit. The system relies on a unique report number assigned to each case.

But when the office took over police functions in El Mirage, deputies there received different case numbers, and in a different format, than the report numbers the Sheriff’s Office was generating.

The flaw meant some cases intended for the special-victims unit never made it to those detectives.

The poor records management also meant some investigations that ended with arrests never showed up in the sheriff’s system, a fact that defense attorneys could easily use to their clients’ advantage, investigators told the deputies involved, the report states.

Seagraves told investigators she tried to bring some of these issues to the attention of her supervisors.

One e-mail string contained in documents that the Sheriff’s Office released last week shows an administrator was aware but took no action.

Seagraves’ first clue that something was wrong came in July 2006, after she received calls from El Mirage parents who were curious about the status of cases involving their children.

Seagraves realized the cases were not in the sheriff’s records system and recommended a solution that required a separate report to generate a sheriff’s case number.

“This will resolve itself in a month,” Deputy Chief Scott Freeman wrote to the captain overseeing the special-victims unit. “Meantime, Kim will have to make effort to deal with this in-house.”

Interpersonal conflicts and office politics also allowed the problems in the unit to fester, the report shows.

The internal investigation highlighted a toxic relationship between Seagraves and Brandimarte, her superior.

Seagraves said their problems prevented information from flowing through the chain of command.

The notion that her cries for help stopped with her superior also provides sheriff’s administrators with some deniability about the unit’s problems.

Brandimarte, in turn, blamed the culture of the office for his failure to take a firmer stance with Seagraves and the lack of oversight he said he perceived in her unit.

At the time when problems in the unit were becoming more evident, Seagraves was engaged to an office administrator who was perceived to be in the good graces of the agency’s former chief deputy, David Hendershott, who ran day-to-day operations of the Sheriff’s Office for more than a decade.

Brandimarte told investigators the connection between Seagraves and the powerful chief deputy deterred him from taking a stronger stance against his subordinate.

“That was the culture of the organization at the time, which has since changed, but ... certainly it’s a real fear to hold a subordinate accountable who’s connected, married to a chief who’s connected to (Hendershott),” Brandimarte told investigators in May 2011, about a month after Hendershott was fired. “Does that make an excuse? No, but I just think that it’s important to note that inter-dynamics between people when you’re trying to hold somebody accountable for substandard performance versus how is this gonna affect my career in the long run?”

The excuses and explanations about the flow of information and the culture in the office allowed sheriff’s administrators to claim ignorance about the unit’s problems.

But some deputies interviewed during the internal investigation said administrators were aware — they simply did not care.

Documents show sheriff’s administrators knew of the unit’s problems as early as the 2004-05 budget cycle — years before they received complaints from El Mirage officials — and even tried to address it by requesting $800,000 for additional detectives and equipment.

“Additional manpower is needed to successfully complete sex crime and child crime cases in an expedient manner,” an unnamed sheriff’s official wrote in a 2004-05 budget request.

The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors would later give the office more than $600,000 to create a special child-abuse unit, which could have reduced the special-victims unit’s caseload by as much as 50 percent.

The unit received new computers, and Seagraves told investigators she saw a fleet of new unmarked vehicles gathering dust in the garage, but the promise of additional detectives never materialized.

Sheriff’s officials still cannot account for what became of those positions.

Despite administrators’ acknowledgment that the unit needed help, Hendershott and others continued to pull investigators and other personnel into areas that were high on the sheriff’s agenda.

A Spanish-speaking detective was recruited to help with the human-smuggling unit.

He and another detective also worked on material for a sheriff’s training junket in Honduras, and one of them traveled to the Central American country as part of the program.

Others were involved in “deadbeat-dad” roundups and other, more-complex investigations led by Hendershott’s anti-corruption unit.

Those anti-corruption probes have since been discredited amid accusations that they were politically motivated.

Seagraves recalled how the orders in the Sheriff’s Office were given at the time to the undermanned sex-crimes division: “Either you give up a body to Honduras or you guys are gonna be taking calls from homicide and jail crimes.”

“Shame on the chain of command for not knowing (of the manpower shortages) if they are saying that they don’t, because ... they know what was happening,” Seagraves said. “Even to this day ... there is more investigators in the animal crime unit than there are in sex crimes.”

The poor training, administrative indifference and competing agendas in the Sheriff’s Office affected hundreds of victims.

Many of the 400-plus sex-crimes cases the agency was forced to reopen needed supplemental reports and other paperwork to properly close, according to investigators.

But even the sheriff’s investigators, who said repeatedly in the transcripts that they were not looking to point fingers at anyone, were disturbed by several of the cases that showed little or no work from detectives.

One involved a 14-year-old girl who gave birth at a West Valley hospital where her family was supportive of the adolescent and the baby’s father, a man at least 18 years old at the time of conception.

“Obviously they can’t consent at that age ... You know we had mom and dad that knew about it as well. We also had the 19-year-old, 20-year-old suspect,” internal-affairs Sgt. Brad Licking explained to the case’s investigator, Roy Rojas, during the sheriff’s internal investigation. “Mom and dad should have been done for failure to protect. ... The suspect, obviously, should have been done.”

That case originated in El Mirage, as did slightly more than 10 percent of the cases the Sheriff’s Office had to reopen for further investigation. The rest were scattered throughout the Valley.

But the special-victims unit’s problems will forever be associated with El Mirage in the public consciousness because that’s where the poorly handled cases first came to light.

Sheriff’s employees interviewed during the office’s internal investigation said the issues could have continued if it weren’t for a persistent group of El Mirage residents who brought the matter to the attention of town officials and the media, forcing the Sheriff’s Office to address the matter.

“Frankly,” Seagraves said, “had El Mirage not existed ... I’m sure it would be just as screwed as it was when I got there.”

Sheriff Joe wants another $274 million for his gulag!!!!

MCSO Sheriff Arpaio seeks to double budget for jail, upgrades

By Michelle Ye Hee Lee The Republic | azcentral.com Tue Feb 19, 2013 10:46 PM

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio is requesting an additional $274 million on top of his $280 million budget to pay for a new jail, additional staff and an overhaul of the agency’s aircraft, vehicles and technology equipment.

Sheriff’s administrators on Tuesday presented an overview of the agency’s fiscal 2014 budget to the county Board of Supervisors.

The sheriff’s budget for the current fiscal year is $280 million. The majority of the additional $274 million would be used to replace the Durango Jail, which was built 37 years ago.

The board oversees and approves budgets for all county offices. Once the board approves a budget amount, it cannot control how departments headed by an elected official spend the money. They include the Sheriff’s, Assessor’s, County Attorney’s and Recorder’s offices.

The budget has been a source of political tension among elected offices. The board’s decision in 2008 to cut the sheriff’s and county attorney’s budgets amid the deepening recession sparked years-long legal battles that have cost millions of taxpayer dollars to settle.

Among the sheriff’s budget requests were changes recommended through an ongoing board-imposed staffing study on the Sheriff’s Office after county budget officials found that the agency misspent about $104 million since 2004.

A consulting company’s initial recommendations included hiring finance and budget analysts and accountants; adding deputies through all ranks; hiring communications, crime-lab and administrative staff to relieve deputies from administrative duties; and increasing detention-bureau staff.

Those changes are expected to cost more than $4.75 million. The Sheriff’s Office expects the consulting company to find the agency understaffed in the area of information technology.

Supervisors have requested that all departments submit budget-cutting scenarios of 3, 5 and 10 percent. The Sheriff’s Office complied but warned that any cuts would be damaging to the agency.

Cutting 10 percent from the sheriff’s general fund would result in 68 eliminated positions. A 10 percent cut to the detention fund would close Estrella and Tent City jails and eliminate 293 jobs, mostly detention officers.

“As you can see, we can’t endure those kind of cuts. It just wouldn’t work for the county,” Scott Freeman, the sheriff’s chief of administration, told the board.

Arpaio’s office submitted its fiscal 2014 budget request late Friday, and budget staffers are still analyzing the cost impact.

The Sheriff’s Office estimates it would cost $240 million to shut down the aging Durango Jail, replace the already-closed Madison Street Jail with a new 2,400-bed facility, and transport inmates from the Durango Jail to the new facility.

The agency is in the beginning phases of a jail master plan. Plans to replace the Durango Jail are slated to be studied further starting next month, said Lisa Allen, a sheriff’s spokeswoman.

The Sheriff’s Office echoed other elected offices’ pleas for the board to lift the five-year freeze on merit-based salary raises. The freeze has created pay discrepancies across county departments and agencies, where entry-level employees are making as much as those with six years’ experience.

The lack of raises is difficult to argue because of the dangers law-enforcement officers face every day, Chief Deputy Jerry Sheridan said. Salaries for sheriff’s sworn and detention personnel are significantly lower than those of other Valley cities and towns, he said.

“This lack of recognition cannot be tolerated any longer,” Sheridan told the board.

County budget officials estimate it would cost $4.6 million to adjust just the sworn deputies’ salaries to the average minimum salary and to offset the salary-discrepancy issue.

The remaining requests presented to the board Tuesday included replacement and maintenance of aircraft and vehicle fleets, the jail-management system and IT equipment. Included was a host of other equipment requests, such as mobile data computers for sheriff’s vehicles, new Tasers, radar and breath-testing equipment.

The agency requested money for fuel, aircraft maintenance, equipment and training for aviation staff. Freeman noted that one criticism of the sheriff’s aviation unit is that its aircraft spends more time on the ground than in the air because of maintenance and fuel costs.

Sheriff Joe Arpaio recall unconstitutional????

Arizona Constitution

Article 8 Part 1 Section 5

No recall petition shall be circulated against any officer until he shall have held his office for a period of six months, except that it may be filed against a member of the legislature at any time after five days from the beginning of the first session after his election. After one recall petition and election, no further recall petition shall be filed against the same officer during the term for which he was elected, unless petitioners signing such petition shall first pay into the public treasury which has paid such election expenses, all expenses of the preceding election.

Source

Arpaio supporters demand end to recall effort

Associated Press Wed Feb 20, 2013 6:38 PM

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — A group supporting metropolitan Phoenix’s sheriff demanded Wednesday that organizers of an effort to recall the lawman immediately end their campaign, and vowed to go to court to stop them.

Citizens To Protect Fair Election Results contends the recall effort against Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio is unconstitutional and intended to harass him and prevent him from carrying out his duties. Recall organizers say the self-proclaimed toughest sheriff in America should be ousted, in part, because his office failed to adequately investigate more than 400 sex-crimes cases. They also allege Arpaio’s office put immigration enforcement above other law enforcement priorities.

Arpaio supporters say the sheriff who is known for immigration enforcement and housing jail inmates in canvas tents won a sixth term in November fair and square and that recall organizers shouldn’t be allowed to contest the election simply because they don’t like the outcome.

Larry Klayman, a lawyer representing the pro-Arpaio group, said that if the recall effort continues, his group will file legal action against its organizers alleging they violated the free speech, equal protection and due process rights of the majority of county voters who re-elected the sheriff.

“There are no valid reasons for this recall petition,” Klayman said. “Nothing happened between the day of the election, the swearing-in of Sheriff Arpaio and this recall petition.”

The group called a news conference Wednesday to publicize a cease-and-desist letter it sent to recall organizers.

Arpaio isn’t affiliated with Citizens To Protect Fair Election Results but agrees that there’s no valid reason for the recall effort, sheriff’s spokeswoman Lisa Allen said.

“Sheriff Arpaio also believes there may be need for a legal clarification on whether any elected official, regardless of party, can be recalled only days after a general election,” Allen said.

Arpaio faced his second-tightest election in November, beating the closest candidate by 6 percentage points. Arpaio critics tried to turn the sheriff’s themes of unceasingly cracking down on crime and illegal immigration against him. In late 2011, his critics said they decided against pursuing a recall effort and instead would leave the matter to voters to decide.

Recall organizers face a May 30 deadline for handing in valid petition signatures from more than 335,000 voters in the county. If they succeed in securing a recall election, the earliest that race could be put on the ballot is November. Organizers say they have gathered at least 50,000 signatures so far.

William Fisher, a lawyer leading the group seeking the recall, said Arpaio denied voters the chance to justify his positions on critical issues when he refused to take part in any debates during last fall’s campaign. Fisher rejected the criticism that the sheriff’s critics have sour grapes.

“Then why have a recall statute in the state of Arizona?” Fisher said.

In arguing the recall effort was unconstitutional, Klayman cited a section of the Arizona Constitution that prohibits the circulation of recall petitions against an official until he or she has held office for six months.

Fisher countered in an interview with The Associated Press that a section of state law specifies the six-month period doesn’t apply to incumbents.

David Gartner, an Arizona State University professor who teaches constitutional law, agreed with that assessment.

“I interpret that language (of the state law) to mean that someone who has been re-elected to the same office isn’t subject to the six-month delay in terms of the possibility of a recall effort,” Gartner said.

In 2011, immigrant rights advocates succeeded in their effort to oust then-Arizona Senate President Russell Pearce, an Arpaio ally who was the driving force behind the state’s contentious 2010 immigration law.

Fisher said his group is separate from the organization that pursued Pearce’s recall, but he has talked one of its top organizers in his group’s effort to oust Arpaio.

Arpaio’s office reopened more than 400 of its sex-crime cases countywide for a three-year period after finding they were inadequately investigated or not examined at all. An internal affairs report released last week attributed the failures to understaffing and mismanagement and didn’t find any single person was responsible for the botched cases.

Arpaio apologized in December 2011 for the bungled cases, and his office has since said it has moved to clear up the cases and taken steps to prevent the problem from happening again.

Roosevelt School District tells Sheriff Joe to get lost!!!

Phoenix group: MCSO posse not welcome at schools

Posted: Thursday, February 21, 2013 10:02 am

Associated Press

A Phoenix group says it doesn't want Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio's volunteer posse to patrol their kid's schools in the Roosevelt School District.

The school board met Tuesday night to talk about a resolution that would let Arpaio know his posse members aren't welcome at the district's 20 schools.

But Arpaio told KPHO-TV (http://bit.ly/12O8Sfl) that those schools fall within his jurisdiction, so he can do what he wants.

Arpaio recently launched a program for his volunteer armed posse members to patrol schools in unincorporated parts of Maricopa County.

The Rise of South Phoenix group says parents and students fear a patrol will turn into an immigration raid.

But Arpaio says the group is needlessly upset because the posse doesn't currently patrol schools in the Roosevelt district.

Source

Group tells Arpaio his posse's not welcome at schools

Posted: Feb 19, 2013 7:46 PM Updated: Feb 20, 2013 8:11 AM

By Colton Shone

A Valley group wants Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio to know they don't want his volunteer posse to patrol their kid's schools in the Roosevelt School District.

The school board met Tuesday night to talk about a resolution that would let Arpaio know his posse members aren't welcome at the district's schools. But Arpaio told CBS 5 News those schools fall within his jurisdiction so he can do what he wants.

Weeks after the Sandy Hook Elementary massacre, Arpaio launched a program for his volunteer armed posse members to patrol schools in unincorporated parts of Maricopa County.

"The posse under this sheriff has the authority to enforce the laws," Arpaio said.

The group, The Rise of South Phoenix, said its getting feedback from the community in South Phoenix to tell the sheriff to not patrol the 20 schools in the Roosevelt District.

"The parents don't feel safe, they don't feel any safer with his posse patrolling other school districts for the simple fact that he puts fear into the community," organizer Devin Del Palacio said.

He went on to say that parents and students would fear a patrol would turn into an immigration raid.

Currently, the posse isn't focused on the district, but Del Palacio said they want to stop it before it's an option.

"You've got a bunch of people shouting out ideas, arming teachers; posse with guns near schools. To me, rushing into a solution is not the answer," he said.

Roosevelt School District Board Member Lawrence Robinson wrote the resolution. He said this came about after listening to the community's concern.

"Our public safety is determined by Phoenix police, and it's determined by the plan we have in place. There's no place for sweeps, intimidation or fear on our schools," said Robinson before the board meeting.

Arpaio calls this is a political move.

"If we get information, even though it's in Phoenix, I will send my posse," he said. "I am the sheriff of everybody in this county."

But he says the board and the group are fussing over nothing.

"We don't do the schools in that area."

Arpaio and his over-the-hill army’s sad charade

Source

Arpaio and his over-the-hill army’s sad charade

OUR VIEW

Kudos to Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio for creating a new term — “simunition” — for what he and his posse performed last weekend at an abandoned Fountain Hills elementary school. When the English language doesn’t contain a single word suitable for describing an exercise of such fatuous machismo and brazen irresponsibility, sometimes a man has to improvise.

If you missed it — tough to do, frankly, given Arpaio’s unmatched ability to attract media attention — MCSO deputies spent last Saturday afternoon training posse members how to respond if an armed person were to approach or enter a school campus.

Forget, for a moment, just how ham-handed Arpaio’s mandate for posse members to patrol our schools is in the first place. These are armed volunteers — often retirees, many with little or no formal law-enforcement training — whom Arpaio pressed into service without first notifying districts or parents of their disconcerting intrusion.

The truly galling part of the exercise was Arpaio’s use of another band of disciples: Teens from his youth volunteer Explorers program. Apparently, the use of actual assault rifles, handguns and flash-bang grenades wasn’t quite realistic enough for posse members, so kids were brought in to play the part of, well, scared kids.

How scared they must have been when they realized the ammunition used in the training was anything but simulated. That’s right — some perverse demand for authenticity led to trainees eschewing blank rounds for actual projectiles. One posse member received first aid after a wayward projectile bloodied his ear, and another sustained a gashed forehead during the “mock” shootout.

That none of the student volunteers was injured is the sole silver lining to this embarrassing episode. It’s hard to infer, watching footage of elderly posse members crouching behind one another as shotgun blasts reverberate through the halls, that the exercise did anything but satisfy a curious craving for contrived combat.

“We got a bad guy, we got a bad guy!” one man yells in the footage, calling attention to a nearby classroom. His comrades arrive, guns pointed toward an unseen threat, wholly unaware of their involvement in a moment that perfectly encapsulates the entire farcical charade that is Arpaio’s response to the Newtown tragedy.

And while it’s easy to dismiss last weekend’s glorified paintball game as an isolated incident, the reality is that it’s reflective of a troubling brand of cowboy vigilantism Arpaio has long cultivated among his posse. The intentions of these acolytes are undoubtedly admirable, but their actions reflect an unfortunate desire to carry out the kind of tactical and dangerous enforcement best left to well-trained professional deputies.

A responsible leader might impress upon his devotees that there’s little place for “bad guy” bombast in contemporary law enforcement. A responsible leader might even be alarmed by the enthusiasm with which his followers discharged their rounds inside a school.

But instead of someone acting like a sheriff of one of the nation’s largest metropolitan areas, we get a man content to continually showcase his insouciant disregard for nuanced enforcement and professional sensibilities.

Instead of a responsible leader, we get Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

Mandatory Gun Insurance??? A round about way to disarm Americans???

I suspect this so called "mandatory gun insurance" is designed to do the same thing.

Requiring people who own guns to purchase insurance which will be made unaffordable to prevent people from legally buying and owning guns by making the insurance too expensive.

And of course after the government passes a law requiring mandatory gun insurance, the next step would be to pass laws that make it impossible for insurance companies to sell the mandatory gun insurance, effectively making guns illegal.

This isn't a new trick by our government rulers. They did the same thing when they made drugs illegal.

The "1914 Harrison Narcotic Tax Act" and the "1937 Marihuana Tax Act" effectively made drugs illegal by slapping a tax on them, while at the same time the government stopped issuing the tax licenses.

Source

Latest Front in the Gun Debate Is Mandatory Insurance

By MICHAEL COOPER and MARY WILLIAMS WALSH

Published: February 21, 2013 609 Comments

In a nation sharply divided over efforts to curb violence and the right to bear arms, both sides of the gun debate seem to agree on at least one thing: a bigger role for the insurance industry in a heavily armed society.

David P. Linsky is a Democratic state representative in Massachusetts who wants to require gun owners to buy insurance.

But just what that role should be, and whether insurers will choose to accept it, are very much in dispute.

Lawmakers in at least half a dozen states, including California, Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York and Pennsylvania, have proposed legislation this year that would require gun owners to buy liability insurance — much as car owners are required to buy auto insurance. Doing so would give a financial incentive for safe behavior, they hope, as people with less dangerous weapons or safety locks could qualify for lower rates.

“I believe that if we get the private sector and insurance companies involved in gun safety, we can help prevent a number of gun tragedies every year,” said David P. Linsky, a Democratic state representative in Massachusetts who wants to require gun owners to buy insurance. He believes it will encourage more responsible behavior and therefore reduce accidental shootings. “Insurance companies are very good at evaluating risk factors and setting their premiums appropriately,” he added.

Groups representing gun owners oppose efforts to make insurance mandatory, arguing that law-abiding people should not be forced to buy insurance to exercise their constitutional right to bear arms. But some groups, including the National Rifle Association, endorse voluntary liability policies for their members. And as several states pass laws making it easier for people to carry concealed weapons and use them for self-defense, some gun groups are now selling policies to cover some of the legal costs stemming from self-defense shootings.

The United States Concealed Carry Association recently began selling what it calls Self-Defense Shield. “If you’re forced to justifiably use your gun in self-defense,” its Web site says, “Self-Defense Shield will help pay for your expert pro-2nd Amendment lawyer by reimbursing your legal-defense expenses following your acquittal — an ingenious system critical to the arsenal of any responsibly armed citizen.”

Premiums for such insurance range from around $200 to $300 per year; in general, the coverage is narrowly written and excludes cases where a gun is used to commit a crime.

Some specialized underwriters are reviewing what their policies cover when it comes to shootings, and weighing whether they should offer new types of coverage for gun owners. And as more states pass laws allowing people to bring guns to public venues — including restaurants, bars, churches and the parking lots of their workplaces — some business groups have expressed concerns that they could be held liable for shootings on their properties, which could drive up their insurance costs.

On Thursday, when Gov. Dannel P. Malloy of Connecticut outlined his proposals to reduce gun violence — which included universal background checks, a ban on large-capacity ammunition magazines and a stronger assault weapons ban — he called for officials to study “whether owners of firearms should be required to carry additional insurance.”

The insurance industry is wary of some of the proposals to require gun owners to buy liability coverage — and particularly of bills, like one that was filed in New York that would require coverage for damages resulting not only from negligence but also from “willful acts.”

Robert P. Hartwig, the president of the Insurance Information Institute, said that insurance generally covered accidents and unintentional acts — not intentional or illegal ones. “Insurance will cover you if your home burns down in an electrical fire, but it will not cover you if you burn down your own house, and you cannot insure yourself for arson,” he said.

Some claims stemming from shootings have been covered by homeowners’ insurance — even by policies that said they did not cover illegal acts.

The families of the two students responsible for the 1999 killings at Columbine High School in Colorado were able to use money from their homeowners’ policies to settle a lawsuit brought by families of most of the victims. In 2001, a California court ordered an insurance company to defend a policyholder whose 16-year-old son shot and killed a friend with a Beretta handgun that he had found in his mother’s coat. But the year before, a North Carolina court ruled that an insurance company did not have to cover the expenses of a policyholder who had shot and wounded a prowler on his property.

Christopher J. Monge, an insurance agent and gun owner in Verona, Wis., recently wrote a book, “The Gun Owner’s Guide to Insurance for Concealed Carry and Self-Defense,” which he sells at gun shows. Mr. Monge said that the problem with most liability insurance is that it promises coverage only in cases of a gun owner’s negligence, or an accidental shooting — and not if the gun owner shoots someone intentionally in self-defense. “A negligent act is covered by your liability policy, but if you intentionally shoot somebody, it could be excluded,” he said.

So as more states pass self-defense laws, Mr. Monge said that he found several insurance companies that would specifically offer liability coverage in cases of self-defense, usually in the form of an “umbrella” policy that added a higher level of coverage than the routine coverage for negligence in a homeowners’ policy. An umbrella policy adds coverage for unusual, but potentially expensive, incidents.

But he opposes proposals to make liability insurance mandatory. “They’re barking up the wrong tree, if you ask me,” he said. “Ninety-nine percent of gun owners are going to be safe and not go crazy.”

States have been considering mandatory gun insurance bills for years, but no state has passed one yet, said Jon Griffin, a policy associate at the National Conference of State Legislatures. When Illinois considered a bill in 2009, the National Rifle Association wrote that it would “put firearms ownership out of reach for many law-abiding Illinoisans.” The N.R.A. endorses a policy that offers excess liability coverage — “because accidents do happen no matter how careful you are” — and another that offers “self-defense insurance.”

The recent trend of allowing guns in more public places has alarmed some business groups. When Ohio enacted a law allowing guns in bars in 2011, the Ohio Restaurant Association opposed it, writing officials that restaurant owners “expect that this law would be perceived by insurance companies as increasing the risk of injury in establishments that sell alcohol, which of course would result in increased liability insurance costs.” Owners have not reported higher premiums because of the new law, said a spokesman for the association, Jarrod A. Clabaugh, but some worry that a shooting could drive up their insurance costs.

The current debate over mandatory liability laws is being watched with interest by Nelson Lund, the Patrick Henry professor of Constitutional Law and the Second Amendment at George Mason University School of Law. Professor Lund proposed the idea of mandatory insurance in a 1987 article in the Alabama Law Review, seeing it as a form of gun control that could be consistent with the constitutional right to bear arms. But he said that he had not studied any of the current proposals, and noted that it made a great deal of difference how they are written.

“If this were done, the private insurance market would quickly and efficiently make it prohibitively expensive for people with a record of irresponsible ownership of guns to possess them legally,” he wrote in the 1987 article, “but would not impose unreasonable burdens on those who have the self-discipline to exercise their liberty in a responsible fashion.”

Previous Articles about Sheriff Joe

And here are even some more articles on Sheriff Joe and this thugs in Phoenix, Arizona and Maricopa County, Arizona.