Arizona's Arpaio narrows rival's lead in comeback attempt
Joe Arpaio, the 90-year-old former Phoenix metro sheriff who was ousted in 2016 by voters frustrated with his headline-grabbing tactics and legal troubles, has narrowed his opponent’s lead in the race for mayor of the affluent suburb where he has lived for more than two decades. Dickey said that when she first learned Arpaio was running against her, she was unsure how his candidacy would affect the race.
news.yahoo.comWith latest payout, Arizona sheriff has cost taxpayers $100m
Nearly five years after Joe Arpaio was voted out as sheriff of Arizona's most populous county, taxpayers are covering one of the last major bills from the thousands of lawsuits the lawman's headline-grabbing tactics inspired. The payout takes to $100 million the attorney fees, settlements and other costs the county has paid from lawsuits stemming from Arpaio’s six terms over things such as jail deaths, failed investigations of the sheriff's political enemies and immigration raids of businesses. Michael Manning, an attorney who won settlements over deaths in Arpaio’s jails and on behalf of county employees investigated by the sheriff, said it was shameful that voters kept re-electing Arpaio as his legal bills piled up.
news.yahoo.comCDC votes to recommend Johnson & Johnson and Moderna COVID vaccine boosters
A CDC panel has voted in favor of the Johnson and Johnson and Moderna COVID-19 vaccine booster shots. Pending approval from the agency's director, millions of people could soon line up for an additional dose. CBS News' Meg Oliver breaks down the decision. Then, critical care physician Dr. Lakshmana Swamy joins CBSN's Lana Zak with his analysis.
news.yahoo.comRestaurateur whose business was raided by sheriff gets $5M
Maricopa County officials approved a settlement with an Arizona restaurant owner who claimed then-Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s office had defamed him and violated his rights about seven years ago when investigating whether employees at his restaurants used fraudulent IDs to get jobs.
Restaurateur whose business was raided by sheriff gets $3.1M
Maricopa County officials approved a $3.1 million settlement Wednesday with a restaurant owner in metro Phoenix who claimed in a lawsuit that then-Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s office had defamed him and violated his rights about seven years ago when investigating whether employees at his restaurants used fraudulent IDs to get jobs. The settlement with Uncle Sam’s owner Bret Frimmel came two weeks after officials signed off on a separate $400,000 settlement to resolve similar claims brought by Uncle Sam’s manager Lisa Norton. Frimmel and Norton were arrested by Arpaio’s office in January 2014 on employment-related identity theft charges that were dismissed after a judge ruled one of Arpaio’s detective recklessly disregarded the truth in affidavits used to get search warrants and ultimately found that there was no probable cause to back up the warrants.
news.yahoo.comBeaten in last 3 races, Arpaio running for mayor of suburb
Beaten in his last three elections, former six-term Sheriff Joe Arpaio is attempting another comeback, this time running for mayor of the affluent Phoenix suburb where he has lived for the last two decades. The former lawman on Tuesday announced his entry in the 2022 mayor’s race in Fountain Hills, a town of about 25,000 people on the northeastern edge of metro Phoenix. In both comeback attempts, Arpaio lost the vote in Fountain Hills.
news.yahoo.comWitnesses: Man who killed Arkansas woman lured out neighbors
An Arkansas man who authorities say fatally shot an 87-year-old neighbor was trying to lure residents of his apartment complex outside before someone shot and killed him, according to witnesses. “He was yelling and screaming: ‘You guys get out here, come out here, everyone get out of this building right now,’" Janey Peugh, who lives at the complex, told KFSM television station. Police in Fort Smith, Arkansas, located on the border with Oklahoma, say that after Zachary Arnold, 26, fatally shot Lois Hicks on Saturday morning, he continued to shoot at neighboring apartments with a semi-automatic rifle.
news.yahoo.comAn Entire County Just Paid Thousands to Join a Far-Right Group
Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast/Alamy/Getty/HandoutLander County, Nevada, is shelling out $2,500 for lifetime membership to a controversial, far-right law-enforcement group, The Daily Beast has learned. For their money, residents will get some lapel pins, a plaque, and a big party featuring an alleged participant in the Jan. 6 attack on the United States Capitol.A former mining boom community in the Nevada desert, Lander County is the rural home to fewer than 10,000 residents. But after a 4-1 vote by its board of commissioners, it’s the first in the nation with a dubious distinction: Lander will become a county-level member of the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, a right-wing group that promotes sheriffs as the last bastion of freedom and safety in Joe Biden’s America.The Lander County manager and the head of the CSPOA both told The Daily Beast on Friday that the county had paid a $2,500 lifetime membership fee to join the group. And on Saturday, the county will host a party to celebrate its new status. The event’s speakers list includes the head of the CSPOA, a California-based “mamalitia” [mama militia], and Simone Gold, a hydroxychloroquine-hyping doctor who is currently facing charges for allegedly entering the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6 riot.Richard Mack, founder of the CSPOA, said Lander’s county manager reached out about securing membership for the entire jurisdiction. Membership is largely “symbolic,” Mack told The Daily Beast, though it does come at a cost.“It’s $2,500,” Mack said on Friday. “We’re giving them a huge membership plaque to put on their wall at the county building and we’re giving them all sorts of merchandise from CSPOA: 100 lapel pins, 500 books, and blah blah blah, so when people come by or any citizen comes by, they can always get one. Then we’re gonna give out a bunch of free stuff tomorrow, too.”Though Lander County leans strongly Republican, not everyone is thrilled with the news. Claudio Cardosa, chair of the county’s Democratic party, said he hadn’t even heard of the CSPOA until the county’s commissioners were voting to join it.“I don’t know why the county’s joining organizations. That should be left up to individuals, not counties,” Cardosa told The Daily Beast. “We’ve got that much money we can just join associations, right or left?”Mack said the county’s five commissioners voted unanimously in favor of CSPOA membership. That’s not exactly right, the county manager, Bert Ramos noted.“It was a 4-1 vote,” Ramos told The Daily Beast. He said the opposing commissioner thought the CSPOA “was a militia and a group that would incite violence, supposedly. Misinformed is what the opposition’s initial opinion was. Since then, I think, that commissioner has done some research and is now in favor. But she was under the impression that it was more of a radical right-wing group.”The dissenting commissioner might be forgiven for identifying the CSPOA as fringe.Mack is a former sheriff who made his fame suing the federal government over gun laws. After leaving law enforcement, he launched a series of unsuccessful runs for office, and by 2010 had become a board member for the Oath Keepers, a far-right paramilitary group deeply implicated in the Jan. 6 Capitol attack. (He quit the group in 2016, telling BuzzFeed it was becoming too much like a militia, although the Oath Keepers’ founder has subsequently appeared in videos the CSPOA sells online.)They Went to D.C. on Jan. 6. Now They’re Running for Office.In 2011, Mack launched the CSPOA, which tapped into a political theory that claims sheriffs—not city, state, or federal agencies—are where the buck stops with law and order. The theory is popular in conservative and libertarian circles, where its advocates use it to argue for selective enforcement of certain issues, like gun control or (notably in 2020) COVID-19 prevention measures.Rachel Goldwasser, a research analyst with the Southern Poverty Law Center, said the group’s claims to sheriff supremacy are, simply, bogus.“They believe they have more enforcement authority than anyone else, including the president,” Goldwasser told The Daily Beast. “Mack has said this repeatedly. Where they become extreme is not just in the notion that they have more authority (they don't), but in how they go about utilizing the authority they think they have."Some of the CSPOA’s most notable associates have also been its most controversial. Among them is Joe Arpaio, the former Maricopa County, Arizona sheriff who ran a notoriously brutal outdoor jail, and who was convicted of contempt of court due to his department’s racial profiling practices. (Arpaio was later pardoned by President Donald Trump.) Former Milwaukee County, Wisconsin Sheriff David Clarke, another GOP firebrand who ran a deadly jail, is a CSPOA award recipient. Barry County, Michigan Sheriff Dar Leaf, who has filed lawsuits attempting to overturn President Joe Biden’s 2020 victory and who described an alleged plot to kidnap the state’s governor as a “citizen’s arrest,” has also spoken at the group’s conferences.Ramos declined to address CSPOA members’ more outlandish legal theories.“That’s all subjective. I’m not getting into that because it can get ridiculous,” he said.Not ridiculous enough to stop his county’s membership from becoming official on Saturday. “We’ll give him the check to make it official that the county has joined the CSPOA, and that’ll be it,” Ramos said.Lander County is cementing the deal that day with a “patriotic social gathering,” complete with a bounce house, speeches from Mack, members of a California-based militia group (one of whom promoted the rally on TikTok), and Simone Gold, the doctor accused of participating in the Jan. 6 riot.An arrest affidavit accuses Gold and an associate of being "in a large crowd attempting to push past multiple officers blocking the entrance to the Capitol, which had visibly broken windows at the time. One of the officers, who had been pinned near the doors to the Capitol, appears to be pulled down by someone in the crowd and lands near where [another accused rioter] and Gold were standing."Reached briefly by phone on Friday, Gold told The Daily Beast to contact her organization, which did not respond. Asked whether Gold’s participation was inappropriate in a rally about law enforcement, Mack said he’d “heard she was arrested because of the information she put out, because she’s anti-vaccination and anti-mask and all that.”Informed that she was arrested at the Capitol, Mack suggested that people who trespassed on Capitol grounds should not have been arrested, and that Gold did not enter the Capitol. “Disorderly conduct’s what cops charge people with when they don’t know how to charge them,” he said. “That’s really abuse.”In fact, Gold had previously admitted to entering the building, telling the Washington Post, that she regretted it. Informed of the Post interview, Mack said he supported arrests of people who entered the building, and that he encouraged an investigation into her case. “I’d have to ask Dr. Simone, but she’s really a solid defender of liberty,” he said.Ramos, the county manager, questioned whether Gold’s admission to entering the Capitol constituted wrongdoing.“Is that breaking any laws?” he asked. “I don’t know what that has to do with our celebration.”Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
news.yahoo.comUS calls reports of migrant children in buses 'unacceptable'
Reports of unaccompanied migrant children being forced to stay overnight in parked buses at the Dallas convention center are “completely unacceptable” if true, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said Friday. Dr. Amy Cohen, a psychiatrist and executive director of the advocacy group Every Last One, said a 15-year-old Honduran boy she is working with was held on a bus from Saturday to Wednesday, using the bus bathroom during that time and unable to move about freely or communicate with family. The boy encountered at least three other children who were held as long in the parking lot of the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center, said Cohen, who also has been in contact with another child who was confined earlier to a bus for an extended period.
news.yahoo.comContempt hearing sought against Joe Arpaio’s successor
Civil rights lawyers are seeking a civil contempt of court hearing against Penzone for a backlog of 2,000 internal affairs investigations each taking an average of 500 days to complete. It’s unclear what sort of penalties Penzone could face if the court agreed to hold a hearing and finds him in civil contempt. Transfers of employees in and out the internal affairs unit are now required to be approved by the monitor. And the sheriff’s office is required to investigate all complaints of officer misconduct, even those made anonymously. AdPenzone also has said the sheriff’s office, unlike other police agencies, doesn’t have the option of treating minor violations differently than serious misconduct.
To court Latinos, Democrats have to expand strategy in 2022
Latinos also now account for 24% of eligible voters in Arizona, compared with 19% in 2012, according to Pew Research Center. And how or whether Democrats can keep that enthusiasm in the 2022 midterm elections will require a lot of work. But it’s also incumbent on campaigns to prioritize Latino voters by spending time and money in their communities consistently, not just right before an election. “And that’s something this administration hasn’t done.”To sway Latino voters, she said Democrats need to take the tactics used in Arizona to other states. In Arizona, Democrats presented Trump as the boogeyman, getting voters to show up, while in south Florida, Republicans used socialism to drive voters to Trump, Shope said.
Biden, Harris aim to tip battleground Arizona for Democrats
Harris introduced Biden by blasting Trump’s “reckless disregard for human life and for the well-being of the American people” when it comes to the coronavirus pandemic. Arizona’s transformation seems stark for a state that just a decade ago was the epicenter of Republicans' push against anti-illegal immigration push. To varying degrees, Nevada, Colorado and New Mexico have all moved closer to Democrats since the turn of the century. Since 1952, a Democrat has won Arizona only once — Bill Clinton in 1996, with about 46% of the vote. Biden will look to run up the score there and on the Navajo Nation in northeastern Arizona.
He set out to mobilize Latino voters. Then the virus hit.
The virus and the economic fallout it triggered is crashing down on Latinos just as they hit an electoral milestone. But if states such as California, Florida and Nevada were the proving grounds in elections past, North Carolina represents the future. “I’m my sister’s voice, my brother’s voice, my parents’ voice.”Trump won North Carolina by less than 4 percentage points. After they married, Hurtado and Garcia settled in Alamance County in one of the commuter suburbs outside of Chapel Hill. In Alamance County, where Latinos are 13% of the population, they account for 62% of the county’s 2,500 COVID cases.
AP Exclusive: 1,800-case internal affairs lag in Phoenix
The overhaul stripped the agency of some its autonomy over internal affairs. Transfers of employees in and out the internal affairs unit are now required to be approved by the monitor. And the sheriffs office is required to investigate all complaints of officer misconduct, even those made anonymously. Currently, the sheriff's office has filled only one of 10 new internal investigator positions that were budgeted by the county. The internal affairs unit, which currently has 24 investigators, would need 90 investigators to make caseloads more manageable, plus additional supervisors and support staff, the sheriff's office said.
He set out to mobilize Latino voters. Then the virus hit.
The virus and the economic fallout it triggered is crashing down on Latinos just as they hit an electoral milestone. But if states such as California, Florida and Nevada were the proving grounds in elections past, North Carolina represents the future. Im my sisters voice, my brothers voice, my parents voice.Trump won North Carolina by less than 4 percentage points. After they married, Hurtado and Garcia settled in Alamance County in one of the commuter suburbs outside of Chapel Hill. In Alamance County, where Latinos are 13% of the population, they account for 62% of the countys 2,500 COVID cases.
Joe Arpaio loses sheriffs race in 2nd failed comeback bid
Arpaio lost the Republican primary for Maricopa County sheriff to his former top aide, Jerry Sheridan. In the Nov. 3 general election, Sheridan will face Democrat Paul Penzone, who unseated Arpaio four years ago. In the profiling case, both Arpaio and Sheridan were found in civil contempt of court for disobeying a 2011 court order to stop the sheriffs immigration patrols, leading to Arpaios criminal contempt conviction in 2017. Sheridan wasnt charged with criminal contempt. Sheridan said he could help turn around the tarnished law enforcement agency and insisted that he is his own man.
Joe Arpaio defeated in whats likely his last political race
FILE - In this Aug. 23, 2018, file photo, U.S. Senate candidate and former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio rides on his campaign bus in Phoenix. Arpaio's primary defeat in his bid to win back the sheriff's post in metro Phoenix marks what's likely to be the 88-year-old's last political campaign. (AP Photo/Matt York, File)PHOENIX This political campaign was likely the last for Joe Arpaio, the former six-term sheriff of metro Phoenix known for leading immigration crackdowns and building a political career around the harsh treatment of jail inmates. Critics say Arpaio created a culture of cruelty inside his jails that led to the deaths of several inmates. For much of his political career, Arpaio survived scandals and dodged investigations that would have sunk the careers of many politicians.
Joe Arpaio clings to relevancy in whats likely his last run
He faces his former second-in-command, Jerry Sheridan, in the Aug. 4 Republican primary in what has become his second comeback bid. In what Arpaio acknowledges could be his last political race, he was trailing Jerry Sheridan, his former second-in-command, by 572 votes as the vote count continued Wednesday. Arpaio based much of his campaign around his support of President Donald Trump, who spared Arpaio a possible jail sentence when he pardoned his contempt of court conviction. He also pointed out that Arpaio has spent about $1 million in the race, compared to Sheridans $90,000. ONeil believes Arpaio and Sheridan would both get whooped by the more low-profile Penzone in the November general election.
House Democrats to attempt to check Trump's pardon power
WASHINGTON House Democrats will try to rein in President Donald Trumps clemency powers on Thursday as they advance legislation that would discourage pardons for friends and family and prevent presidents from pardoning themselves. Trump this month commuted Stone's prison sentence for crimes related to the Russia investigation. The move to shield Stone from prison was a dramatic example of Trump's willingness to exert presidential power over criminal cases, including ones prosecuted by his own Justice Department. The House Judiciary Committee will vote on two bills and an amendment that would try to dissuade Trump or any future presidents from abusing their pardon powers. And he has granted clemency in a host of other controversial cases, commuting the 14-year prison sentence of former Illinois Gov.
Trump commutes longtime friend Roger Stone's sentence
WASHINGTON President Donald Trump called Roger Stone to inform his longtime political confidant that he would commute his sentence for crimes related to the Russia investigation, Stone told The Associated Press on Friday, just days before he was set to report to prison. The president told me he thought my trial has been unfair, Stone told the AP in a phone call from Fort Lauderdale, Florida. A commutation would not erase Stones felony convictions in the same way a pardon would, but it would protect him from serving prison time as a result. Trump had repeatedly publicly inserted himself into Stones case, including just before Stones sentencing, when he suggested in a tweet that Stone was being subjected to a different standard than several prominent Democrats. Trump went on a clemency spree in February commuting the 14-year prison sentence of former Illinois Gov.
Trump commutes longtime friend Roger Stone's prison sentence
WASHINGTON President Donald Trump has commuted the sentence of his longtime political confidant Roger Stone, intervening in extraordinary fashion in a criminal case that was central to the Russia investigation and that concerned the president's own conduct. Stone, 67, had been set to report to prison on Tuesday after a federal appeals court rejected his bid to postpone his surrender date. But he told The Associated Press that Trump called him Friday evening to tell him he was off the hook. With this commutation, Trump makes clear that there are two systems of justice in America: one for his criminal friends, and one for everyone else, Schiff said. Trump went on a clemency spree in February, commuting the 14-year prison sentence of former Illinois Gov.
APNewsbreak: Arpaio aides ignored order to halt sweeps
A court-appointed investigator concluded that high-ranking managers for former metro Phoenix Sheriff Joe Arpaio disregarded a federal judge's order for Arpaio to halt immigration sweeps targeting Latinos, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press. The investigator's findings cover alleged misconduct in Arpaio's office from late 2011 through 2016. The investigator also said four other managers, two of them high-ranking, failed to push the department to comply with the judge's order. It's suspicious, since I'm running for sheriff," Arpaio said in an interview. The sheriff's office is now run by Democrat Paul Penzone, who beat Arpaio and denied political motivations in his office's release of Giaquinto's reports.
chicagotribune.comEx-Arizona sheriff doesn't want conviction raised the future
An attorney for former Sheriff Joe Arpaio urged an appeals court Wednesday to erase the lawman's now-pardoned criminal conviction so it can't be raised against him in any future court cases. The former six-term sheriff from metro Phoenix is appealing a ruling that refused to expunge his conviction for disobeying a 2011 court order barring his traffic patrols that targeted immigrants. Arpaio attorney Jack Wilenchik said the judges should clarify that the conviction doesn't have any legal consequences on his client. Arpaio's defiance of the court order is believed to have contributed to his 2016 election loss. Even if the pardon hadn't been issued, the misdemeanor conviction wouldn't have prevented him from running for office again.
chicagotribune.comArpaio announces bid for sheriff re-election after Trump pardon
(CNN) - Former Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio on Sunday announced he would seek another term as sheriff of Maricopa County, one year after President Donald Trump pardoned him. "After consultation and approval from my wife of 61 years, Ava, I have decided to run to be re-elected Sheriff," Arpaio said in a news release Sunday. Trump pardoned Arpaio in 2017 before he was sentenced for being in contempt of court for continuing to make immigration arrests after a court ordered him to stop. "Throughout his time as sheriff, Arpaio continued his life's work of protecting the public from the scourges of crime and illegal immigration," the White House said in a statement after Arpaio's pardon. Paul Penzone, the current sheriff of Maricopa County who ousted Arpaio in 2016, is expected to run for re-election.
For Latinos, El Paso is a devastating new low in a Trump era
(Mark Lambie / El Paso Times) 7 / 32 People grieve during a vigil Sunday in El Paso. (Mark Lambie / El Paso Times) 8 / 32 Rene Aguilar and Jackie Flores pray at a makeshift memorial for the victims of Saturdays mass shooting in El Paso. (Briana Sanchez / El Paso Times ) 13 / 32 Walmart employees react after the mass shooting at their El Paso store. (Mark Lambie / El Paso Times) 14 / 32 A police officer stands outside a home in Allen, Texas, associated with the suspect in Saturdays shooting in El Paso. Moving forward, many fear that unless something major changes, there will be more violence, beyond that unleashed in El Paso.
latimes.com