Ride a bike without a headlight and get tasered!

[thewayne]

I'm glad that I'm no longer working for law enforcement, though I haven't heard of my former employer getting weird, there's enough weirdness going around to make up for them.


So, Portland. A guy is riding a bicycle without a headlight, apparently you can get a ticket for that. Someone had stolen the cradle that it mounted in, he had the light in his pack. He is tackled by a cop, thrown against a wall, and repeatedly tased. In front of witnesses.

http://bikeportland.org/2008/06/11/man-on-a-bike-is-tackled-then-tasered-by-portland-police/?


And in Phoenix, more of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio's ass-hattery. He's trying to get dirt on Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon because Gordon is calling him in his grandstanding/ass-hattery. So Arpaio sends to detectives to copy all of the emails of Gordon and the city manager. A reporter shows up and asks to see what they're copying, because they are public records and EVERYONE has access to them.

The detectives threaten to arrest him for interfering in an investigation. Much greater levels of ass-hattery ensues.

http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valleyfever/2008/06/arpaios_thugs_threaten_to_arre.php

I just don't understand how Maricopa County continues to elect the twit.

Comments

[fastlearner.livejournal.com]

He keeps getting elected because he plays very well on people's fears, while encouraging them to tamp down their compassion. Quite the turd.

[silveradept]

Wow. The first one certainly counts for excessive force, regardless of "resisting arrest" or "attempting to flee", and the second... there's got to be some way of filing an appropriate claim or getting the Sheriff or the goons dismissed from their position for interfering with the freedom of the press.

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

Joe's been running things for over a decade. He has a special enmity for New Times (the paper that the reporter works for) stretching back to the beginning of his rein. New Times consistently wins awards for investigative journalism and he's constantly harassing them hoping that they'll go away. He's into a lot of shady things, but as the article says, he demands transparency of everyone but refuses to follow the same rules, so he gets away with it.

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

I should add to that. As Fast Learner said above your post, he gets people to tamp down their compassion. Arpaio's monicker is America's Toughest Sheriff. He got that by setting up Tent City, a bunch of tents in the desert outside of Phoenix. He feeds detainees green bologna. He has sub-standard medical care. Several inmates have died in his custody. One person that I can remember was an accused rapist/murderer and was put in with the general jail population rather than into segregated, protective custody, like he should have been. It took a while for him to get out of the hospital, he has some amazing scars and I think no more spleen. I think they caught the actual killer/rapist while he was in the hospital, regardless, he was released quickly. Another one of his favorite things to do is to do prostitution sweeps in Phoenix city limits. He's the COUNTY sheriff, and the crime rate in the unincorporated areas of the county is soaring because he's not fucking enforcing the laws where he's supposed to. He does anything that will get him in the news.

Here's the kicker: most of the people in county jails are ACCUSED of a crime, NOT CONVICTED. The voters have to ask themselves, if they had a relative being treated as brutally as Joe treats his guests, and their relative was innocent, what would they think then?

Oh, his law enforcement background? He was a DEA agent. If you ask him, he was one of the greatest DEA agents who ever lived. If you ask the people he worked with, he was a nickle-bagger, busting small dealers and unable to work up the chain to the bigger fish.

And as a parting shot, there are European countries who will not extradite accused felons to Arizona because Amnesty International rates Joe in the same category as third world countries.

I could go on forever about his Posse and the underwear scandals, but thinking about him turns my stomach.

Amusing reading: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Arpaio

[silveradept]

Sounds very much like the people need to shake off whatever delusions they're under that he's protecting them and fire his ass.