Sheriff Joe, “I don’t need to be to be petty....”
But I am. I’ve always been petty, and I don’t know how to be anything else.
That’s how the quote should have ended when Sheriff Joe had his deputies turn in their ICE badges publicly in front of cameras last night. This should have happened years ago. Arpaio and his deputies were only able to conduct their “immigration sweeps” because of powers given to them by ICE.
And as Arpaio’s deputies publiclly turned in their ICE badges, Ernest "Marty'' Atencio who was tasered by MSCO deputies was taken off life supports and died yesterday.
I thought it was interesting I saw Arpaio saying this about not needing to be petty on my evening news last night, but it is nowhere to be found in any of the stories on the web today. What Arpaio said was, he didn’t need to be petty by asking the ICE agents to turn in their MSCO deputy badges that he gave them, after he was forced to make his deputies turn in their ICE badges. The pettiness oozed from him in front of the cameras last night. This is the kind of petty tit for tat that Arpaio is famous for. The truth is Joe Arpaio is just a mean, petty person and always has been. Petty meaning: mean or ungenerous in small or trifling things: showing or caused by meanness of spirit.
Arpaio's office organized the public turning-in of the badges after ICE rescinded their authority to run immigration checks on inmates. Speaking at the news conference, Arpaio said he was holding the federal government to its promise to send 50 federal agents to do such screening in his jail, but predicted that there will be undocumented immigrants in jail who won't be deported and will be put back on streets.
The Department of Homeland Security announced Dec. 15 that more than 90 of Arpaio's Maricopa County jail officers could no longer check whether inmates were undocumented immigrants.
The decision followed the release of a scathing Department of Justice report that said Arpaio's office has a pattern of racially profiling Latinos, basing immigration enforcement on racially charged citizen complaints and punishing Latino jail inmates for speaking Spanish. The sheriff has denied the allegations.
"http://latino.foxnews.com/...
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said in a statement that the decision was based on the Justice Department’s findings of discriminatory policing practices by MCSO and Sheriff Joe Arpaio.
“Discrimination undermines law enforcement and erodes the public trust. DHS will not be a party to such practices,” Napolitano said. “Accordingly, and effective immediately, DHS is terminating MCSO’s 287(g) jail model agreement and is restricting the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office access to the Secure Communities program.”
The 287(g) jail model agreement is the program which allows officers to screen individuals they arrest for immigration status and put detainers on them once they have been booked into jail. The restrictions on Maricopa County’s Sheriff’s Office means that when the office sends data into the FBI after they book someone they wouldn’t get any data back about their immigration status back.
Napolitano said that DHS “will utilize federal resources for the purpose of identifying and detaining those individuals who meet U.S. Immigration Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) immigration enforcement priorities.” DHS, she said, “will continue to enforce federal immigration laws in Maricopa County in smart, effective ways that focus our resources on criminal aliens, recent border crossers, repeat and egregious immigration law violators and employers who knowingly hire illegal labor.”
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/...
This is not the first time that HS has taken powers from Arpaio and his deputies. In October 2009, Immigration and Customs Enforcement stripped Arpaio of his power to let 100 deputies make federal immigration arrests.
Now we have another person who has died after being taken into the MSCO prison system. How many more victims will this department claim until Sheriff Joe is sent packing?
Phoenix inmate in scuffle with officers taken off life support, Ernest "Marty'' Atencio, who lapsed into unconsciousness after being shot by a stun gun after an altercation early Friday at the Fourth Avenue Jail, was removed from life support Tuesday afternoon, his family's attorney announced Wednes...
Ernest "Marty'' Atencio who was taken into custody and tasered by MSCO was taken off life support and died yesterday. Again it is another opportunity for Arpaio to show his pettiness by refusing to release public records, which he has done many times costing the voters and citizens lots for his pettiness.
Right now his office is refusing to release videoof the altercation between Atencio and MSCO deputies. But this is nothing new for Arpaio and his department. They are as petty as can be.
DemMessage CenterAz
“There is no reason why they cannot release that video,” the attorney said. “We’re concerned about it being destroyed. Because that’s what the sheriff’s office always does in cases like this…We want that digital video released right away.”
The Maricopa County Sheriff's Office has been treating the state Public Records Law like a defiant kid treats a list of household chores. Ignoring it. Dawdling over it. Turning it into a petty fight.
Message to Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his staff: Oh, grow up!
This childish behavior is costing the taxpayer a bundle. It's a double hit: paying to defend the sheriff and then, when he loses, covering the attorney fees of newspapers forced to sue for records that should be readily available.
State law is clear: The public has a right to see the documents that show how government is operating.
There's no loophole, sheriff, for vindictiveness. There's no exception for covering one's behind.
http://www.azcentral.com/...
When I say petty, I mean meanness of spirit.
There was his petty raid on a Burlington coat factory to nab three suspected people who might have been in the country illegally.
There was his petty attack on a local McDonalds that his deputies had raided. He warned them never to eat there again.
Arpaio said in a news release the restaurant was targeted for an employer sanctions investigation last March when four people were arrested for identification theft.
The Sheriff's Office says a uniformed deputy was verbally harassed in Spanish by McDonald's food handlers Thursday. The deputy says both he and the Sheriff were accused of being racists.
The deputy confronted the workers in Spanish about their remarks and refused to accept his food order as a precaution.
Petty is caring about humiliating a person right down to their color of underwear. Making them wear black and white stripesor working in ball and chains isn’t humiliation enough. No, Arpaio has to be petty and humiliate people by making them wear pink underwear.
Petty is making offenders spend their time in a tent city with no air conditioning in the desert making the tents reach 140 degrees, and no heat in the winter, because, well, jail by itself just isn’t mean enough, even though people in tent city are all low level offenders and many have not gone to trial or been convicted of a crime.
Temperatures can be extreme in Tent City, peaking at 140 degrees inside tents during the summer. In the winter, prisoners wear pink-colored towels over their shoulders to stay warm.
http://www.azcentral.com/...
Petty is making sure the people in tent city eat green bologna. Bologna sandwiches every day isn’t mean and small enough. No it has to be green, just so you can be a little more petty.
Petty (as in mean spirited) is making pregnant women give birth in shackles, when no other department in the country does.
CE's own guidelines state, "Restraints for medical or mental-health purposes may be authorized only by the facility's clinical medical authority after reaching the conclusion that less restrictive measures are not appropriate."
The Arizona Department of Corrections has an almost identical policy in place. But such norms of humanity are not observed by the MCSO.
Questioned by reporter Fernandez for her story on the shackling of expectant moms, MCSO apologist and Deputy Chief Jack MacIntyre cited the possibility that a woman might be "faking labor" and attempt escape.
Why a woman in great physical agony would try to run away from the hospital she assumes her newborn is still in is a conundrum only someone as slithery as MacIntyre could envision.
Sheriff Joe has his defenders and admirers. Apparently there a lot of petty people in AZ who think his pettiness is just fine with them, and they have reelected him 5 times.
http://www.evliving.com/...
The voters and Maricopa County are paying for their admiration of pettiness, and it will cost them millions more before the courts are done.
So far, Arpaio's cost taxpayers more than $43 million in lawsuit payouts because of the gruesome conditions in his jails. Now that the NCCHC has shot down the sheriff once again, you can expect more and larger lawsuit settlements and awards. In a time of budget deficits and cutbacks, taxpayers can no longer afford Arpaio's rampant stupidity. What do Joe supporters want the county to do, go bankrupt for the star-wearing fool?
No, he is not a tough sheriff. A tough sheriff would go after outstanding felons and child molesters. He is a petty sheriff and a petty person. He doesn’t know how to be anything else. There is no petty level that Arpaio won’t stoop to.
Arpaio’s 79. Apparently, it’s too late for self reflection from Sheriff Joe. He needs to resign and retire, before the indictments come. Arizona will be much better off when Arpaio is gone for good along with his mean, petty policies. The fact that he and his deputies will no longer be able to violate Latinos rights at will is the best thing that has happened for Arizona since Sheriff Joe first got elected. Maybe now we can begin to turn around the horrible legacy that Arpaio’s rights violating policies have given us. And, maybe we can start treating people with humanity instead of petty meanness.