Arpaio supporters, detractors speak their minds

Sheriff Joe Arpaio's supporters struck back at Wednesday's Maricopa County Board of Supervisors meeting, which has become the venue for heated monthly forums on the sheriff's job performance.

More than half a dozen people spoke in favor of Arpaio, while most members of an opposition group sat mum, with duct tape over their mouths, in an auditorium that was lined with deputies.

Members of the group Maricopa Citizens for Safety and Accountability had spoken against Arpaio and disrupted two previous county Board of Supervisors meeting, but they took a different tack Wednesday, leaving as many as 50 deputies with little to do.

At the last meeting, deputies arrested one of MCSA's leaders, Randy Parraz, after he refused to leave an area outside the building.

On Wednesday, Arpaio's supporters thanked the sheriff for enforcing "all the laws," including those that protect animals and jail illegal immigrants.

Martha Payon, an unemployed nurse from Phoenix, called Arpaio the "true enforcer" in the county.

"I do believe that all the donations that are given to the county on behalf of either Sheriff Joe Arpaio or the county Board of Supervisors or any other county agency in support of animals is a good thing," she said.

"Sheriff Joe Arpaio, as well as myself, I'd like to see American dollars spent on American projects and other than, you know, being used, taxpayer dollars being used for illegals," she said.

Two speakers thanked the supervisors for resisting MCSA's "intimidation" tactics of speaking during the public-comment sessions of some meetings and out of turn at other meetings during the past several months.

Other speakers called out the MCSA members, saying their real motive has little to do with Arpaio's job performance and everything to do with promoting illegal immigration. The speakers encouraged the group's members to leave the county and the country.

After the meeting, MCSA's leaders staged a news conference to present what they called a citizens' report card on Arpaio, modeled after a report card Arpaio gives himself in a television commercial.

They gave Arpaio A's for subjects including "showmanship and self-promotion," "alienating thousands of perfectly legal Arizona citizens" and "responding to critics with overwhelming force."

They gave him F's for "effective law enforcement," "encouraging all residents to report criminal activity," "responding to 911 calls" and more.

Arpaio did not attend the meeting.

After the news conference, Capt. Paul Chagolla, a spokesman for the sheriff's office, said Arpaio declined comment about MCSA's concerns, which are largely based on the findings of independent months-long investigations conducted by the East Valley Tribune and The Arizona Republic.

Chagolla said, "He's not going to dignify the inaccurate, misleading false statements and rhetoric that these individuals have put out. They are patently false."

Chagolla did not cite any single specific statement as misleading or false.

MCSA director Raquel Teran said members had intended to use the three-minute public speaking blocks during the supervisors meeting to stand mutely while holding signs at the podium, but they did not turn in their public-speaking request cards soon enough, so they sat mutely in the audience instead.