Sheriff Joe’s Hometown Newspaper Reminds Us What Makes Him So Disgusting (TWEETS)

By
Darrell Lucus
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Donald Trump’s decision to pardon former Maricopa County, Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio can only be described as a slap in the face to the rule of law. For those who don’t recall, Arpaio was awaiting sentencing after being held in criminal contempt of court for illegally profiling Latinos suspected of being in this country illegally. By issuing this pardon without letting the appeal process take its course, Trump was effectively saying this behavior was okay.

But that’s not the only thing Trump effectively endorsed on Friday. The Phoenix New Times, which chronicled Arpaio’s quarter-century reign of terror as well as anyone did, dug into its archives and compiled a list of some of Sheriff Joe’s most appalling moments.

Here are some of the most appalling anecdotes.

In 2015, Michael Lacey of the New Times revealed that based on data from the Maricopa County medical examiner’s office, at least 157 people died in the Maricopa County Jail from 1996 to 2015. Out of that total, 39 of them committed suicide–a rate of 24 percent, far higher than the suicide rates at the jails in New York City, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Houston, and Miami.

Another 34 were found dead in the jail without explanation, while another 39 died in the county hospital without explanation–leaving 73 deaths unaccounted for. Moreover, in many cases, the medical examiner’s office didn’t follow its own procedures for determining how inmates died in Arpaio’s jail.

One particularly ghastly death happened in 2013, when Felix Torres was arrested on outstanding warrants after being pulled over for pedaling in the wrong direction. While being booked, he revealed that he had a severe ulcer. When it started flaring, the jail’s medical staff gave Torres a shot of Toradol–a drug that is not supposed to be given to someone with ulcers. He died three days later, and his family believes the Toradol aggravated an ulcer that ate through his stomach and killed him. The county paid Torres’ family $950,000 in 2015.

One of the most outrageous deaths isn’t on the medical examiner’s list–that of Deborah Braillard in 2005. She was arrested for possession of meth on New Year’s Day 2005, and jail records showed she was an insulin diabetic. However, jailers never gave her insulin or put her on a diabetic diet. Soon after being booked in, she started crying for help, and also vomited and defecated on herself and others. However, corrections officers thought she was going through heroin withdrawal, and blew it off.

This continued for four days, until her family finally convinced jailers to get her to a hospital. She died 18 days later. In 2012, the county paid Braillard’s family $3.2 million to settle a wrongful death suit.

In 2006, Ambrett Spencer was serving time after pleading guilty to driving under the influence. On the night of April 21, Spencer, who was nine months pregnant, was having severe pain and was sent to the infirmary. However, neither corrections officers nor medical staff believed it was an emergency. Sometime around 5 a.m., Spencer passed out after her blood pressure crashed. Only then was an ambulance called.


Doctors delivered a stillborn girl a few hours later at the hospital. It later emerged that Spencer was suffering from internal bleeding brought on by placental abruption, a not-uncommon condition among pregnant women. The responsible course would have been to get Spencer to a hospital and deliver the baby right away. As it turned out, Ambria died from blood loss after her mother went some four hours without seeing a doctor. At least four other inmates and their families told the New Times in 2008 that pregnant inmates had to endure inadequate medical care and unsanitary conditions.

Arpaio seemed so fixated with chasing down undocumented immigrants that he couldn’t be bothered to investigate sexual assault. In 2008, the East Valley Tribune reported that at least 200 sex crimes cases in unincorporated portions of Maricopa County and in towns that contracted their police services to Arpaio’s office had to be reopened due to glaring problems with how they were handled. Many of those cases happened in the city of El Mirage, where deputies failed to do even rudimentary investigative work.

Research reveals that these weren’t just cases of incompetence. Rather, according to the New Times, Arpaio ordered his deputies to concentrate their efforts on locking up undocumented immigrants, investigating his political foes, and training cops overseas.

In 1999, James Saville was arrested on charges of planning to blow up Arpaio with a pipe bomb. Saville maintained that he was innocent, and claimed that he had been entrapped by Arpaio’s own detectives. Saville maintained that sheriff’s detectives bought the parts themselves and convinced him to build it in an elaborate scheme to boost Arpaio’s bid for reelection the following year.

Entrapment is next to impossible to prove in court, and it initially looked like Saville’s cause was so hopeless that he was ready to accept 20 years in prison as part of a plea deal. However, when Arpaio’s former head of undercover investigations called Saville’s lawyer and told him that he believed Saville had been set up. At trial in 2003, Saville’s lawyers proved that Arpaio’s goons had indeed bought the parts themselves and pushed Saville into going along, even though he was not predisposed to commit such a crime. The jury ultimately acquitted Saville on all charges. In 2008, Maricopa County paid Saville and his family $1.9 million to settle a wrongful imprisonment suit.


It’s inconceivable that Trump wasn’t aware of these and other outrages from Arpaio’s office. And yet, he still gave Arpaio a “get out of jail free” card. What Trump has done, in effect, is tell every law enforcement official in this country that they can trample on people’s rights and disregard the cries of the innocent–and as long as you’re locking up illegals, it’s just fine.

(featured image courtesy Gage Skidmore, available under a Creative Commons BY-SA license)

Darrell Lucus
Darrell is a 30-something graduate of the University of North Carolina who considers himself a journalist of the old school. An attempt to turn him into a member of the religious right in college only succeeded in turning him into the religious right's worst nightmare--a charismatic Christian who is an unapologetic liberal. His desire to stand up for those who have been scared into silence only increased when he survived an abusive three-year marriage. You may know him on Daily Kos as Christian Dem in NC. Follow him on Twitter @DarrellLucus or connect with him on Facebook. Click here to buy Darrell a Mello Yello.

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