April 1 Press Conference Remarks

Now that the campaign year is in full swing, I'll try to share more glimpses of the local Democratic party's and our candidates' activities.

On April 1, and following Mayor Phil Gordon's public calling out of Sheriff Joe the previous Friday, I participated in a press conference outside the sheriff's office, along with other community leaders, and Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, D-15. In spite of the gravity of the issues raised by the Mayor at the Cesar Chavez luncheon, and those brought up by community leaders at our press conference, and substantial attendance by TV, radio and print reporters, it brought little coverage after the evening news.

For the record, I am the Chair of the Maricopa County Democratic Party, and Don Bivens is the Chairman of the Arizona Democratic Party.

Here are the remarks I made at the press conference:

Thank you all for coming out today. While it’s April Fools’ Day, we are not foolin’.

Back in 1992 I heard candidate Joe Arpaio at a candidates’ forum.

He seemed like an earnest man with what sounded like respectable credentials, and he was asking for the opportunity to serve his community.

Since then, it seems he has had the community serve him:

• Taxpayer-funded public relations to burnish his reputation and make his a household name
• Taxpayer-funded legal defense in thousands of cases, with losses to County coffers of $32 million
• And strangely re-prioritizing the way the county sheriff’s office addresses our public safety needs.

• By that I mean that he has focused on divisive and confrontational behavior in immigration round-ups under the cloak of ‘law enforcement’ while the principal duties of his office go ignored, like filling vacancies in his jail staff, and serving tens of thousands of felony arrest warrants.
• Instead, he is using the pretext of cracked windshields and broken taillights to stop and investigate brown-skinned people, while thousands of felony suspects are left in peace.

Public officials are elected and entrusted to make difficult decisions in the execution of their offices.

This one has been in office too long. Rough-shod tactics in the jails, conducting his own foreign aid operation in Central America, and neglecting basic public safety police work in the un-incorporated parts of Maricopa County, where taxpayers have a right to expect a continuous law enforcement presence from the county sheriff’s office, and costing us nearly $50 million that wasn’t necessary –

Whether you think the sheriff’s actions are the manifestation of good intentions, craven political grandstanding, or something else, we simply cannot afford to keep him in his current job.

That’s why more than 100 law enforcement agencies around Arizona, out of a total of 165, have refused to endorse the continuation of this sheriff and his policies in this very important office. So far, 106 law enforcement agencies have openly endorsed his opponent in this year’s election.

We join Mayor Gordon in questioning the Sheriff’s recent actions, and call on other community leaders to do the same.

As you are aware Sheriff Arpaio continues to mobilize resources to stage these crime sweeps in different parts of Phoenix. He claims he is the toughest Sheriff in the nation and he will arrest all those who break the law. We are concerned about a few things:

• The Privatization of our county’s Sheriff Deparment
• 10 business owners signed a petition which triggered the sweep
• What if 10 business leaders in 10 different parts of the county submit similar petitions – where does the Sheriff set up operations? Not the best system for allocating resources
• The process of law enforcement under Sheriff Arpaio has become too politicized

On Friday evening the Sheriff had on site the Bomb Squad Command truck. Where was the bomb threat?

There were also numerous Sheriff officers with SWAT T-shirts patrolling a parking lot in a strip mall in north Phoenix

• -Keep in mind that SWAT (Special Weapons And Tactics) is a specialized unit in many American police departments, which is trained to perform dangerous, high risk operations.
• The Sheriff’s presence created any threat that may have been dangerous

Finally there are over 78,000 outstanding warrants for criminals in Maricopa County - 41,000 of which are for felony crimes –

• A Felony is a crime sufficiently serious to be punishable by death or a term in state or federal prison like aggravated assault and/or battery, arson, burglary, illegal drug abuse/sales, embezzlement, grand theft, treason, espionage, racketeering, robbery, murder, rape, kidnapping and fraud AND Sexual Predators.
• Imagine there could be 1000s of sexual predators on the loose right now in Maricopa County because of the inaction by the Sheriff

So at the end of the day, we have a law enforcement policy by petition; We have a law enforcement policy with an emphaisis on misdemeanors, traffic violations and yes those day laborers looking for a job and those very dangerous corn vendors in our neighborhoods.

The real focus needs to be on going after some 41,000 outstanding warrants for felonies…

It is time to stop fooling around…Its time to get serious about fighting crime and its time to get our tax dollars spent in ways that make all of us safer.