Sheriff's policies blasted during protest at supervisors' meeting
July 23rd, 2008 @ 10:46am
by Jim Cross/KTAR

About 200 people gathered at the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors meeting today to express their unhappiness with how Sheriff Joe Arpaio is spending taxpayers' dollars.

Randy Parraz said his group, Maricopa Citizens for Safety and Accountability, is worried about slow response times by sheriff's deputies and crimes that allegedly are not investigated because the sheriff is focused on illegal immigration.

``We have tens of thousands of people on the records with arrest warrants and we haven't gone after those," Parraz said.

He said the sheriff should have to answer to the supervisors, but instead the supervisors answer to the sheriff.

Supervisor Mary Rose Wilcox is the only one of the five supervisors who has stood up for county residents against the sheriff, Parraz said. He said the other four supervisors have refused to meet with his coalition and have chosen to support Arpaio with little or no oversight.

``Our question, basically, is `What's your threshold for injustice? How bad does it have to get before you make a statement, before you break your silence? How many more U.S. residents and citizens have to be detained unlawfully by the sheriff's department?' This is the top law enforcement in this county, and these are the top officials and they say nothing."

Parraz said the sheriff continues to pursue illegal immigrants while his other duties suffer.

``Sheriff Arpaio, he does not patrol the whole county," Parraz said. ``They don't need him in Phoenix, they don't need him in Mesa, they don't need him in the other cities. He's got certain areas where there's no police departments, that's where he's supposed to be."

The group tried to deliver a letter to the sheriff's office, but Parraz said they were not allowed into the downtown building where Arpaio's office is located. He said a sheriff's representative did accept the letter.

I love it , I would say she is Pis_ ing in the wind .....
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