Inmate deaths and injuries under Arpaio
Family members of inmates who have died or been injured in jail custody have filed lawsuits against the sheriff’s office. Maricopa County has paid more than $43 million in settlement claims during Arpaio's tenure. [62] [63]
[edit] Charles Agster
In August 2001, Charles Agster, a 33-year-old mentally handicapped man, died in the county jail three days after being forced by sheriff's officers into a restraint chair used for controlling combative arrestees. Agster's parents had been taking him to a psychiatric hospital because he was exhibiting paranoia, then called police when he refused to leave a convenience store where they had stopped enroute. Officers took Agster to the Madison Street jail, placed a "spit hood" over his face and strapped him to the chair, where he had an apparent seizure and lost consciousness. He was declared brain dead three days later. A medical examiner later concluded that Agster died of complications of methamphetamine intoxication. In a subsequent lawsuit, an attorney for the sheriff's office described the amount of methamphetamine in Agster's system as 17 times the known lethal dose. The lawsuit resulted in a $9 million jury verdict against the county, the sheriff's office, and Correctional Health Services.[68]
[edit] Scott Norberg
One major controversy includes the 1996 death of inmate Scott Norberg, a former Brigham Young University football wide receiver, who died while in custody of the Sheriff's office.[69] Norberg was arrested for assaulting a police officer in Mesa, Arizona, after neighbors in a residential area had reported a delirious man walking in their neighborhood.[70] Arpaio's office repeatedly claimed Norberg was also high on methamphetamine, but a blood toxicology performed post-mortem was inconclusive. According to a toxological report, Norberg did have methamphetamine in his urine, though "there would be no direct effect caused by the methamphetamine on Norberg's behavior at the time of the incident".[71] During his internment, evidence suggests detention officers shocked Norberg several times with a stun-gun. According to an investigation by Amnesty International, Norberg was already handcuffed and face down when officers dragged him from his cell and placed him in a restraint chair with a towel covering his face. After Norberg's corpse was discovered, detention officers accused Norberg of attacking them as they were trying to restrain him. The cause of his death, according to the Maricopa County medical examiner, was due to "positional asphyxia". Sheriff Arpaio investigated and subsequently cleared detention officers of any criminal wrongdoing.[72]
Norberg’s parents filed a lawsuit against Arpaio and his office. The lawsuit was settled for $8.25 million (USD).[73]
[edit] Brian Crenshaw
Brian Crenshaw was a legally blind and mentally disabled inmate who suffered fatal injuries while being held in Maricopa County Jail for shoplifting. The injuries that led to his death were initially blamed on a fall from his bunk but were later discovered to have been the result of a brutal beating by jail guards on March 7, 2003.[citation needed] A lawsuit filed in the Maricopa County Superior Court of Arizona by the lawyer for Crenshaw's family stated: An external examination report of the Maricopa County Medical Examiners Office concluded that Brian's death was caused by "complications of blunt force trauma due to a fall." This conclusion was reached largely on the [Maricopa County Sheriffs Office]'s relation of their "history" of Brian's injuries to the Medical Examiner's Office; a history that included the MCSO's implausable story that all of Brian's injuries were caused by a fall from his cell bed. The Maricopa County Medical Examiner conducted no autopsy; nor was the Maricopa County Medical Examiner informed by MCSO or [the Correctional Health Services] about Brian's beating on March 7, 2003 and/or related events. An independent autopsy report later narrowed the cause of Brian's death to
peritonitis and
sepsis secondary to the
duodenal perforation. A fall from Brian's 4-foot, 2 inch bunk could not have simultaneously caused a broken neck, broken toes, and a duodenal perforation.
[74]
[edit] Richard Post
Richard Post was a paraplegic inmate arrested in 1996 for possession of marijuana and criminal trespass. Post was placed in a restraint chair by guards and his neck was broken in the process. The event, caught on video, shows guards smiling and laughing while Post is being injured. Because of his injuries, Post has lost much of the use of his arms.[77] Post settled his claims against the Sheriff's office for $800,000.[78]
[edit] Jeremy Flanders
In 1996, Jeremy Flanders was attacked by inmates at Tent City who used rebar tent stakes, which were not concreted into the ground. Although these stakes had been used as weapons in a previous riot at the facility, the Sheriff's office chose not to secure them properly. During the trial, the plaintiff "presented evidence that, among other things, the Sheriff and his deputies had actual knowledge that prisoners used rebar tent stakes and tent poles as weapons and did nothing to prevent it." Furthermore, "the Sheriff admitted knowing about, and in fact intentionally designing, some conditions at Tent City that created a substantial risk of inmate violence." After the attack: "another inmate entered the tent and found Flanders unconscious, gasping for air, and spewing blood out of his mouth, nose and ears. Flanders had been bloodied and beaten so badly that the other inmate initially did not recognize Flanders." Flanders suffered permanent brain damage as a result of the attack. On appeal, Flanders was awarded $635,532, of which Arpaio was personally responsible for thirty-five percent.[20]
[edit] Ambria Renee Spencer
In 2006, inmate Ambrett Spencer, who was incarcerated for drunk driving and was nine months pregnant with a girl, complained of severe stomach pains and asked for medical attention. The infirmary nurse, who had no prenatal training, believed the pain was not an emergency. It was two hours before an ambulance was called for Spencer, who in the meantime had passed out from severely low blood pressure and lost so much color that the EMT who arrived at the scene said he knew she was "not getting enough blood to [her] organs and skin." At the hospital—four hours after first reporting pain—Spencer gave birth to a dead daughter, Ambria Renee. It was determined that Spencer's pain had been caused by placental abruption, internal bleeding resulting in loss of blood to the baby.
Ambrett Spencer has filed a lawsuit against Maricopa County, which as of November 2008 has not yet gone to trial. The county claims that the ambulance service is at fault for not transporting Spencer to the hospital fast enough.
Other female inmates have had miscarriages while incarcerated in Arpaio's jail and have reported physical abuse or neglect which they believe contributed to the loss of their pregnancies.[79]
[edit] Jose Rodriguez
On March 26, 1996, Jose Rodriquez, 39, died in a pool of his own vomit on a jail floor. His cries for help went ignored by Arpaio's jail employees. Rodriguez's dehydration, fever and twitching ultimately led to his death, even while inmates shouted for help.[79]
[edit] Phillip Wilson
In 2003, Phillip Wilson was serving two months in Tent City for a nonviolent offense. Wilson was attacked by the Aryan Brotherhood prison gang and bludgeoned into a coma. He never recovered.[79]
[edit] Deborah Braillard
Deborah Braillard, 46, was documented as a diabetic in the jail's health records. Her cellmates say a nurse did not give Braillard insulin, and then detention officers ignored her when she went into diabetic shock. Braillard died on January 23, 2005, ultimately from lack of insulin.[79]
[edit] Clint Yarbrough
In December 2005, Clint Yarbrough suffocated in a jail restraint chair. On April 18, 2007, the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors approved an undisclosed settlement payout to Yarbrough's family in excess of $1 million.[79]
[edit] Thomas Bruce Cooley
Months before Thomas Bruce Cooley, 44, was found hanging by the bed sheets in his jail cell, a federal inspector had warned Arpaio that the jail psych ward was a suicide waiting to happen. A 1996 Department of Justice report specifically cautioned that inmates could use "overhanging structures" to hang themselves. Three more inmates died in the same way as Thomas Cooley while in Arpaio's custody: Kevin Holschlag, Michael Sanderson, and Juan Vasquez.[79]
[edit] Icelandic extradition refusal
An Icelandic court in 1997 refused to extradite Connie and Donald Hanes to Maricopa County after hearing evidence about the county jail.[80]
[edit] Enforcement acts of deputies and posse
[edit] Blocking civilian access to law enforcement databases
On August 13, 2009, deputies took control of a computer system linked to sensitive criminal justice databases by forcefully changing its password to prevent civilians from accessing the data. Two days later, a Maricopa County judge ordered the Sheriff's Office to divulge the password, threatening to hold Chief Deputy David Hendershott in contempt of court if he did not comply. Hendershott said he was prevented from sharing the password by federal law. Federal and state laws require that access to the National Crime Information Center (NCIS) and similar Arizona databases be managed by a criminal justice agency. Hendershott said the Sheriff's Office is conducting a criminal investigation into suspected mismanagement of the system by court and other county personnel.
He said the investigation targets Superior Court presiding Judge Barbara Mundell, County Manager Smith and other county personnel, but he did not provide details on the investigation."[81]
On August 17, Hendershott agreed to provide the new password to avoid contempt charges.[82]
[edit] Botched raid
In 2004, the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office SWAT team led a raid on an Ahwatukee home in a gated subdivision, looking for illegal weapons. No illegal weapons were found, but during the raid, the house burned down, SWAT officers forced a dog back into the building where it subsequently died, and an armored vehicle rolled into a neighbor's parked car as a result of brake failure.[83]
[edit] Prostitution sting
In an undercover sting operation in November, 2003, sheriff's deputies arrested over 70 people for prostitution and solicitation of prostitution. The officers arrested alleged prostitutes and their alleged customers in more than thirty homes and ten massage parlors in the Phoenix area. Records indicated that several of the officers and civilian posse members disrobed, fondled the breasts and genitals of the alleged prostitutes, and allowed their penises to be touched during the operation in the hopes of convincing the women they were not law enforcement officers. The Maricopa County Attorney's Office stated that the Sheriff's office had gone too far in allowing this behavior, and sixty of the cases were thrown out. Several of the customers in the case were prosecuted successfully.[84]
[edit] Conflicts with local news media
[edit] Arrest of Phoenix New Times executives
In October 2007, Arpaio's deputies arrested Village Voice Media executives and Phoenix New Times editors Michael Lacey and Jim Larkin on charges of revealing grand jury secrets. In July 2004, the New Times had published Arpaio's home address in the context of a story about his real estate dealings, which the county attorney's office is investigating as a possible crime under Arizona state law. A special prosecutor served Village Voice Media with a subpoena ordering it to produce "all documents" related to the original real estate article, as well as "all Internet web site traffic information" to a number of articles that mentioned Arpaio. The prosecutor further ordered Village Voice Media to produce the IP addresses of all visitors to the Phoenix New Times website since January 1, 2004, as well as what websites those readers had been to prior to visiting. As an act of "civil disobedience,"[85] Lacey and Larkin published the contents of the subpoena on or around October 18, which resulted in their arrests the same day.[86] On the following day, the county attorney dropped the case after declining to pursue charges against the two.[87] The Attorney General's office has since been ordered to appear before Judge Ana Baca due to missing documentation - including the original grand jury subpoenas - in the case file for the investigation of the New Times publication.[88]
On November 28, 2007, Judge Baca ruled that the subpoenas in this case were not validly issued. The special prosecutor filed the grand jury subpoenas without the consent of the grand jury. Baca's justification was a statute that had been clarified by case law and by subsequent legislation to bar such subpoena authority, unless certain reporting requirements are met. The prosecutor had not met those reporting requirements.[89] In April, 2008, the New Times editors filed suit against Arpaio, County Attorney Andrew Thomas and Special Prosecutor Dennis Wilenchik, alleging negligence, conspiracy and racketeering, and State and U.S. constitutional violations of free speech rights, false imprisonment, retaliation by law enforcement and abuse of process.[90]
[edit] Alleged harassment of New Times reporter
On June 11, 2008, Ray Stern, a reporter for the Phoenix New Times, was surrounded by several deputies while trying to examine public records at the City of Phoenix public records counter.[91] Stern called City Attorney Gary Verburg, who came down and instructed the deputies that Stern had the right to view the records. The deputies then threatened to simply arrest Stern on the spot. Later, a city "conflict resolution manager" walked up and laid down an Arizona law book. She pointed to the section of public records law that essentially says anyone can look at any public record during business hours. City Attorney Verburg told the deputies again that Stern had the right to look at any public record. Upon hearing that, the deputies warned Stern again that if he tried to look at the documents he would be arrested.
The events reported by the New Times are substantively verified in a memo drafted by Maricopa County Sheriff's Office Commander James Miller. In this memo, Miller states that the deputies did threaten to arrest Stern if he touched any of the records, and that he (Miller) held one of the records out in front of Stern, saying "take it", to create a pretense to arrest Stern. Miller also reported that the situation escalated into a standoff with the Phoenix Police, when they warned him not to attempt to arrest Stern.[92]
[edit] FOIA requests to mayor and other officials
In situations where government officials have been at odds with Arpaio, his office has used the Freedom of Information Act to make broad requests for records of their email and correspondence. The requests have been targeted against Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard, Maricopa County Court Administrator Marcus Reinkensmeyer, and most recently, Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon.
Starting in March, 2008, Gordon spoke out, in a number of high-profile speeches, against racial profiling by Arpaio. On April 24, Arpaio's deputies issued a public-records request seeking the mayor's e-mails, cell phone records, and meeting calendar, as well as e-mail correspondence for Phoenix Police Chief Jack Harris, City Manager Frank Fairbanks, and all of Gordon's administrative staff. The request covered every e-mail written by more than a dozen Phoenix staffers, from November to the date of the sheriff's demand.[93]
[edit] Arrests of critics
At a December 17, 2008 meeting, four audience members at a County Board of Supervisors meeting were arrested for suspicion of disorderly conduct and trespassing, after they applauded an anti-Arpaio speaker.[94] [95]
Reply With Quote
Criminal Sheriff Joe Arpaio walks out on a public forum at ASU due to protesters
Posting Permissions
Connect With Us