That's what a group led by the well-connected family of one of Arpaio's own injured deputies is working to see happen
BY JOHN DOUGHERTY
john.dougherty@newtimes.com
http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com | originally published: February 10, 2005
Sheriff Joe Arpaio
Yeah, he won still another term in the November general election, but there's reason for hope that Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio's days in office may be numbered. This just in:
A recall committee that includes several prominent defense attorneys and the founders of the political action group Mothers Against Arpaio plans to launch a Recall Joe Arpaio campaign to coincide with a PBS television special critical of the sheriff scheduled to air in early March.
"We are very serious about this," says Linda Saville, co-founder of Mothers Against Arpaio. You may remember that MAA -- whose members' loved ones were killed, maimed or otherwise mistreated in Arpaio's gulags -- protested fiercely last fall against the brain-addled geezer's reelection.
But don't think for a moment that the recall group is composed of just the usual Arpaio naysayers. Its chairman is to be the wife of Maricopa County Deputy Sean Pearce, who was shot last December in a SWAT raid gone bad.
Pearce has been highly critical of Arpaio's handling of the SWAT team, saying the sheriff placed the public and deputies in unnecessary danger by reducing the number of personnel on the team just after his reelection.
The injured deputy's wife, Melissa Pearce, is to be the point person for Recall Joe Arpaio. Melissa isn't afraid of a fight. She angrily brushed off Arpaio and his top aide, Chief Deputy David Hendershott, after they went to the hospital to see Pearce and another deputy who had been wounded in the shootout.
Melissa and Sean Pearce are part of a well-connected family with strong political and religious affiliations.
Sean's father is state Representative Russell K. Pearce, who has long been a powerful political force in the East Valley and is currently chairman of the House Appropriations Committee. Russell Pearce also served as a Maricopa County sheriff's deputy for 23 years, including a stint as chief deputy. He received the Medal of Valor after being shot and critically wounded by a gang member.
Russell Pearce is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and Mormon leaders are noted around here for their ability to muster votes. Mormonism also happens to be the religion practiced by former Republican gubernatorial candidate Matt Salmon, who has a major ax to grind with Outlaw Joe.
Now chairman of the state Republican party, Salmon is bitter over fellow Republican Arpaio's endorsement of Democrat Janet Napolitano in the final stages of the 2002 governor's race. The election was a cliffhanger, and many Republicans believe Arpaio's television commercial supporting Napolitano was the difference in the race.
Arpaio could find himself at the center of the perfect storm.
He could be in the middle of a three-way squeeze from disgruntled East Valley Republicans, angry employees (remember also that the union that represents Arpaio's own sheriff's deputies backed his opponent in the September Republican primary) and infuriated relatives of those he's abused in the jails.
I say to these intrepid recall folks: Bring it on!
Arpaio could have trouble surviving a recall election where his dreadful policies and performance aren't obscured by other races on the ballot.
The recall effort couldn't come at a more critical time. To those who were disappointed that Arpaio wasn't unseated by retired Mesa police commander Dan Saban, it seemed that all was lost. That Arpaio would be around for four more years.
Now, there's hope.
Arpaio has repeatedly displayed disregard for basic constitutional protections. His arrogant dismissal of civil rights protections has created a hostile climate inside his jails where death, serious injury, starvation and illness are the norm.
The sheriff's latest intrusion into personal privacy is his new policy of asking traffic violators to "voluntarily" provide fingerprints to be entered into a database and shared with other law enforcement agencies. Upon learning of this notion, defense attorneys and civil rights advocates immediately reminded Arpaio that the policy is illegal.
But Outlaw Joe doesn't care. This is a guy who wanted to set up illegal roadblocks on highways leading into Maricopa County to search vehicles for drugs. That idea was shot down a dozen years ago by former county attorney Rick Romley.
Arpaio is eager to violate the law in his quest to be hailed as "America's Toughest Sheriff."
The public can't wait for gutless members of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors to do anything about the geriatric renegade, such as conducting a thorough financial and performance audit of the sheriff's office.
Nor can the public put faith in state, federal and county prosecutors to conduct probes into a mountain of serious allegations of wrongdoing. None of these officials appears to have the slightest interest in investigating Arpaio's wayward department.
There's only one option: Recall Joe Arpaio.
Nothing would inject more fear into the sheriff than a recall campaign similar to the one that led to the impeachment of former governor Evan Mecham.
NEXT »
http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/issues/2005-02-10/news/feature_2.html
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SPECIAL REPORTS
Sheriff Joe
Shamelessly promoting himself as the "toughest sheriff in America", Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio was once Arizona's most popular politician. But his popularity is plummeting as the public learns details of horrendous jail conditions, reckless police operations and Gestapo-like activities against political rivals.
http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/special_reports/arpaio/index.html
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Brian Downing Quig - ANOTHER "REAL" PATRIOT DEAD
A simple car accident ... or was it?
Conspiracy theories a big part of man's life and death
http://www.apfn.net/dcia/bmain.htm
Dennis Wagner
The Arizona Republic
Sept. 5, 2003 12:00 AM
If Brian Downing Quig hadn't been killed this summer, he'd probably be investigating the traffic accident that took his life.
Like Mel Gibson in the Hollywood movie Conspiracy Theory, Quig devoted his life to connecting dots and exposing plots. A voracious reader with an IBM memory and a Disney imagination, the 54-year-old Phoenix resident reveled in CIA black operations, mob hits and political skullduggery.
More than anything, he was obsessed with the theory that secret power barons are manipulating America, and that he must stop them.
"His main job in life was he wanted to make America better," explained a sister, Phyllis Beninati of Long Island, N.Y.
Quig died earlier this summer after being struck in an accident with none of the intrigue that gave meaning to his life.
According to a Phoenix police report released Aug. 21, he was pushing a shopping cart down 75th Avenue near his west Phoenix home on June 16.
Eighteen-year-old Andy Martinez of Glendale was behind the wheel of a Toyota, listening to music and talking with two friends.
Martinez told detectives a man loomed in his windshield. He hit his brakes and swerved, to no avail. A plywood board in the shopping cart smashed through the windshield, injuring passenger Eric Colon, 18. Quig died a short while later at St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center.
Martinez was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence of marijuana, but investigators determined that was not what caused the accident.
Quig had been remodeling a home in the neighborhood, trading work for a place to stay. But why he was hauling wood at that hour is a puzzle that might have driven him crazy, and still troubles admirers.
It didn't take long for some to talk of a cover-up.
"These 'accidents' do not occur in a vacuum," noted one, Virginia Lee McCullough, in a commentary on a Web site. "They are made to happen to silence the speech that used to be free in this country."
In another Internet posting, Stew Webb listed the "known facts" about his friend's death. Among them: Quig's body was cremated and "never identified by anyone who knew him."
Detective Alan Pfohl, who investigated the traffic fatality, said more than a dozen Quig acquaintances contacted him to insist it was no accident.
"But it's kind of a cut-and-dried deal," Pfohl added. "Mr. Quig was found responsible for his own death, for walking in the roadway."
Days before his death, Quig fretted to The Arizona Republic about a libel suit filed against him by a Phoenix developer and ranted about police investigators who mistook him for a burglar, prompting an enraged letter of complaint.
Longtime friend Paul Rademacher of Phoenix did some snooping about the accident without finding any funny business.
However, Rademacher noted, Quig was more adept at identifying cover-ups.
"He could jump from one thing way over the moon to something else. He used to say, 'I see the big picture.' I'd laugh, but he believed it. And he was a bright cookie."
Quig was especially proud of his Internet site (still active at www.dcia.com), created to expose the lords of darkness and show how they operate through the CIA, White House and international corporations.
The premise: "It was human folly for the UNITED STATES to empower an agency of government to specifically break its own laws."
Even acquaintances concede that Quig, unfettered by rules of evidence, embraced rumors as fact and leaped from dubious assumptions to bullheaded conclusions.
Pointing out those flaws often proved futile because of his capacity to overwhelm critics with details.
When confronted with facts that appeared to disprove his theories, Quig would smile and explain that the conspirators were so clever they had covered up the truth by manufacturing false evidence.
Born into a Quaker family, Quig served as a congressional researcher investigating organized crime, a headhunter for business executives and a reporter for The Grapevine, a Phoenix tabloid distributed by the homeless. He did public relations for the nuclear power industry.
He helped out with Joe Arpaio's first campaign for Maricopa County sheriff and worked on a book with right-wing presidential candidate Bo Gritz.
He ran a speakers bureau, worked as a busboy and promoted Omega 3 fatty acid from seafood as a medicinal panacea.
Marian Quig of Sun City said she never understood her son's politics: "I didn't see where it was going to get him. I said, 'Brian, get a real job.'
"He never spoke ill of anybody," she added. "He was just a good fellow."
Rademacher and Schoen said they accepted Quig's hyperbole and his financial shenanigans, such as a habit of forgetting his wallet, as benign eccentricities.
Quig always lived hand-to-mouth, they said. And he never got anything out of his Quixotic adventures except the righteous joy of a crusader for goodness.
Said Schoen: "He didn't accomplish much. He never wrote a book or was on TV that I know of.
"But I feel very good about Brian Quig's life."
Reach the reporter at
dennis.wagner@arizonarepublic.com or (602) 444-8874.
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/0905quig.html
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MORE:
When Brian moved to Arizona, he became emeshed in the death of a gallant Arizona reporter named Don Bolles, who was blown up by a car bomb in the parking lot of the Clarendon Hotel in downtown Phoenix. Bolles was investigating the old booze and land fraud barons of Kemper Marley and Ned Warren. Strange as it seems, the Goldwater brothers, Barry and Robert, were strangely linked to both of these millionaire fraud barons.
FULL STORY:
http://www.apfn.net/dcia/bmain.htm
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