Fear & Loathing in Maricopa County

The Republic yesterday had a depressing story about how what it calls the “rank and file” in Maricopa County government have been coping with the tensions induced by Joe Arpaio. With the grand jury investigating Arpaio, some employees are talking.

Now, as they wait to see what will happen, a cross-section of county employees spoke with The Arizona Republic, talking publicly for the first time about life inside the county offices during the political battles, lawsuits and arrests going on above them at the highest levels of county government.

Among the details:

Others worried that even minor infractions – a chipped windshield, having a beer before driving home after work – would be an excuse for deputies to pull them over or arrest them.
One Superior Court judge moved meetings with her staff and other judges to the chamber restroom, believing it would be a less likely spot for a listening device.

Joe Arpaio's popularity takes a dive

From an unbylined Republic political blog:

The new Rocky Mountain Poll from Behavior Research Center showed support from Arpaio has dropped to 39 percent of those polled who thought the sheriff was doing an “excellent/good” job from a high rating of 64 in March 2007.
The pollsters noted that Arpaio’s job approval was dropping most precipitously among Independent voters and has “softened” among Republicans while remaining low among Democrats.

An editorial in tomorrow’s paper rubs it in:

It isn’t just Arpaio who should worry about these stunning poll numbers. The political fortunes of County Attorney Andrew Thomas and as-yet-unannounced Senate candidate J.D. Hayworth, both Republicans, ride largely on the sheriff’s coattails. Without a popular Arpaio preening as America’s Toughest Sheriff by their sides, their prospects may diminish.
It has been a while since Arpaio has been viewed purely as a nails-tough lawman. For two years, he has been a politician first. And this is the price politicians pay.

The Maricopa County craziness rachets up a notch

Heat City has a hilarious report about a Maricopa County judge who heard from a reporter that her chambers were going to be raided by myrmidons of Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

The reporter wanted to come film the raid. (?!) The judge, Barbara Mundell, went code red. She went to the Arizona Court of Appeals to block her offices’ being raided. But at the hearing, an assistant county attorney said no warrants were being issued.

Heat City’s Nick Martin cites this as an example of hair-trigger tensions in the court system, as Arpaio and his Dimmer Twin, County Attorney Andrew Thomas, have used just about any aspect of their police and legal powers to harass and intimidate enemies.

The journalist in question is identified only as a TV reporter, and no gender was cited. Unanswered is where the reporter got the tip. According to Martin, the ADA at the hearing said no warrants had been “sought or obtained.” That could mean a) the reporter was lied to; b) the reporter was given a good tip but somehow got the judge in question wrong (a possibility, since he or she seemed to have a screw loose in any case*); or c) Thomas’s office was choosing its words carefully in front of the judge to obscure the fact that some sort of action was about to be taken against Mundell.

Martin says the judge has reason to find herself on Arpaio’s enemies list:

In May, Mundell told a Phoenix TV station she thought Maricopa County’s judges were facing serious intimidation by the sheriff, including possible investigations and retaliation. She said the sheriff was upset, in part, because a judge had just criticized his office for bringing inmates late to their court appearances.

Mundell also fought the sheriff’s office as far back as 2007 over whether his deputies should have access to thousands of emails she and other court officials had sent or received that year. Mundell and Superior Court Administrator Marcus Reinkensmeyer denied the request, and the sheriff’s office eventually sued.

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• By which I mean it’s inappropriate for a reporter to find out a raid is about to happen and then call up the target of it to ask permission to film.

The Arizona Republic lays into Andrew Thomas

After a new round of indictments of Andrew Thomas’ political enemies on the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, the paper editorializes against the Dimmer Twins:

Even if it were possible for these elected officials to erect a wall between their politics and their crime fighting, Arpaio and Thomas already have botched that job hopelessly.

They have investigated as a criminal enterprise the construction of a new county courthouse they oppose. They have followed low-level county employees to their homes to conduct intimidating interviews. Indications strongly suggest they bugged, or attempted to bug, the county administration offices.

These are not the actions of justice seekers. They are the acts of venal, retribution-minded political actors with badges and guns.

The Adam Stoddard case gets crazier

As someone who recently returned to Arizona after some years in those parts of the country that supposedly looks down their noses at rubes in the desert, I can say with some authority Arizona’s reputation is not as bad as it might be.

Joe Arpaio isn’t doing the state any favors, of course, and, yes, the Daily Show has taken a couple of shots at various goings-on.

But it’s not like most folks in DC or the Bay Area can, off the top of their head, recite Arizona’s place in the hierarchy of most markers of social advancement. (For the record, they are generally just a few hairs above those in the Deep South.)

However, if Andrew Thomas and Joe Arpaio keep it up, the rest of the country is going to take a closer look at how backwards and comical the state’s political system has become.

Back to the Adam Stoddard affair. After a couple of days of sickouts by sheriff’s deputies assigned to the courts, Arpaio is now apparently refusing to supply inmates to the judge’s courtroom. Heat City has the story:

The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office has apparently stopped delivering inmates to the courtroom where a one of its detention officers was caught in an uproar that landed him in jail.

In a statement released late today, Superior Court Judge Lisa Flores said the sheriff’s office has flat-out stopped bringing inmates to her courtroom for their scheduled appearances.

The cutoff comes in the context of …

Since [Stoddard’s] jailing, Maricopa County’s justice system – one of the largest in the nation – has been thrown into a state of chaos, plagued by protests and a likely sickout by Stoddard’s coworkers, as well as bomb threats from a still-unknown source.

Stoddard’s boss, Sheriff Joe Arpaio, has described the detention officer as a “political prisoner” in his own jail. Arpaio’s supporters call Stoddard a victim of the ongoing disputes between the sheriff and other county leaders, including some judges.

Meanwhile, Stephen Lemons notes that the Goldwater Institute, in the form of director Clint Bolick, is slamming Arpaio’s handling of the case:

“Sworn law-enforcement officers take an oath to uphold the law. By effectively shutting down the very justice system they are employed to protect, the sheriff’s officers displayed contempt toward the rule of law. Taxpayers should hold them accountable for abrogating their essential duties.”

A "Joe Arpaio Meets the Press" post-mortem

PHXated was working on another project today and is just getting caught up to the coverage of the aborted Joe Arpaio appearance at the Cronkite School last night.

PHXated’s live blogging of the event is here.

Stephen Lemons, of New Times, and I argued about the disruption afterward; he makes his case in favor of it here:

I spoke briefly to Cronkite School Dean Christopher Callahan about the disruption, which he naturally abhorred. But, I wondered, wasn’t it to be expected? What if ASU had invited President Lyndon Johnson’s Defense Secretary Robert McNamara to speak during the height of the Vietnam War? Wouldn’t he have anticipated civil disobedience, and far more upheaval?

“Quite frankly,” he said, “if the Defense Secretary came in to give a speech during the Vietnam War, I think it would be protested intensely. Do I think that if you had a group of journalists grilling Secretary McNamara on Vietnam policies, do I think that would be protested? Honestly, no.”

I’ll admit, as I’m sure many will point out to me, the analogy is by no means precise. The carnage of Vietnam is not parallel to the sufferings of the undocumented here in Ari-bama. But the treatment of the undocumented is a moral issue that requires a response, and civil disobedience is a response, a disobedient response.

I’m Lemons’ biggest fan, but he is off his rocker here. Callahan’s right: This wasn’t in any way a speech or a soap box for Arpaio. It was the opposite. Not only were the protesters wrong to disrupt the event, they were being dumb, which is worse.

But of course, they are students; they are allowed to be dumb. Defending them, however, is morally reckless.

In fact, I disagree with Callahan and the school’s handing of the disruption; I heard afterward that the school didn’t want to be in the position of dragging students exercising free speech rights out of a venue called the First Amendment Forum.

But that’s the point: At a First Amendment Forum, goons shouldn’t be allowed to shut down a public event. As a matter of first principles, they should have been removed and the event allowed to go on.

Indeed, absent some clearly amusing or exacerbating circumstance (like, say, if Arpaio were speaking to a bunch of ASU fat-cat donors at an exclusive luncheon, or if student money were used to pay someone as compromised as Arpaio to appear), it would have been wrong for the students to disrupt things even if it had been a regular speech.

I was in the crowd and everyone around me was yelling shut up at the people who disrupted the event. And as Callahan pointed out when he was trying to calm the students up, they had disrupted the questioning just when the professors had gotten around to asking Arpaio about his Civil Rights violations.

All in all, it wasn’t a good night for any of the parties involved.

Joe Arpaio's deputy: I won't apologize

Heat City has a good account of the latest bit of legal and moral hilarity emanating out of the Maricopa County Sheriff’s office.

There are many of them right now—this one we’ll call the Case of the Purloined Letter.

During a trial Oct. 19, a sheriff’s deputy working in court surreptitiously swiped a letter out of a defense attorney’s case file where her back was turned. The incident was caught on video tape.

The officer, Adam Stoddard, says that he saw some words on the letter that made him think that the lawyer’s client was planning a crime, and that grabbing it was justified. A judge disagreed, and ordered him to apologize.

Last night, the officer spoke publicly on the courthouse steps, saying … he wasn’t going to. Nick Martin was there:

Judge Donahoe has ordered me to feel something I do not.” Stoddard said. “He has ordered me to say something I cannot.”

The young detention officer, dressed in his brown duty uniform and wearing a badge, told the pack of journalists and other observers in front of the county’s main courthouse in downtown Phoenix that the judge had essentially “put me in a position where I must lie or go to jail.”

“I will not lie,” he said.

Stoddard has the backing of his boss, Joe Arpaio. As I understand it, Stoddard a) stole something; b) violated attorney-client privilege in two ways (first by looking at the lawyer’s papers and then stealing one); c) isn’t too awfully bright (he seems to have forgotten the room was being taped); and d) is possessed of that peculiar penchant of law-and-0rder types who, when caught doing something they shouldn’t, don’t apologize or evince a sense of shame but rather stonewall and bluster.

Stoddard was supposed to report to jail tonight but was not taken in because of a clerical error, Martin reports.

Joe Arpaio at the Cronkite School: The zoo approacheth

The Arizona Republic and KPHO have both posted stories about Monday’s live “Meet the Press”-style interview of Joe Arpaio at ASU’s Cronkite School of journalism.

Arpaio’s going to be questioned by three profs from the school at 7 p.m.

Both stories are pretty incompetent. The Republic story says that interest in the event will surely swamp the smallish school atrium where the interview will be held, so the school’s going to show it on a large video screen and stream it over the internet.

The paper doesn’t bother to tell readers where the screen will be, or what the web address for the stream is.

For the record, the video will be shown in the public mall just south of the Cronkite building, which is on the east side of Central Avenue between Polk and Fillmore.

The video stream will be here, according to the school.

The KPHO story is equally unhelpful; worse, it lets the sheriff natter on about how good he is with the press:

“There have been blips about some weekly newspaper — we didn’t give an answer to a request — but that’s been straightened out. But I think it’s great. If there’s anyone who has an open door policy, I think it’s the sheriff,” said Arpaio.

As anyone who reads the New Times knows, there are three inaccuracies in merely the first sentence alone. The KPHO reporter doesn’t bother to ask him about them.

The Republic story doesn’t mention that some students plan to protest the event; the KPHO story does, but neither note that local Tea Party activists are showing up as well.

PHXated’s background on the event is here and here.

Is the Cronkite School's "Meet the Press" night with Joe Arpaio going to be a zoo?

As you might know, Sheriff Joe Arpaio is going to be interviewed by three journalism professors onstage at the Cronkite School on Central at 7 p.m. Monday. The event is looking more and more like it’s going to be a spectacle.

First, a bunch of misinformed ASU students have decided that, since audience members don’t get to question Arpaio at the panel, the school is somehow giving him a platform to spread his views unchallenged.

The students are planning a protest outside the event.

But as the title of the session—"Meet the Press"—makes clear, the point is to have the sheriff questioned closely by some informed professionals.

It’s uncool to say it in this Age of Everyone’s a Journalist, but this serves the public a lot better than having a bunch of Arpaio’s opponents declaiming at him from a microphone. The students should shut up and come watch the session. If it turns out to be filled with lobbed softballs, then they can protest.

(By the way—Stephen Lemons notes here that CBS 5 has a new investigative report on Arpaio scheduled to run tonight at 10 p.m.)

Now the Sheriff Joe contingent is getting into the act, too. Below is a press release I just got from the Phoenix Area Tea Partyers. (Note the slur on the students half-way down.)

Looks like Monday is going to be quite a scene:

Time: November 30, 2009 from 7pm to 7pm Location: First Amendment Room-Second Floor Organized By: American Citizens United Event Description: This is an event I saw posted on Resistnet and thought our group may be interested. American Citizens United is organizing a rally in front of the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism. There is a great push from the Hispanic students of Journalism (some of them children of illegals and others illegals themselves). They have been encouraged by “La Raza” and other local pro-amnesty organizations to go into journalism so they can have an influence on public opinion. And you can guess what opinion they want to change to get amnesty. Please keep it orderly, no yelling or name calling. Resist the anger we all feel when our country and those who protect it get attacked. We must remain civilized to be credible.

Will Joe Arpaio really "Meet the Press" at the Cronkite School?

It’s been an unobtrusive line at the bottom of the this semester’s ASU j-school event calendar:

Did Joe Biden meet with Arpaio today?

The Republic says he did:

County audit slams Arpaio

You remember the sheriff’s half-million-dollar bus. The county instituted a purchasing freeze last year, but the sheriff’s office, taking money out of its jail fund, bought it anyway.

It’s one of the many infantile points of contention between Arpaio and the county. Supervisors have kept the bus in a garage since they found out about the purchase in May.

Now an audit (which probably cost the county money to perform) shows the obvious: That Arpaio violated county guidellines when he bought it.

The EVT:

“There is no evidence that the bus was acquired for the best price, or that procurement controls meant to protect and account for public funds were followed,” the audit states.

Republic story here.

On a related note, PHXated was talking to some courts people recently and heard some anecdotal but plausible stories about the effects of Arpaio’s deliberate slowdown of his office’s work in transferring prisoners to the court system.

Arapio has a certain genius in smelling what ways he can essentially not do his job that don’t elicit public outrage or opposition.

According to the people I spoke to, the sheriff’s office brings prisoners to the court only two days a week, which makes scheduling difficult. Even with those limitations, prisoners frequently aren’t where they are supposed to be, creating cascading waves of delays. (The process also costs defendants, or the state, money, as lawyers sit around on the clock doing nothing.)

In fact, this happened at the case I was watching.

One lawyer said he’d seen judges deliberately let people out on bond who otherwise would not be when the likelihood of a non-appearance by a defendant could have hampered progress on a particular case or hearing.

Did the Dimmer Twins (accidentally) hit pay dirt with Wilcox?

Reading the two Republic stories on the matter today—here and here—one feels that the charges filed against Maricopa County Supervisor Mary Anne Wilcox aren’t entirely spurious.

That isn’t often the feeling one gets when reading about most of Joe Arpaio and Andrew Thomas’s brutal use of their police powers.

Wilcox hasn’t as yet given her side of the story, and there are I’m sure all sorts of ways the acts could be benign. But here’s a precis from the paper:

Elected county officials must file the financial-disclosure forms with the clerk’s office by Jan. 31 each year, said Fran McCarroll, clerk of the board. The forms are required by law to help avoid a conflict of interest or the appearance of one.

A Republic review showed that Wilcox did not disclose the loans from Chicanos Por La Causa. A spokeswoman with the non-profit said Wilcox and her husband, Earl, received a $7,500 loan in November 2000, a $50,000 loan in July 2005 and $120,000 in October 2008.

According to Thomas—and the paper—she didn’t file conflict-of-interest disclosures either.

"I have been framed," he said, using a turn of phrase that equates a wooden adornment around a picture with a manufactured criminal charge.

From a 12 News report on the AZ Central web site:

One day after his arrest, Maricopa County Supervisor Don Stapley tells 12 News he is the victim of an “inquisition” by the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office, making a reference to a medieval tactic to scrutinize an individual without regard to his rights.

Don Stapley arrested again

From the Republic:

Maricopa County Sheriff’s deputies arrested County Supervisor Don Stapley Monday morning at a county building, three days after a prosecutor moved to dismiss charges against Stapley in a forgery and fraud case.

A sheriff’s official said Stapley was arrested on a “different case” but could not elaborate on the nature of the new charges.

Another legal salvo from Andrew Thomas against county supervisors

The Arizona Republic says he’s indicting Don Stapley and Mary Rose Wilcox on separate charges:

A grand jury indicted Wilcox on allegations that include perjury, forgery and conflict of interest related to votes she made as a supervisor to fund the Hispanic non-profit group Chicanos Por La Causa, Thomas said.

Stapley’s counts include fraud, theft, perjury and forgery largely related to the use of funds Stapley received in his effort to become president of the National Association of Counties. Stapley also obtained mortgage loans under false pretenses, Thomas said.
[…]
Thomas said the counts were based on Wilcox obtaining five different loans through Prestamos, the lending arm of Chicanos Por La Causa, and continuing to approve funds for the organization in her role as supervisor without filing any type of conflict notice.

Farther down, the paper notes:

The indictments from a Maricopa County grand jury are the latest allegations Thomas and Sheriff Joe Arpaio have leveled against county elected officials and administrators, many of which have been dismissed. Despite the history of Thomas and Arpaio’s allegations against other county officials petering out as they work through the justice system, the sheriff maintained confidence in his investigations.

“Let’s wait to see what the criminal justice system does before you start criticizing my investigations,” Arpaio said.

Live, from the Cronkite School!
Live-blogging as Joe Arpaio meets the press.

* PHXated is live-blogging the event as it happens. Refresh for updates *

Thus endeth the live-blogging.

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In the end, a little anti-climactic. The professors did a good job, but Arpaio just blandly deflected the inquiries.

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The students who disrupted the event are still milling around upstairs. Seems odd that the school had no way to shut them up or hustle them out. It’s a bad precedent that ten or twenty people—I’m guessing—can disrupt the desires of hundreds of others.

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They seem to be ending it.

This is wrong. The event is over. Callahan is trying to lecture the disruptive students. He points out they’ve lost twelve minutes of questioning. And that they’ve effectively left Arpaio to have his views unfiltered in other media venues.

Wide applause from those left here.

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A disruption. Protesters are singing a parody song to the tune of Bohemian Rhapsody. Arpaio puts a funny hat on, but then took it off.

Callahan is trying to quiet the crowd.

This is embarrassing for the school. It’s wrong to disrupt an event in a venue called a “First Amendment Forum.”

Callahan can’t be heard from the dais. Some students are yelling “Shut up” to the idiotic protesters.

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RR is asking him about racial profiling and targeting political opponents. Are you above the law?

Why have there been so many officials saying they were targeted?

A: Implies he got his question from someone else. RR: My words came from me.

A: I don’t know about police chiefs who don’t like me. I don’t know about mayors. RR: Phil Gordon. A: Well him.

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He’s getting pressed on making records available—another thing he’s been getting dinged on. He says they are getting better.

SG presses him on releases video of a certain inmate. “I’m not too familiar with that one. I”m sure they got the information."

What do you consider a reasonable amount of time? There’s been an unwritten law of ten days, but when they ask for thousands of pieces of information it takes time.

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Steve Elliott: Presses him on his home address being publicized. I found your address in public document in five minutes.

A: There might be some slipperage but it’s still a violation. I have a lot of threats on me.

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A: What’s the saying? “The buck stops here? There?” I feel comfortable when I go home at night. Blustering: “I will continue to deal with the media!”

A: “I have nothing to hide. I want to thank you students. You are the future of journalism. I love this Cronkite.”

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SG: Have you rethought that? A: No, there are times you might re-evaluate.

SG: Do you stand by what was done? A: I’m saying it was a learning process.

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“Everyone’s afraid to drink with me. The media is not my enemy.” He’s getting a little unhinged.

Would a normal politician agree to this? Green: Absolutely.

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A: “I kinda like the media!”

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Green bring up his subpoena of all New Times’ information from its web site, including IP addresses of visitors for three years.

A: Not going to go into all the reasons things were done.

He pleads litigation again. But concedes he’s “learning.”

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No one’s laid a glove on him yet.

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RR brings up New Times. They do hard-hitting reporting. They published your home address. In Oct. 2007, you arrested the editor and publisher of the paper i the middle of the night, on a misdemeanor. I was an executive editor of a paper. We often reported on grand jury testimony. I was never threatened with arrest. Were the arrests appropriate? Was it a mistake?

A: They increased my popularity.“By the way, it’s a free weekly paper.” (Groans from the crowd. A deputy, he said, made the decision to arrest the pair. Most arrests are for misdemeanor. Can’t talk more—litigation.

RR: Is publishing grand jury testimony automatically grounds for arrest in AZ now?

A: It all depends.

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Steve Elliott asks him about not sending press releases to the EVT. The scrape wound up in court and the paper won. The judge said you were petty. Did you act properly?

A: Two issues. The judge never ruled against us. “You have to improve,” he said. They had a way to get press releases. They could drive downtown. (!) He said the problems were fixed. We did improve. The releases are now on the web.

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Susan Green asks what about those not allowed to a press conference?

A: I average 200 interviews a month with media.

SG: People have shown up and been denied access to press conference.

A: One or two out of thousands. Security reasons. They use the press conference to sandbag me, or disrupt it.

She presses him: They are doing the stories that aren’t so favorable. Are you using access as a weapon?

A: I’m not afraid to face the media. They ask questions that are off the subject of a press conference.

This is a specious point. He has a crazy idea of what a press conference is. She should be pressing him on the fact that he doesn’t allow himself to be questioned on hard topics.

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Rick Rodriquez starts off the questioning. “It’s going to be a learning experience for students.”

Q: Media relationships—he got great press coverage for being tough. Your son in law works for Republic. Other side: Journos who do critical stories get frozen, even arrested. Deputies have threatened to arrest a report. Is media a tool or the enemy?

There’s protest noise from outside

A: I have to get to people I serve. I have an open door policy. You can come to the tents. I don’t have to have handlers. [I’m paraphrasing] Sometimes there are problems with media. I’m human. I’m still going to deal with the media.

I’m still here, will continue to do my job. I report to the people directly. I have nothing to hide and I do my job.

RR presses him. What about threatening to arrest a reporter asking for public records? A says he’ll arrest anyone who breaks the law.

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Callahan asks for “respect” from the audience and says he’ll stay after and answer questions. His mike is going in and out.

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Callahan is explaining the format—he notes there’s been some "misunderstanding"about the “Meet the Press”-style format. He’s referring to the rabble-rousing by Stephen Lemons and some student activists. He’s making the case that it’s appropriate to have profs question Arpaio without letting the audience at him. It’s sad he has to do it, but whatever.

Then he amps it up to “misreporting.” He’s not paying Arpaio. It’s not “a speech, an interview or a debate.” It’s journalists asking questions of a political leader.

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See below for background on the three interviewers.

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About to begin. The session will last one hour, Dean Callahan just said. Arpaio just walked in, to smatterings of applause.

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Some early photos from the event.

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The live internet stream of tonight’s event will be here, the school says.

The event will also be shown on video on the pedestrian mall just south of the school. It’s on Central Avenue between Fillmore and Van Buren.

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One of the benefits of the event tonight is that I will be able to indulge my fondness for the word interlocutor. Our interlocutors this evening, as described on the school’s website:

The interviewers are three Cronkite professors and veteran journalists: Steve Elliott, digital news director of Cronkite News Service and former Associated Press Phoenix bureau chief; Sue Green, broadcast news director of Cronkite News Service and former managing editor of ABC15; and Rick Rodriguez, the school’s Carnegie Professor of Journalism and former executive editor of the Sacramento Bee.

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Meanwhile, Nick Martin, at Heat City, is tracking one of the many ongoing Arpaio legal sideshows:

An all-out showdown could be in the works today over whether one of Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s officers will apologize for taking an attorney’s confidential files. It all goes back to an Oct. 19 incident in which Maricopa County detention officer Adam Stoddard was caught on a courtroom security video swiping a document from the files of a defense attorney while her back was turned. Superior Court Judget Gary Donahoe has since ordered the detention officer to hold a news conference to apologize for taking the document. If he refuses to do so by the deadline – set for today – Donahoe said he would throw the officer in jail for contempt of court.

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Stephen Lemons, at New Times, continues to be skeptical that the Cronkite School profs will be hard-hitting enough tonight:

Arpaio and his PR staff are practiced media manipulators. I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see Arpaio play the profs like a flute tonight. Though out of pride, if nothing else, you would hope these J-school teachers would not wish to be bested like that.

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The site tonight is the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication. It’s a key part of ASU’s move into downtown Phoenix; the school sits in a distinctive orange building on Central Avenue, just across the street from the new Civic Space Park and a massive piece of public sculpture, Janet Echelman’s “Her Name Is Patience.”

The school’s Monday evening events are held in its second-story atrium, which allows room for several hundred students to sit in front of the stage and on steps and balconies above it.

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Arpaio’s relationship with the press can be said to be dismal. The East Valley Tribune won a Pulitzer Prize this year for its investigation into his various managerial and legal deficiencies.

The series, “Reasonable Doubt,” can be read here.

The Phoenix New Times has spent untold resources over the last few years investigating Arpaio’s practices as well. There’s a fairly complete rundown of its work here.

During the course of one of these series, County Attorney Andrew Thomas and Arpaio actually sent deputies to arrest the editor and publisher of the New Times chain, Michael Lacey and Jim Larkin, in the middle of the night.

While the arrests drew national attention (New York Times story here?) the reaction against Arpaio in Arizona was something less than wholesale outrage, suggesting either that the image of the press is much worse than one might expect … or that Arizonans, being Arizonans, haven’t thought too hard about the implications of mass arrests of journalists.

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For the convenience of readers, I’m inserting my previous coverage of this event below.

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Live, from the Cronkite School: Joe Arpaio meets the press.

If you’re just coming to the story of Joe Arpaio’s appearance at the ASU journalism school tonight, here’s a precis of developments thus far:

Many months ago the school got Arpaio to agree to a “Meet the Press”-style grilling at the school. The interlocutors will be three professors: Rick Rodriguez, Susan Green and Steve Elliott. The event is at 7 p.m. Monday, that’s tonight, in the second floor atrium of the Cronkite School, which is the east side of Central Avenue downtown, between Van Buren and Fillmore.

(The session itself is open only to students; the school’s going to show the event on video on the mall just south of the building, and will stream it live here.)

Arpaio’s talks a lot—blusters, really—in public, of course, but he’s a slippery figure; who wouldn’t want to see him in an enclosed space questioned closely by three journalists?

Besides the obvious—the extraordinary number of inmate deaths in Arpaio’s jails, the myriad documented cases of mismanagement, his excessive use of his police powers against rival elected officials, and any number of other abuses of power—it will be interesting, given the setting, to hear Arpaio talk about the decision-making processes that lead to the 2007 early-morning-hours arrests of the editor and publisher of the Phoenix New Times alternative newspaper.

Well, this is Arizona, and things don’t always make sense. Some students, misapprehending the nature of the event, have said they will protest, saying they were “outraged” that there won’t be questions from the audience.

PHXated went to Berkeley and is, uh, not unsympathetic to the idea of student protest. In this case, it’s dumb. It’s a rare chance to see a public figure as brittle and indefensible as Arpaio in a controlled situation. Why not see how it plays out?

As PHXated has written before: It’s uncool to say it in this Age of Everyone’s a Journalist, but this serves the public a lot better than having a bunch of Arpaio’s opponents declaiming at him from a microphone. The students should shut up and come watch the session. If it turns out to be filled with lobbed softballs, then they can protest.

And speaking of dumb, now the local tea party folks are riding to Arpaio’s defense. Again, this being Arizona, they’ve managed to trump even the misguided students. Here’s a press release I got the other day:

American Citizens United is organizing a rally in front of the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism. There is a great push from the Hispanic students of Journalism (some of them children of illegals and others illegals themselves). They have been encouraged by “La Raza” and other local pro-amnesty organizations to go into journalism so they can have an influence on public opinion. And you can guess what opinion they want to change to get amnesty.

Again, it’s tonight at 7 p.m. MST. Let the zoo begin!

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Arpaio at the Cronkite School: The zoo approacheth

The Arizona Republic and KPHO have both posted stories about Monday’s live “Meet the Press”-style interview of Joe Arpaio at ASU’s Cronkite School of journalism.

Arpaio’s going to be questioned by three profs from the school at 7 p.m.

Both stories are pretty incompetent. The Republic story says that interest in the event will surely swamp the smallish school atrium where the interview will be held, so the school’s going to show it on a large video screen and stream it over the internet.

The paper doesn’t bother to tell readers where the screen will be, or what the web address for the stream is.

For the record, the video will be shown in the public mall just south of the Cronkite building, which is on the east side of Central Avenue between Polk and Fillmore.

The video stream will be here, according to the school.

The KPHO story is equally unhelpful; worse, it lets the sheriff natter on about how good he is with the press:

“There have been blips about some weekly newspaper — we didn’t give an answer to a request — but that’s been straightened out. But I think it’s great. If there’s anyone who has an open door policy, I think it’s the sheriff,” said Arpaio.

There are three inaccuracies in merely the first sentence alone. The KPHO reporter doesn’t bother to ask him about them.

The Republic story doesn’t mention that some students plan to protest the event; the KPHO story does, but neither note that local Tea Party activists are showing up as well.

PHXated’s background on the event is here and here.

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Is the Cronkite School’s “Meet the Press” night with Joe Arpaio going to be a zoo?

As you might know, Sheriff Joe Arpaio is going to be interviewed by three journalism professors onstage at the Cronkite School on Central at 7 p.m. Monday. The event is looking more and more like it’s going to be a spectacle.

First, a bunch of misinformed ASU students have decided that, since audience members don’t get to question Arpaio at the panel, the school is somehow giving him a platform to spread his views unchallenged.

The students are planning a protest outside the event.

But as the title of the session—”Meet the Press”—makes clear, the point is to have the sheriff questioned closely by some informed professionals.

It’s uncool to say it in this Age of Everyone’s a Journalist, but this serves the public a lot better than having a bunch of Arpaio’s opponents declaiming at him from a microphone. The students should shut up and come watch the session. If it turns out to be filled with lobbed softballs, then they can protest.

(By the way—Stephen Lemons notes here that CBS 5 has a new investigative report on Arpaio scheduled to run tonight at 10 p.m.)

Now the Sheriff Joe contingent is getting into the act, too. Below is a press release I just got from the Phoenix Area Tea Partyers. (Note the slur on the students half-way down.)

Looks like Monday is going to be quite a scene:
SUPPORT SHERIFF JOE
Time: November 30, 2009 from 7pm to 7pm
Location: First Amendment Room-Second Floor
Organized By: American Citizens United

Event Description:
This is an event I saw posted on Resistnet and thought our group may be interested.American Citizens United is organizing a rally in front of the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism.

There is a great push from the Hispanic students of Journalism (some of them children of illegals and others illegals themselves).
They have been encouraged by “La Raza” and other local pro-amnesty organizations to go into journalism so they can have an influence on public opinion. And you can guess what opinion they want to change to get amnesty.

Please keep it orderly, no yelling or name calling. Resist the anger we all feel when our country and those who protect it get attacked. We must remain civilized to be credible.

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Will Joe Arpaio really “meet the press” at the Cronkite School?

It’s been an unobtrusive line at the bottom of the this semester’s ASU j-school event calendar:

Meet the Press: Sheriff Joe Arpaio

The title at once says it all and nothing; but the idea, if it works, will be an unusual opportunity for a few serious journalists to question Arpaio about his record and methods live on a stage.

Those scheduled to be asking the questions are three profs from the school: Rick Rodriguez, Susan Green and Steve Elliott. The event will be held at 7 p.m. Monday in the second floor atrium of the Cronkite School, which is on the corner of Taylor and Central downtown, just two blocks north of Van Buren.

Already, the event has been misinterpreted; Stephen Lemons of New Times is, unusually for him, off the mark on this issue today in his blog:

As mind-numbingly impossible as it is to imagine, Sheriff Joe, avowed enemy of a free press and brown people everywhere, will be the guest speaker at the ASU Cronkite School of Journalism’s “First Amendment Forum” this Monday, November 30. Talk about eating turkey after Thanksgiving. Arpaio lecturing at a First Amendment Forum? Too bad Idi Amin’s not around anymore. ASU could have him come chat about human rights.

From the start, the idea was exactly the opposite; Arpaio will not be lecturing, he will be being questioned by three journalists.

That’s why the student activist Lemons cites, who says she’ll be protesting the event because the audience won’t be allowed to question the sheriff, is off the mark as well.

Sure, it’s an old media model—but in this case, it could be revelatory. Arpaio’s a slippery figure, and it will be interesting to see if the three interlocutors, if they’re prepared, can pin him down on the facts he’s so casual with.

And let me just say this about that dull old Old Media format: There’s no substitute from questioning by smart and prepared people; the idea to sacrifice that so that a bunch of political opponents of Arpaio declaim at him from a mike on the floor is not a smart one.

Arpaio could as yet back out, the questioning could turn out to be pallid—but it’s wrong to criticize the school for giving Arpaio free rein to speak when that’s not the idea at all.