Thread: Joe says Napolitano will not stop his imm. enforcement

Arpaio cut out of state funding
Sheriff loses $1.6 mil; money shifted to DPS
459 commentsby Lindsey Collom - May. 14, 2008 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic

An executive order signed by Gov. Janet Napolitano has prompted state police to cancel a $1.6 million agreement with the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office and, instead, use the money to create a fugitive task force.

The move effectively stripped two squads of Sheriff's Office deputies from a statewide multiagency team designed to go after crimes dealing with human smuggling. It also took away Arpaio's ability to tap some of the squad members to supplement immigration sweeps at the state's expense.

In response, Sheriff Joe Arpaio accused the governor of orchestrating with others to pull the money from his department as political payback. House Speaker Jim Weiers, R-Phoenix, meanwhile, called for an audit of the Department of Public Safety.
"What happened today is a ruse; it is an effort to fool the public," Arpaio said Tuesday. "A felony-warrant task force . . . is a cover-up for taking away grant money, my money given to me by the Legislature, to fight illegal immigration."

It's the latest development in an escalating feud between Arpaio and critics, including Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon and Maricopa County Supervisor Mary Rose Wilcox, who have railed against him for concentrating what Arpaio calls "crime-suppression efforts" in neighborhoods with a high percentage of Hispanic and Latino residents.

In March 2007, the Sheriff's Office entered an agreement with the DPS to provide 15 personnel to the state gang task force's Illegal Immigration Prevention and Apprehension CO-OP Team, or IIMPACT. State police agreed to reimburse the Sheriff's Office for 85 percent of the deputies' salaries and other associated costs, including overtime.

The DPS approved more than $11,000 in overtime in February, according to a note from DPS Chief Pennie Gillette-Stroud to an Sheriff's Office commander.

In the letter, Gillette commended the sheriff's lieutenant, two sergeants and 12 deputies assigned to IIMPACT, saying their performance was "impressive" and that she looked forward to their continued partnership.

About that time, Arpaio said he received notice from the DPS that the intergovernmental agreement, which was set to expire in mid-May, would be renewed.

All signs were go as of last Wednesday, when the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors voted to accept IIMPACT money to be given to the Sheriff's Office as part of the continued contract.

But that changed by the next day. A letter dated May 8 from DPS Director Roger Vanderpool told Arpaio about the new fugitive task force and invited the Sheriff's Office to take part in the operation. In the last paragraph, Vanderpool said that "limited resources" precluded the DPS from continuing its agreement with the Sheriff's Office and that "we intend to use these monies to fund needed implementation of the executive order."

The executive order directs the DPS to immediately deploy a squad to address the backlog of nearly 60,000 open felony warrants statewide, with priority on gang-related felonies and fugitives who are undocumented immigrants.

The Governor's Office on Tuesday referenced DPS concerns about documentation problems in terms of how the Sheriff's Office was spending the state funds.

With Arpaio's recent immigration sweeps - and his citing of the state funds as some sort of tacit approval for the operations - the decision was recently made to cut off and redirect the money.

Dennis Burke, Napolitano's chief of staff, said that it was the DPS' choice and that the governor supported it.

"The director believes this is a more effective crime-fighting use for these funds," Burke said.

Gillette-Stroud, chief of the DPS' criminal investigations division, said she hopes the Sheriff's Office will continue to be part of the human-smuggling task force.

"We would love to have the sheriff's department just rejoin IIMPACT in a different format . . . and help us with this new executive order," Gillette-Stroud said. She added that there are other potential funding sources for the Sheriff's Office should it decide to remain on the IIMPACT squad.

If Arpaio declines to participate, it would leave the multiagency team with two-thirds of the personnel.

Violence linked to human-smuggling rings have become a major concern, and IIMPACT just made news last week by helping in a bust of seven people in the kidnapping and killing of a suspected coyote. Its focus is to dismantle organizations that profit from illegal immigration.

But Gillette-Stroud argues that many of the people committing these immigration-related crimes are warrant holders. No supporting data was immediately available.

"Does this mean that serving felony warrants is more or less important than illegal-immigration enforcement?" said Jeanine L'Ecuyer, a Governor's Office spokeswoman. "I can't make that comparison. The net result is the same."

Arpaio said he is not deterred by the loss of funding.

"Nothing changes," he said. "Watch out. They're not going to stop me from enforcing the laws."

www.azcentral.com

Added to Homepage with add'l words to title - 'but he is not deterred.'
http://www.alipac.us/article-3187--0-0.html

misterbill suggested we send Joe $10 and all we need is 160,000 people to do it and he would have his money.

Let's call and see how we can do it.

Gov defends taking money away from Sheriff Joe
May 14th, 2008 @ 12:31pm
by Kevin Tripp and Jim Cross/KTAR

Gov. Janet Napolitano on Wednesday defended her decision to take $1.6 million away from Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and spend the money to clean up 60,000 outstanding felony warrants in the state.

The governor said she hopes the move will not hurt law enforcement cooperation around the state.

``I think law enforcement needs to work collaboratively. One of the things that's troubled me is the increasing frequency with which the MCSO is not willing to participate, as it has in the past under Sheriff Joe," Napolitano said.

The governor ordered that the money go to a fugitive task force, headed by the state Department of Public Safety.

``We ought to focus it on those we already know have broken the law and are dangerous to the community. And that is what this task force is designed to do," she said.

Her comments came less than 24 hours after she made the decision and the sheriff denounced it as part of a conspiracy to stop him from enforcing immigration laws. Arpaio accused the governor of joining Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon and Maricopa County Supervisor Mary Rose Wilcox in a conspiracy against him.

"I got news for the governor, I've got news for the mayor, I've got news for Mary Rose Wilcox - money or no money, I guarantee you, we will fight this illegal immigration problem and Mesa, Arizona is our next stop," Arpaio said.

The battle over the money took on political overtones, with people lining up, primarily according to their stance on the immigration issue.

The governor responded to the sheriff, ``Don't take it personally. This is a law enforcement decision and you've seen law enforcement decisions made in the past."

Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas, an ally of Arpaio's, promised an investigation.

"Our office has been asked to and will look into the legality of the governor's actions," Thomas said. "There were agreements signed and agreements now are not being honored so we will be looking into that issue."

Former Democratic state lawmaker Alfredo Gutierrez, now an immigrants' activist, applauded the governor's decision to end the contract with the sheriff.

``The goal is to continue this debate and resolve the immigration issue, but to stop with this clown-like behavior of the sheriff," Gutierrez said.

He said the sheriff is not the solution to the illegal immigration problem.

``It isn't about having these Nazi-like spectacles going on within the City of Phoenix," Gutierrez said. ``He contributes nothing, nothing to a resolution of this problem."

He added, ``What the sheriff has done has taken a gardener or a housekeeper and made them the moral equivalent of a murderer and a rapist."





http://www.ktar.com/?nid=6&sid=836121

``It isn't about having these Nazi-like spectacles going on within the City of Phoenix," Gutierrez said. ``He contributes nothing, nothing to a resolution of this problem."

Oh yeah...here we go. The OBL's and Brown supremacy groups throwing out the Nazi card again. Aren't they pitiful???

He added, ``What the sheriff has done has taken a gardener or a housekeeper and made them the moral equivalent of a murderer and a rapist."

An illegal alien gardner or housekeeper today...a possible illegal alien murderer, rapist and drunk driver tomorrow. Get 'em all out of here.

I sincerely hope that county attorney Thomas can find in his investigation a way to expose Napolitano as a criminal and I would love to see on Lou Dobbs one afternoon Sheriff Joe perp-walking her out of the Arizona Capitol building. That would truly make my year.

If this ruling withstands the legal challenges of the County Attorney, I hope that someone will find out if we can donate to MCSO and Sheriff Joe to make up for this fiasco by Napolitano. I would be happy to find a way to donate $20 to the cause. If the public made up the full amount, what a message that would send to the Traitors in Phoenix and the OBL. I would even donate more than once.

William, or some of you higher ups at ALIPAC, please look into this and post if we can donate the money.

How have the good people of Az. kept electing this Napolitano clown? And McAmnesty too. Is there something in the water out there?

can't believe the "Citizens" of AZ aren't smoking the Governor's office with calls and letters. This is SO shady , smells of a corrupt good old boys network ganging up to save their Greedy enterprise .
Good idea Gogo . $10 for Joe would sure show them Wantabe's Elites

I tried calling the office to see how we could donate but the phone system wasn't working well today.

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Print Article Email Article Most Popular Change Type Size Governor: Warrants reason for funds shift
Matthew Benson and JJ Hensley
The Arizona Republic
May. 15, 2008 12:00 AM

Gov. Janet Napolitano says it was only in recent months that she learned of nearly 60,000 Arizona fugitives walking the street with felony warrants.

It was that discovery, she said, that led her and the state Department of Public Safety to pursue the creation of a state task force aimed at bringing the fugitives to justice.

And it was that discovery that was the linchpin in her move this week to allow the end of a program that provided state funding for Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio to bolster his efforts against illegal immigration. The Sheriff's Office figures to lose out on $1.6 million this year that instead will go to the state-led fugitive task force when the county contract expires Saturday. advertisement




"Quite frankly, I didn't know until a few months ago there were that many (fugitives) out there," Napolitano told reporters in her first comments since the funding shift became public this week. "I didn't know how big (the backlog) was until those numbers started coming out in the fall."

But contention against Napolitano, coming from a former U.S. attorney and state attorney general, drew a bemused reaction from some Capitol observers. Others promised an inquiry into whether the governor acted properly in directing anti-illegal-immigration funds to a fugitive task force. Sen. Chuck Gray, R-Mesa, alluded to an "abuse of power here."

The timing of the funding shift drew notice as well, coming on the heels of a series of Arpaio immigration sweeps that have drawn national notoriety and were funded at least in part with the state money.

With the saturation patrols - "crime suppression efforts," in the Sheriff's Office parlance - Arpaio's deputies swarm neighborhoods and use infractions such as broken taillights as a means to question motorists and identify illegal immigrants. Supporters call it an effective tactic to root out undocumented immigrants. Critics, the most notable of which has been Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon, invoke the specter of racial profiling and roundups.

Napolitano wouldn't condemn the sweeps Wednesday, but a gubernatorial staff member speaking on the condition on anonymity conceded that Arpaio's newest anti-illegal immigration tactic was a not-insignificant factor in the decision to end the county funding. The governor can't prevent him from conducting the operations, in other words, but she can prevent him from using state dollars to fund them.

Parsing her words, Napolitano said as much in her characterization of what she called Arpaio's "go-it-alone" sweeps:

"To the extent that the sheriff was using state money to fund sweeps that were causing trepidation in the immigration community, that state money will no longer be available."

A defiant Arpaio said the governor's maneuver would change little in terms of Sheriff's Office operations. The agency probably will leave vacant positions unfilled to make up for the funding loss.

"We're still going after illegals, whether we have money or no money," Arpaio said. "It was nice for them to give us a little extra money."

The state funding was part of a March 2007 agreement through which the Sheriff's Office provided 15 personnel to a state gang task force aimed at illegal immigration and human smuggling. For the effort, state police agreed to reimburse the Sheriff's Office for 85 percent of its deputies' salaries and other costs, including overtime.

As evidence of the program's success, Arpaio pointed to more than 950 people, including 150 coyotes, deputies have booked while enforcing the state's human-smuggling law. The DPS countered with statistics showing that, over roughly the past year, its joint effort with Phoenix police and Immigration and Customs Enforcement has busted more drophouses and detained more illegal immigrants (from the drophouses) than the Sheriff's Office has.

Napolitano says the $1.6 million will be better spent pursuing some of the state's most-wanted fugitives, including human smugglers and others in the country illegally.

An executive order she signed Monday directs the DPS to immediately deploy a squad to pursue nearly 60,000 open felony warrants across the state.

"We want to get them. We want to prosecute them. We want them off the streets," Napolitano said, inviting Arpaio to join the effort along with other local law-enforcement agencies. "We've got a big problem in this county. You're only going to clear up that if you all work together."

DPS Chief Penny Gillette-Stroud said the U.S. Marshal's Office, Phoenix and Glendale police departments and Pinal County Sheriff's Office have agreed to participate in the fugitive task force.

Since the U.S. Marshal's Office already conducts multiagency efforts targeting Arizonans with outstanding warrants, House Speaker Jim Weiers, R-Phoenix, questioned the need to "duplicate" that effort with a state task force. Gillette-Stroud countered that the marshals target federal warrants; the state effort will go after those that are issued locally.

That's not entirely true. A Marshal's Office-led fugitive roundup last month featured 120 officers from 22 state and local agencies, and cleared 236 Maricopa County warrants in a week.

Regardless, Deputy U.S. Marshal Matt Hershey welcomed the coming assistance from a state task force, calling the problem with outstanding warrants "a never-ending thing."

"If nothing else, it's going to give us more bodies, which is huge," he said. "It's going to be a joint endeavor from the very beginning."



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