Two Down And Joe To Go
In a late Friday news dump the Maricopa County Sheriff's Department released a statement regarding the firing of Joe Arpaio's second and third in command. Dave Hendershott and Larry Black had been on administrative leave since September when accusations surfaced and an investigation began. The list of misdeeds and corruption is long, and it was all done under the nose of the self proclaimed 'America's toughest sheriff.'
Dave and Larry were the MCSO's chief intimidators. They initiated several trumped up investigations of city, county and state officials who dared to oppose the sheriff's policies and tactics. When these investigations hit the news the political damage to the accused was impossible to control, even when NONE of the investigations lead to charges.
In one case the headline read, 'Mayor Phil Gordon Investigated For Child Abuse.' Once that news appeared in papers and on local airwaves the reputation of the Phoenix mayor was tarnished. The court of public opinion has a short attention span. Months pass, the investigation goes nowhere, but the news of no child abuse does not make the headlines. This is Joe's tactic of intimidation.
The MCSO corruption task force, headed by newly fired Dave & Larry, issued search warrants on offices and homes of political foes simply to gain news coverage of their 'investigations' into corruption. The media was tipped off and they dutifully showed up for the dog & pony show. Deputies refusing to seek such a warrant, because they knew it was unwarranted, were reassigned away from the corruption task force. One judge who denied multiple warrants was himself the target of a highly public MCSO investigation.
None of the 'accused' were charged with a crime because there were no crimes ..... unless you count the abuse of power and the public funds misused to conduct these political probes. Sheriff Joe is going down.
Sheriff Arpaio is a master of media manipulation and PR. He taps lowest common denominators in this state, hate, fear and bigotry. The redneck teabaggers and Mormons love him. The Mexicans hate him. Anyone in favor of even handed justice should oppose Joe but his public media campaign keeps their mind off his corruption by focusing on his political diversions and illegal immigrant roundups. His face is always in the news diverting public attention.
These diversions have added up to 90 million dollars in misappropriated funds over the last decade. The report released this week has 1033 pages of findings with over 10,000 pages of supporting documents. Dave & Larry were thrown under the bus, rightfully so, but if Joe thinks sacrificing a couple of pensioned subordinates will save his ass he's as clueless as he is corrupt.
There are a few high profile lawsuits against the MCSO. Once the lawyers get their hands on this report Sheriff Joe is going down. That will be a great day for Arizona.