The former head of the Mesa Police Association, Javier Fabian Cota, accuses San Diego police in a federal lawsuit of violating his rights during a June 4 arrest for alleged public drunkenness.Cota’s story of gettomg thrown in a drunk tank that night, which resulted in a demotion and pay cut…
There’s one general conclusion I have after reading and re-reading the transcript of Wednesday’s oral argument before the U.S. Supreme Court over Senate Bill 1070: Latinos and their allies cannot rely on the federal government or the courts for a long term solution to the overt bigotry that spawned SB…
It’s like 2010 all over again, with the Phoenix-based civil rights group Puente leading an anti-SB 1070 protest with a “march route [that] exposes collaborators in Arpaio’s human rights crisis.”As you can see on the map, the demonstration begins at 3 p.m. at Phoenix’s Civic Space Park, 424 North Central…
Pearce confronts DREAM Act students in 2010I’ll have more to say soon about recalled former state Senate President Russell Pearce’s Tuesday appearance at a U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Senate Bill 1070. There was some good stuff in the nearly two hour donnybrook, especially from U.S. Senator from Illinois…
We almost forgot about when the “Motor City Madman” Ted Nugent — known in more recent days simply as a madman — was deputized by Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio.Turns out, Nugent’s still a “Special Deputy” to Arpaio, a sheriff’s office spokesman confirms to New Times…
In case you missed it, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio told the Associated Press over the weekend that 500 illegal immigrants were arrested by his office “just for spite” after the civil rights investigation into the sheriff was launched.Of course, Arpaio was just kidding about the statements he made during…
File this one under “outrage du jour”: Dennis Wilenchik, the former special prosecutor whose runaway investigation of New Times resulted in the wrongful arrests of Village Voice Media Editor Michael Lacey and VVM CEO Jim Larkin, has been appointed by Governor Jan Brewer to sit on Arizona’s Real Estate Advisory…
Political spin is one thing. Politicians do it all the time — the classic distorting the truth beyond recognition so long as there is some nugget of truth that remains. Paul Babeu, who is running for a seat in Arizona’s Fourth Congressional District, isn’t wasting time on that anymore. In…
Of all the trial balloons in the history of politics, this one most deserves to be shot down, stomped, incinerated, and spat on, with the remains dumped in the nearest landfill to rot.Seems there’s a cadre of hardcore Russell Pearce-worshippers in the state legislature that want to give the recalled…
Just when I thought it couldn’t get any better than screw-loose GOP state Senator Sylvia Allen suddenly finding the Navajo County Board of Supervisors a more attractive sphere of influence than the lege’s upper house, along comes this beautiful news from a recent edition of the Capitol Times’ Yellow Sheet.Dam…
This week Attorney General Tom Horne paid a visit to recalled ex-state Senate President Russell Pearce’s Ban Amnesty Now radio show, where he regaled Pearce’s tens of listeners with his heroic legal work of late, despite Pearce’s incessant efforts to turn the conversation back to his ridiculous “buy-cott” (read, “boycott”)…
When recalled state Senate President Russell Pearce’s Ban Amnesty Now announced a “buy-cott” of New Times’ advertisers, I quipped that it was like being boycotted by the Ku Klux Klan. An exaggeration, to be sure, but not by as much as you might think.Take for example the comments of BAN…
Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio put out a press release to say deputies found a lot of weed last night — Steven Seagal not included this time.In fact, the press release says deputies have “arrested more than 20 illegal aliens and seized nearly two tons of marijuana” in the last…
The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld — in part — Arizona’s voter-approved 2004 law requiring voters to show proof of citizenship before receiving a ballot.The Appeals Court en banc panel mostly shot down the challenges to the law, which had itself been upheld in Arizona U.S. District…
Score a triumph for redistricting a little more than a half-year ahead of the November elections. The Payson Roundup reports that Republican state Senator Sylvia Allen has turned yellower than an egg-sucking cur at the prospect of running in the newly formed Legislative District 6, where a recent poll showed…
Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio has a new excuse for his “employer sanctions operations,” after the boys in beige ran the 59th immigrant roundup this morning, and we’ll give you a hint — it still has little or nothing to do with sanctioning employers.Arpaio says deputies raided Circle B Grading…
The public first saw a transcript of a secret recording made of one of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s staff meetings after New Times published it online.Last week, we noticed that Channel 5 News (KPHO-TV) had obtained the actual audio recording and aired pieces of it in a broadcast. That…
Sinema’s statement on Iran starts 2:48 in, her comments on health care at around 6:03The flap over center-left talking head Hilary Rosen and her perceived insult of Mitt Romney’s wife Ann offers a perfect example of how mere verbal flubs can offer ammunition to right-wingers in the highly-charged partisan discourse…
Joel Fox, a former captain in the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office, was “floored” when state criminal investigators showed up with a search warrant at his house on March 31, 2009. “I couldn’t believe it,” Fox said on the stand this morning, testifying in his attempt to get his job back…
Recalled state Senate President Russell Pearce has just taken the bait proffered by Bob Worsley, his opponent in the Legislative District 25 Republican primary for state Senate. And in doing so, Pearce may have further endangered the 501(c)4 status of the organization he currently fronts, Ban Amnesty Now. Pearce did…
Ex-Phoenix Police Sergeant Paul Penzone, the man running as a Democrat against Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, recently announced a slew of new endorsements via his campaign website, the most prominent of which comes from former U.S. Attorney for Arizona Paul Charlton, a Republican and stalwart critic of Sheriff Joe.Other…
Disbarred, disgraced and unrepentant, former Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas compared himself to such men of conscience as Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., as he addressed reporters this morning in downtown Phoenix, one day after being stripped of his license to practice law by a three-man disciplinary…
