Andy Thomas and Joe Arpaio and David Hendershott and Lisa Aubuchon--Dangerous Liaisons
Categories: Monsters
What happened when a shamelessly ambitious zealot (Andrew Peyton Thomas, a timelessly paranoid publicity-seeker (Joe Arpaio), a meglomaniac with a heart of coal (David Hendershott), and a person whose interpretation of the rule of law differs from ours (Lisa Aubuchon) conspire to violate their oaths?
 |
This is what happened--The Case(s) of County Law Enforcement Vs. The Rest of the World, i.e. anyone in the Maricopa County government--judges, bureaucrats, elected officials, and regular old staffers who did anything publicly (or otherwise) to oppose their point of view.
We're talking about the so-called "Court Tower" investigation, the stupid-ass "Bug Sweep" investigation, the frightening would-be politically based prosecution against Judge Gary Donahoe on "bribery charges--a case so thin that Thomas himself couldn't explain its nuts and bolts at the time.
Stuff that's been going on in these parts usually happens only in Communist countries (our line) and in Chicago (additional line of an old homicide cop friend of ours)
What kind of world are we in when a Viet Nam vet (Rick Romley) whose diehard law-and-order credentials are more than impeccable (hell, we thought he was a pandering knee-jerk SOB at times back in the day) is now cast as a lily-livered liberal whose main goal is to let those Mexican assholes, Superior Court judges and elected county officials run free?
For the record, we live in a cool country overall, very cool.
We rely in one part of our lives (for better or worse) on people in authority, people with the power to arrest, ask for indictments, people with the power to stop another citizen and demand their identification, to do the right thing almost all of the time.
We also count on others in authority to stop their brethren who turn out to bad guys in their tracks before things go too far.
Some, like Attorney General Terry Goddard, just don't have what it takes to take on the tough stuff, by which we mean the likes of a bully-in-power like a Hendershott, or a character out of a Stephen King horror novel like a Andrew Peyton Thomas.
But we know this:
If Hendershott, Joe Arpaio, Andy Thomas, County Attorney wannabe Bill Montgomery or any number of other powermongers in this little part of the world had their ways, you readers would not be reading this right now.
We would be arrested for something and thrown into Tent City.
And they would have you readers shaking in your boots for reading this, too.
No shit.
Email to Friend
Write to Editor
Print Article
