Interesting events in Phoenix as a litigious sheriff unhappy with the way Phoenix New Times journalists covered him allegedly takes his revenge:
Michael Lacey, the executive editor, and Jim Larkin, chief executive, were arrested at their homes after they wrote a story that revealed that the Village Voice Media company, its executives, its reporters and even the names of the readers of its website had been subpoenaed by a special prosecutor. The special prosecutor had been appointed to look into allegations that the newspaper had violated the law in publishing the home address of Maricopa Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s home address on its website more than three years ago.
The weekly and its leadership has been in a long running battle with Mr. Arpaio, after the weekly published a series of stories about his real estate dealings.
“They did not have a warrant, but they told me that I was being arrested for unlawful disclosure of grand jury information,” Mr. Larkin said by phone from his home early this morning, after he was released from jail. Mr. Lacey remained in jail early this morning. Captain Paul Chagolla, a spokesman for the sheriff did not return a call for comment.
Steve Suskin, legal counsel for Village Voice Media, said that the arrests on misdemeanor charges of the newspaper executives represent an escalation in the conflict between The Phoenix New Times and Sheriff Arpaio, who has received national attention for his reputation for running tough jails.
“It is an extraordinary sequence of events,” Mr. Suskin said. “The arrests were not totally unexpected, but they represent an act of revenge and a vindictive response on the part of an out of control sheriff.”
Here’s one of the articles Sheriff Joe Arpaio is so unhappy about:
You get elected to public office, say, sheriff.
You start scowling like John Wayne and jam the jails full. You put the cons in stripes and house them in surplus Army tents, where four guards oversee 1,800 inmates.
Your detention officers beat up prisoners, while feeding them food unfit for a dog. A paranoid public afraid of crime is grateful because it naively believes your abusive policies will scare people from committing that next robbery and shooting.
Who cares if this is all baloney?
You drum up a few death threats along the way, because that generates free publicity chronicling what a bad-ass you are.
Who cares if innocent people go to jail?
The voters love it. Even as your office is besieged by tens of millions of dollars in lawsuits stemming from beatings and deaths in your Mother of All Dungeons.
The dead guys were druggies anyway, your public relations machine claims. And, hey, that’s what the county’s insurance policy is for — settling claims of distraught survivors.
What matters most is that your image as “toughest sheriff in America” has made you into a valuable commodity.
And that image is worth a lot.
If Arpaiao hadn’t had those media executives arrested and the NY Times hadn’t picked it up, I and many thousands of others nation and worldwide never would have read that and known of the terrible allegations against him.
Hubris begets nemesis. You’d think an officer of the law would know that. Silly sheriff.
