I was chatting with some friends yesterday while we were volunteering at the Special Olympics, and the topic turned to football. Is it fair that a college football coach gets $6 million in salary while the college president gets a couple hundred thousand?
I suppose the relative value of those two positions can be debated, but both of those numbers pall in comparison with the amounts Maricopa County has had to pay out in legal costs and settlements because of Joe Arpaio and his office.
Published numbers just on the Melendres case alone, the one ongoing where Arpaio will face contempt charges later this month, top $12.5 million. That is about what the County had to pay out for Sheriff Joe’s false arrests of political opponents in 2013. Those numbers don’t touch the settlements over wrongful deaths in Arpaio’s jail, reported at $33 million by station KPHO in 2014.
On top of that, the County agreed yesterday to pay out another $3.5 million (plus attorney’s fees) for a botched rape investigation by the Sheriff’s Office. That was part of the reported 400 rape cases that Arpaio’s office let slide while they put their resources towards arresting undocumented day laborers. In this case, the Sheriff’s office failed to investigate a rape, and the victim (a 13 year old girl) was raped again by the same person.
Maricopa County government has become Shurf Joe’s personal ATM machine. It’s amazing what he says and does and gets away with, as long as he has access to county funds to get his butt out of a jam. It’s amazing. With over 400 ignored sex crimes at a possible $3.5 million pay out per incidident, when will Joe bankrupt the county? It’s amazing!
When their county goes flat broke, maybe then the idiots who repeatedly voted for Shurfjoke will start to complain about his shenanigans.
I fear that a majority of voters in Maricopa County hate Hispanics more than they hate paying for Arpaio’s misconduct.
I would be happy to have them prove me wrong.
Now we’re getting into third world country-type corruption. It’s ironic that the right-wing racists think they’re so much better than the “brown people” when they’re in fact behaving just the same or worse.
Lupin, unfortunately this is a piece along with endemic, institutional corruption like “pay to play” where businesses pay “political contributions” to local or state government officials for the privilege of being allowed to bid for work contracts.
Coming as I have from what is frequently seen as one of the most corrupt counties in one of the most corrupt states in the Union (Hudson County, New Jersey) it still flabbergasts me that this type of activity is still seen as “business as usual”
As an example from Hudson County, I believe they were put up to the Guinness Book of Records for the municipality (Hoboken) with the shortest period of time between an elected mayor being sworn in and then being indicted and arrested on federal corruption charges…..
Peter Cammarano……22 days
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Cammarano
And still, those dollar amounts can never fully measure the human misery underlying and surrounding Arpaio’s unconstitutional/unlawful conduct.
As an aside, I recently saw that County Attorney Bill Montgomery made some headlines talking about the constitution….when he called a Vietnam vet an “enemy” of the U.S. for simply smoking pot. Too bad Montgomery didn’t address these words to lawless-Arpaio instead.
From the phoenixnewtimes:
“”Well, then you’re violating the law, and I have no respect for you,” Montgomery fumed. “And I have no respect for someone who would try to claim that you served this country and took an oath to uphold the constitution and defend against all enemies foreign and domestic, because you’re an enemy.””
http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valleyfever/2015/03/video_see_bill_montgomerys_religiously-based_arguments_vs_marijuana_destroy.php
Maricopa County Prosecuting Attorney, Bill Montgomery:
“”Well, then you’re violating the law, and I have no respect for you,” Montgomery fumed. “And I have no respect for someone who would try to claim that you served this country and took an oath to uphold the constitution and defend against all enemies foreign and domestic, because you’re an enemy.””
Speaking about enemies, isn’t Montgomery the same guy that failed to prosecute the law enforcement officer who shot an individual in the back and killed the person? (Move on. Nothing to see here.)
Death by cop seems to becoming an epidemic in America. The days of officer friendly and “To Protect and to Serve” are long gone. Think twice before you call law enforcement.
Montgomery is the enemy if he indeed turned a blind eye to a cop back shooter.