I wonder why that is...........? Not as politically expedient? He thinks illegal immigrant children deserve it? He's a closet pedophile?
Critics: 'Tough' sheriff botched sex-crime cases
EL MIRAGE, Ariz. -- The 13-year-old girl opened the door of her home
in this small city on the edge of Phoenix to encounter a man who said
that his car had broken down and he needed to use the phone. Once
inside, the man pummeled the teen from behind, knocking her unconscious
and sexually assaulting her.
Seven months before, in an apartment
two miles away, another 13-year-old girl was fondled in the middle of
the night by her mother's live-in boyfriend. She woke up in her room at
least twice a week to find him standing over her, claiming to be looking
for her mother's cell phone.
Both cases were among more than 400
sex-crimes reported to Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio's office
during a three-year period ending in 2007 — including dozens of alleged
child molestations — that were inadequately investigated and in some
instances were not worked at all, according to current and former police
officers familiar with the cases.
In El Mirage alone, where Arpaio's office was providing contract police
services, officials discovered at least 32 reported child molestations —
with victims as young as 2 years old — where the sheriff's office
failed to follow through, even though suspects were known in all but six
cases.
Many of the victims, said a retired El Mirage police official who reviewed the files, were children of illegal immigrants.
The
botched sex-crimes investigations have served as an embarrassment to a
department whose sheriff is the self-described "America's Toughest
Sheriff" and a national hero to conservatives on the immigration issue.
Arpaio's
office refused several requests over a period of months to answer
questions about the investigations and declined a public records request
for an internal affairs report, citing potential disciplinary actions.
Brian
Sands, a top sheriff's official who is in charge of the potential
discipline of any responsible employees, was later made available to
talk about the cases. He declined to say why they weren't investigated.
"There are policy violations that have occurred here," Sands said. "It's
obvious, but I can't comment on who or what."
Sands said officers
had subsequently moved to clear up inadequately investigated sex-crimes
in El Mirage and elsewhere in the county. He said leads were worked if
they existed and cases were closed if there was no further evidence to
pursue.
Arpaio's office was under contract to provide police
services in El Mirage as the city struggled with its then dysfunctional
department. After the contract ended and El Mirage was re-establishing
its own police operation, the city spent a year sifting through layers
of disturbingly incomplete casework.
El Mirage Detective Jerry
Laird, who reviewed some the investigations, learned from a sheriff's
summary of 50 to 75 cases files he picked up from Arpaio's office that
an overwhelming majority of them hadn't been worked.
That meant there were no follow-up reports, no collection of
additional forensic evidence and zero effort made after the initial
report of the crime was taken.
"I think that at some point prior
to the contract (for police services) running out, they put their feet
on the desk, and that was that," Laird said.
Arpaio acknowledged
his office had completed an internal probe into the inadequate
investigations, but said, "I don't think it's right to get into it until
we get to the bottom of this and see if there's disciplinary action
against any employees."
A small number of cases from El Mirage
were handed over to prosecutors, but the El Mirage Police Department
said most were no longer viable — evidence dating as far back as 2006
had grown cold or wasn't collected in the first place, victims had
either moved away or otherwise moved on.
Bill Louis,
then-assistant El Mirage police chief who reviewed the files after the
sheriff's contract ended, believes the decision to ignore the cases was
made deliberately by supervisors in Arpaio's office — and not by
individual investigators.
"I know the investigators. I just cannot
believe they would wholesale discount these cases. No way," Louis said.
"The direction had to come (from) up the food chain."
Louis said
he believes whoever made the decision knew that illegal immigrants — who
are often transient and fear the police — were unlikely to complain
about the quality of investigations. He said some cases also involved
families here legally.
El Mirage paid the sheriff's office $2.7
million for a wide range of police protection from 2005 through
mid-October 2007, after the city's police department had been criticized
in an audit as poorly organized, loosely supervised and mismanaged.
Although
a small number of El Mirage officers continued working there during the
period, Arpaio brought in patrol officers and detectives and managers
who ran the department.
El Mirage police files obtained by The
Associated Press through public records requests establish a pattern of
sex-crimes not actually being investigated after the crimes were
reported to Arpaio's office.
In April 2007, a 3-year-old girl was
reported molested by her father, an illegal immigrant who cared for the
child while her mother was at work. When the mother confronted her
husband about the abuse, he cried and swore he'd never do it again.
Yet
a few days later, the mother noticed more signs of sexual abuse on her
daughter and called for help. After the initial report, that help didn't
come.
The string of unresolved cases left Elizabeth Ditlevson,
deputy director for the Arizona Coalition Against Domestic Violence,
shaking her head. "My impressions were anger at the system and concern
for the people whose cases weren't addressed," she said.
According
to both Sands and Scott Freeman, a sheriff's official who heard
complaints from then-El Mirage Police Chief Mike Frazier about the
quality of the sex-crimes investigations, more than 400 cases countywide
had to be reopened. Freeman told outside investigators examining
alleged managerial misconduct at Arpaio's office that a number of
arrests were made in the reopened cases.
The April 2011 report on
alleged managerial misconduct said the sheriff's internal effort to
determine what had gone wrong with the sex-crimes investigations was
twice derailed.
One delay occurred when the male sheriff's official leading the
inquiry was accused of sexual harassment — this by a female supervisor
whose portfolio included some of the mishandled cases, according to the
report.
Another internal affairs investigation, launched in May
2008, was stopped after the investigator was pulled away at the
direction of David Hendershott, then the top aide to Arpaio, to help
with another matter. The internal probe was reopened in December 2010
while Hendershott was on medical leave, according to the 2011 summary.
Hendershott's account conflicted with others.
Hendershott,
who has since resigned amid separate misconduct allegations and
declined a request by the AP to comment, told investigators the internal
affairs inquiry was still in progress when he went on medical leave in
2010.
Still, Hendershott told investigators that the El Mirage
Police Department had good reason to be upset about the sex-crimes
handled by the sheriff's office.
The report of the 13-year-old who
had been inappropriately touched by her mother's live-in boyfriend had
been faxed to one of Arpaio's investigators. El Mirage police, who were
given back the case about 11 months later, learned that it hadn't been
worked.
When El Mirage police finally tracked down the mother, she
said her boyfriend had moved out and that she no longer had contact
with him. She and her daughter were in counseling and didn't want to
bring the case to court.
In their follow-up on the case of the
13-year-old attacked by the man claiming to have a broken car, El Mirage
police discovered Arpaio's office hadn't interviewed the victim.
An
El Mirage detective went to the girl's home just off the city's main
drag. The girl's uncle said she and her mother weren't around and took
the investigator's card with a promise to ask them to call.
The mother never called back. She and her daughter's whereabouts are unknown.
The
case of the molested 3-year-old was returned to El Mirage police
unworked five months after the initial report. The family's beige tract
home was deserted, the phone disconnected.
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