http://www.arizonarepublic.com/news/articles/0104threats04.html

Threats on Arpaio costly Public pays $264,653 for security detail

By Tom Zoellner The Arizona Republic Jan. 04, 2002 12:00:00

Death threats against Sheriff Joe Arpaio are so frequent that the sheriff spends an annual $264,653 to investigate all the people who want to kill him.

The sheriff's four-officer Threat Assessment Unit receives death threats against Arpaio at a rate of about one a week.

"People focus in on him because he is a celebrity," said Sgt. Leo Driving Hawk, a member of the threat unit. "If we can go four or five days without getting a threat against him, that's a good week for me."

Sgt. Keith Frakes and a state Department of Public Safety bomb robot after a mission at Sheriff Joe Arpaio's house. Arpaio defends the cost of the threat squad by saying that a team of bodyguards would cost four times as much. But the sheriff's critics call it a waste of money. Many of the threats are simply not credible and could be investigated by a single detective, said Chris Gerberry, head of the Maricopa County Deputies Association.

"Why do we have to have four people on this?" he asked. "It's ultimately something to satisfy (Arpaio's) ego, and that's it. A lot of the threats are just stupid. It's people idly running off at the mouth and not paying attention to what they're saying."

County finance records show that Arpaio's threat unit, made up of high-salaried senior officers, costs taxpayers more than a proposed contingent of bodyguards that his staff has repeatedly urged him to use. His chief deputy pegged the cost for a "marginal security detail" at $260,000 - some $6,000 less than the threat squad now costs.

The special unit is also charged with checking out threats against Superior Court judges and local political figures, but it is Arpaio - who calls himself "America's toughest sheriff" - who garners the vast majority of menacing calls.

A good percentage of them come from citizens who dislike the sheriff's unorthodox corrections policies, such as housing inmates in tents, dressing them in old-fashioned prison stripes, serving bargain-basement food and issuing only pink underwear.

One recent threat came from Madison Street Jail inmate Burton Jones, 25, who, authorities say, made the ill-advised decision to call Arpaio's home telephone number from a jail pay phone, where the line is always tapped.

"We want better food, homie," said Jones, according to a transcript. "How did I get this number? Joe mamma gave it to me. . . . We're going to get you, punk, we're going to kill you."

The call earned Jones a misdemeanor charge for "threats and intimidation." He has since been sent to state prison on auto theft charges and is awaiting trial on the threat charge.

"We have to take all threats seriously," said Lt. Ray Jones, head of the unit. "We just don't know what people are capable of."

Arpaio's unit has an intelligence function similar to the investigations arm of the U.S. Secret Service, which maintains an extensive database of all individuals who have made threats or remarks against the president. In the Maricopa County unit's two years of existence, it has checked out about 200 threats and obtained successful prosecutions in 13 cases.

But no other public official in Arizona appears to have such a special staff dedicated exclusively to investigating personal threats.

Department of Corrections Director Terry Stewart received seven threats last year, and they were all investigated by the department's Protective Services Unit, which also provides bodyguards for Stewart and any other of the department's staff of 11,000 who are targets of credible threats. The eight-employee unit costs an estimated $275,000 per year.

Gov. Jane Hull has a detail of nine Department of Public Safety officers responsible for shadowing her movements, costing the state $555,574 per year. But the undisclosed number of threats against her are generally checked out by the DPS Criminal Investigations Bureau and not the bodyguard detail.

In Arpaio's nine years as Maricopa County sheriff, only one person has laid an angry hand on him. In 1998, a hairstylist in the parking lot of a Scottsdale restaurant hit Arpaio in the Adam's apple when the sheriff intervened in an argument over whether the man was too drunk to drive. Arpaio and Chief Deputy Dave Hendershott wrestled the man to the ground; he was later convicted of aggravated assault.

The sheriff may have been a target of a biological threat of a sort two years ago when he lunched at Tom's Tavern with some producers interested in making a movie about him. A waitress with a boyfriend in the Madison Street Jail was overheard saying, "If he was sitting at my table, I would spit in his soup."

Although Arpaio had already eaten his lunch, investigators took the comment seriously. They could not prove she had tampered with food, but they charged the woman with misdemeanor false reporting when they caught her changing her story. The sheriff had himself tested for HIV and hepatitis after the incident.

Another time in the summer of 1999, Arpaio found that somebody had deposited a large metal sculpture of a spider on the front porch of his East Valley home. Fearing it was a bomb, Arpaio called in his deputies, who blew it up as a precaution. It turned out to be a neighbor's lawn ornament that a prankster had apparently hauled over as a gag.

"We had no choice but to blow it up," Driving Hawk said. "I didn't want to pick it up, that's for sure. They don't pay me enough."

Many of the threats that come into the office via telephone, mail or e-mail are from attention-seekers who think that killing the sheriff would make them famous, Driving Hawk said. Two years ago, officers arrested a man just before he tried to place an explosive device in Arpaio's car.

Some threats are more remote. For example, the unit spent time looking into a spate of angry e-mails from Germany after a television documentary about the sheriff's hard-nosed tactics aired there.

Arpaio defends the expense of the unit as a law-enforcement necessity, and says he saves the county money by not using a retinue of bodyguards when he goes out in public.

"How can you equate four deputies with wasting money when it would cost much more to have deputies following me around wherever I go?" he said. "I don't like being restrained. I don't like anyone following me around. I can't imagine having deputies sitting outside my house. I'd have to invite them in for spaghetti."

His reluctance to use bodyguards has set off a round of protesting letters from high-ranking officers who say they fear for his safety. Acting Chief Deputy Gerard Sheridan has asked Arpaio to authorize a protection unit that would cost the county $260,000 a year.

"Your position as an extraordinarily successful public official has benefited this office and the performance thereof in countless ways over the past eight years and will continue to do so into the future, only as long as you remain alive!" Sheridan wrote in a Dec. 28, 2000, letter.

But county finance records show the cost of this unit would still be about $6,000 less than the office already spends on threat assessments. Salaries for the four officers, including benefits, range from $80,452 to $48,937.

Arpaio disputed the cost estimate cited by Sheridan, saying that truly effective bodyguards for him would cost about $1 million a year. He said his threat squad goes beyond providing simple protection.

Arpaio's office has taken the unusual step of publicizing this internal policy debate to the point where it even showed up in a press release touting the recent conviction of a 23-year-old man for threatening to stab Arpaio in a public venue.

"Time and again we have advised the sheriff of his need for bodyguards, but it falls on deaf ears," Sheridan was quoted as saying.

-- Anonymous, January 04, 2002

Answers

"A good percentage of them come from citizens who dislike the sheriff's unorthodox corrections policies, such as housing inmates in tents, dressing them in old-fashioned prison stripes, serving bargain- basement food and issuing only pink underwear. "

I liked this guy when we lived in Phoenix and I still like his style.

-- Anonymous, January 04, 2002

as long as he isn't serving the food in pink underwear. But I suppose he has staff to do that...

-- Anonymous, January 04, 2002

Pink underwear!! Talk about inhuman mental cruelty.

-- Anonymous, January 04, 2002