(no subject)

Critics: 'Tough' sheriff botched sex-crime cases
http://news.yahoo.com/critics-tough-sheriff-botched-sex-crime-cases-185852410.html

I'm too furious (and too sleep-deprived) to summarise the news item usefully. Let me just give you the lowlights.

"...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 — [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.

[...] 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.

[...] 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."

[...] El Mirage paid the sheriff's office $2.7 million for a wide range of police protection from 2005 through mid-October 2007 [...](My emphases)

More:

The same item in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (in case the Yahoo page disappears): http://www.ajc.com/news/nation-world/critics-tough-sheriff-botched-1250882.html
Commentary: http://gawker.com/5864937/americas-worst-sheriff-officially-joe-arpaios-job-title-in-light-of-botched-sex-cases

(no subject)

250 words of Documentary. Even better, I think I know the plot now.