Home  Why Arpaio's Gotta' Go
WHY ARPAIO'S GOTTA' GO
Boondoggles and Bad Press
If there’s one thing Arpaio loves to do it’s publicize himself. Any
press is good press to Arpaio. He feeds off of negative attention
like a spoiled child.
In 1996, Arpaio was the guest of honor on an episode of Politically Incorrect. The
show was broadcast from inside Tent City and in front of an audience of
prisoners. Arpaio was booed and berated by almost every guest on
the show. It was reported that after the show Arpaio privately approached
his most vocal opponent, Dr. William Schulz, executive director of Amnesty
International (at the time), and shook his hand, thanking him for the “great
show” he put on and asked if he would appear with him on television
again.
In an October 1999 episode of 20/20 ABC investigators revealed the horrible
circumstances of Scott Norberg’s death to the entire country. Arpaio
took this opportunity to proudly portray himself as a cruel, calloused
man with an obvious conflict of interest in the investigation of Norberg’s
death. Despite the large amount of controversy surrounding the perceived
cover up no MCSO policies were changed. A key piece of evidence,
Norberg’s larynx, was destroyed during the autopsy, ensuring criminal
investigations would go no further.
And in a 2004 interview conservative commentator Bill O’Reilly made
a mockery of Arpaio live on national television for defending the grotesque
actions of his deputies in a recent prostitution sting. In front
of their surveillance cameras Arpaio’s deputies and posse members
stripped down naked and engaged in sexual acts with the alleged prostitutes. The
tapes surfaced and were circulating around the country almost instantly. The
national community was duly horrified by the actions of the Maricopa County
Sheriff’s Office deputies. And although all the charges against
the 60 accused street walkers were dropped because of the botched investigation,
Arpaio refuses to admit any wrongdoing. In fact, he told the O’Reilly
Factor that he’d do it again.
But Arpaio has made bad press for himself not only nationally, but internationally
as well. The brutalities inside Arpaio’s jails and prisons
have been featured in documentaries made as far away as England and Germany. In
2003, an Irish judge refused to extradite an accused child molester to
Arizona because of concerns about the safety of Arpaio’s prisons. In
an article covering Sheriff Arpaio’s recent BBC interview Philip
Johnston summarized the international communities view of our prisons well
when he said, “His regime in Maricopa County… is tough, even
by American standards.”
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