Doubling Down Regarding the Bruce Babbitt/Paul Eckstein “Indian gambling” accusations (“Babbitt’s Department of Ulterior,” Michael Lacey, November 20), supposing the Department of the Interior decision had gone the other way? Then Eckstein could be portrayed as “the high-paid mouthpiece for gambling interests exploiting impoverished Indians to justify locating a casino…
Why are public records called public records? Because they belong to the public. And if you think that’s an obvious answer, you haven’t had to deal with the Scottsdale Police Department. My last two columns have reported cases of intimidation and brutality by the SPD. The first story told how…
James Cornell “Butch” Harrod is on trial, possibly for his life. He’s on the witness stand, trying to convince a jury that he didn’t commit one of Arizona’s most sensational murders. He’s accused of the April 1, 1988, execution of wealthy Phoenix heiress Jeanne Tovrea, who was shot to death…
To some foodies, this idiosyncratic chef is the populist Wolfgang Puck–a charming kitchen magician who, whether stuffing fans or providing annual Thanksgiving dinners to the needy, is a candidate for culinary sainthood. To others, however, he’s the surly Pizza Nazi–a single-minded megalomaniac whose bullheaded brand of “my way or the…
Getting Mad and Even Insiders at Sheriff Joke Arpaio’s office tell the Flash that recent revelations about the Jokester have sent the Crime Avenger into orbit with rage. Those reports were bolstered by a French reporter who was interviewing Arpaio in his office when a call came in from a…
Two weeks ago in this space, I reported a display of brutality by two Scottsdale police officers who entered a home and assaulted two residents. It would be reassuring to think this was an isolated incident, but the opposite seems to be true. Since the story appeared, several people have…
Joe’s Boys After reading more than 40 column inches of Barry Graham’s raging against Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s political machine (“Joe, Jane & John,” October 30), I am offering my services to New Times as an editor. Clearly, the entire content of Graham’s column could be boiled down as follows: I…
Dave Knutson must have looked out of place at the Aspen Correctional Facility in Phoenix, compared to the inmates and corrections officers working on renovations at the facility. The inmates wore their dirty prison blues, covered with the dust and grime of the work they were doing. The officers wore…
Bear the front door of his northeast Phoenix home, Richard Aiello has screwed a small brass plaque to the stuccoed wall. It reads: NEVER MIND THE DOG–BEWARE THE OWNER. On the roof at the back of the neatly maintained home he shares with his wife, Helen, and his 4-year-old daughter,…
For Steve, a Door? In recent days, Arizona Republic managing editor Steve Knickmeyer has busied himself doing in-house damage control. By the end of last week, he was spinning from desk to desk in the newsroom, struggling to dispel rumors that ranged from his termination to upper management’s call for…
Trailer Thrash “Journalist” Barry Graham insulted a lot of good people when he characterized Joe Arpaio as being “low-class. He’s one step from the trailer park” (“Waiter, There’s a Lie in My Soup,” November 6). I would judge that the 500 or so grandmothers and grandfathers living at the “trailer…
Like many Arizonans, I want to believe both Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt and his former colleague Paul Eckstein. Each man has an almost folkloric reputation for integrity. Yet the Senate hearings that have spawned a Department of Justice probe into Babbitt’s 1995 denial of an Indian casino permit…
Hoot Gibson was spending a few days at his vacation condo near San Diego when he got the call that changed his life–and ignited a controversy that still smolders between the Phoenix Fire Department and City Hall. For 36 years, ever since he was 24 years old, Robert “Hoot” Gibson…
Samaritan will be the pre-eminent nonprofit healthcare system in the Southwest. –from Samaritan Health System’s Mission Statement The right to be free from misappropriation of funds, and from medical, psychological or physical abuse. –Number 14, Good Samaritan Care Center Residents’ Rights Jafet Coronado worked as a certified nursing assistant at…
Putting the “X” in Xmas J. Fife Symington III–bankrupt fraud and disgraced former governor–must have been looking forward to one last starring appearance before his February sentencing in federal court. But his swan-song social event–one of Phoenix’s most festive Christmastime gatherings of the rich and powerful–has been canceled. Probably just…
Several months ago, after writing a column about a black motorist who claimed he had been harassed by two Scottsdale police officers, I received a letter from the Scottsdale Police Department. The document was offered as “an open letter to your readers.” In the interest of furthering relations between police…
No Gold Stars Did it strike anyone else as funny that Barry Graham, Moe and Curly had to impersonate reporters to get into Joe Arpaio’s fund raiser (“Joe, Jane & John,” Barry Graham, October 30)? Come to think of it, that’s what they do for a living. Such prose! “Arpaio…
Drew Nolan sets down his briefcase before he reaches out for a handshake. “Always have to have one hand free,” he says with a smile. It’s a statement he makes only partly in jest. He is armed, and after spending more than a year crisscrossing the country to keep from…
Tom Bearup was once one of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s most trusted aides, a political operative who, until his fall from grace earlier this year, played a key role in creating the myth of the self-proclaimed “America’s Toughest Sheriff.” Bearup now regrets taking part in that project, which he…
April 1964: I’m a junior at Mohave County Union High School (nickname “Mucous”). My mother is driving me to Vegas to go see a skin doctor. I hear a song on the radio called “Time Is on My Side.” The DJ says it’s by a new group called the Rolling…
The federal government followed up its two-year investigation of Maricopa County’s jails Friday by filing a lawsuit realleging inmate abuse and official indifference to that abuse. That lawsuit will be dropped if Sheriff Joe Arpaio abides by a settlement agreement which calls for a new use-of-force policy, new guidelines on…
News You Can Uzi The 10 p.m. October 30 newscast produced by KPNX-TV Channel 12 sunk to new lows in already murky depths of the Marianas Trench where local TV news resides. Arizona’s News Station brought on a surprise guest, Sheriff Joke Arpaio. By the time the newscast began taking…
