The Sheriff Joe the rest don’t know

[Coz]

The Sheriff Joe the rest don’t know
Arpaio’s jails take ‘an eye for an eye’ literally
By Linda Bentley
Sonoran News

http://www.sonorannews.com/WebOnly.html#story1

PHOTO BRUCE STARR/HONDURAS THIS WEEK

Maricopa County Chief Deputy David Hendershott (from left), Bay Islands, Honduras National Police Comnmissario Julio Benitez, retired MCSO Detective Roger Marshall and MCSO Captain Jim Miller have formed a “Sister Police Agency” in Honduras, which they have been helping to train and equip.

PHOENIX – It was big news earlier this week when Maricopa County decided to settle yet another wrongful death lawsuit with the family of Brian Crenshaw, a blind inmate who was beaten by guards at Tent City Jail in 2003 while incarcerated on a shoplifting charge.
Crenshaw was then dragged to a cell where he was held in solitary confinement and denied medical care.
Although Crenshaw was found six days later on the floor of his cell with a broken neck and broken toes, the cause of death was from a perforated duodenum, a portion of the small intestines, which went undetected by doctors.
Crenshaw fell into a coma and died four weeks later from an infection stemming from blunt force trauma to his abdomen.
At the time, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio declared, “The man fell off a bunk,” as the cause of Crenshaw’s death.
Just this past Tuesday, however, Jack McIntyre, a spokesman for Arpaio, claimed Crenshaw’s death was the result of a medical condition that manifested itself in the hospital and had nothing to do with events while Crenshaw was in jail.
McIntyre reiterated, “He didn’t die of anything that happened in detention.” Then there was the Phillip Wilson case. Wilson was beat into a coma by other inmates in Tent City Jail on July 22, 2003. He died four months later as a result of those injuries.
Terry and Pearl Wilson never found out who killed their son and no one has ever been charged with his murder.
However, it wasn’t until 2007, four years after the Wilson’s filed the wrongful death suit and were about to go to trial, they learned from one of the briefs filed by the attorney for the sheriff’s office, that “Wilson’s assailants were identified almost immediately.” That was news to everyone, including the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office, which claimed the sheriff’s office had never submitted any report about the incident for prosecution.
When the Wilson’s case went to trial last year, the jurors were told the assailants were identified almost immediately. However, the judge sustained the defense’s objection to introducing testimony or evidence that would indicate no one was ever charged for Wilson’s murder.
The jury found in favor of the sheriff’s office and against the Wilsons. And, it was only after the Wilson’s agreed to drop their appeal that the one of the assailants, Robert Buskirk, was finally charged in August 2007 with second degree murder and assisting a criminal syndicate/leading a gang, class 1 and class 3 felonies.
Those charges are still pending.
Sonoran News recently learned Jeffrey Alan Namanny, currently a Tent City inmate, has gone blind in one eye, due to viral ureitis, which could have been prevented with proper medical treatment.
However, Namanny filled out tank order after tank order after tank order, the procedure for requesting medical attention while in jail. All were completely ignored and the infection began spreading to his other eye.
Namanny’s sister, Emily Habinck, became frantic when it appeared her brother could become completely blind from being denied treatment and started calling the jail and going through the maze of information and transfers trying to get through to talk to someone in charge at Tent City.
Habinck called so many times, a detention officer finally went to Namanny’s cell and asked, “Your sister keeps calling, what’s wrong?” When Namanny told him he couldn’t see, he was finally taken to the infirmary that night.
A specialist diagnosed the infection but said he likely had enough damage to his right eye that he would not recover vision. Namanny finally received prescription eye drops, which should be able to save the vision in his left eye.
Habinck said, “I simply cannot believe my brother really could have gone completely blind in Tent City had I not created such a ruckus.” She said Tent City gave new meaning to “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.” Sonoran News recently learned Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office had been “working diligently” throughout 2006 with the new National Police Commissario Julio Benitez of the Bay Islands, Honduras.
The Feb. 5, 2007 edition of “Honduras This Week online: Your Central American Weekly Review,” published an article titled, “Maracopa (sic) Arizona Sheriff’s Office becomes sister police agency.” The article states, “With the help of Roger Marshall, a retired police officer and top homicide investigator of the Maracopa (sic) County Sheriff’s Office and now a part time resident of Roatan, [Honduras] …” has gotten Benitez off to a fast start.
It said Marshall invited his friends and former associates, Maricopa County Chief Deputy David Hendershott and Captain Jim Miller (former MCSO commander in Cave Creek), to establish “A Sister Police Agency for Protection and Service” to help educate, train and equip the Bay Islands police.
Miller stated, “We have initially brought down some investigative equipment that can be used by the National Police here on the island. It is just the beginning of more resources that are going to be identified and delivered to the island in the future to help make police more effective in the community. My job with the law enforcement agency will be to help facilitate Julio Benitez’s plan for his project.”