BLOOD ON ARPAIO’S HANDS

Imagine you are the mother of a mentally handicapped thirty-three-year-old-man. Your son functions on the level of a twelve-year-old boy. His disability often causes him to act erratically, but you still hope that one day, he can lead a normal life. One night in August, 2001, he is arrested on a misdemeanor loitering charge when he begins acting strangely in a convenience store. When officers arrive to arrest him, he is clinging to the store’s coffee machine and won’t let go. Four officers forcibly remove him from the store, handcuff him, and throw him to the ground to be hogtied. The force seems excessive, since your son is disabled and only weighs about a hundred and thirty pounds. A few minutes later, his limbs bound behind his tiny frame, officers load him into the squad car to take him away. Before they pull away, your son asks you, like a little kid:

“Mom, will you ride in the car with me?”

“I can’t,” you tell him, “the police won’t let me.”

You figure that the police will probably hold your son overnight, and you head home to get some rest.

Two hours later, your son is dead.

When Charles Agster arrives at Madison Street Jail, he is confused, as is typical of his condition. He tries to wriggle underneath a bench, and although he is still hogtied, three or more officers and a sheriff’s deputy jump on him, punch him, and knee him in the side. One officer grips his face, pressing upward toward his chin. Although he is now unresponsive, the officers drag him, face down, into the Intake area and strap him into a restraint chair. They place a spit-hood over his head, encasing him in darkness. Minutes later, he stops breathing. The original autopsy lists “positional asphyxia due to restraint” as his cause of death.

Videotape of the incident shows guards trying to resuscitate Agster, but he’s already brain dead. A 2002 Amnesty International report expresses concern “that the degree of force used against Agster was grossly disproportionate to any threat posed by him.”

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Forty-year-old Brian Crenshaw was serving a short sentence for shoplifting. Although Crenshaw had been in and out of jail for years and had a drug problem, he had never been accused of a violent crime. He was also legally blind. After an altercation with officers, Crenshaw reported injuries to jail medical personnel. His eye and nose were sutured, and his vitals were taken. Crenshaw stated that he was pushed to the wall, punched and kicked by officers. Apparently, the struggle ensued when Crenshaw refused to show his ID in a lunch line. Due to the altercation, Crenshaw was placed in lockdown.

For the next six days, nobody entered or left his cell. On March 14, Crenshaw was found unconscious next to his bunk. He had a broken neck, several broken toes, and extensive internal injuries. He was comatose, his intestines had ruptured, and his vertebrae needed to be straightened with a halo. Doctors told Crenshaw’s mother that his internal injuries were so severe they had to surgically open his stomach to relieve swelling. The sheriff’s office bumerts that Crenshaw’s struggle with guards did not cause the injuries that led to his death. Despite the severity of Crenshaw’s injuries, the sheriff’s office maintains that these injuries were incurred when he fell from his bunk.

On a CBS 5 program after the incident, interviewer Chris Hayes asks Arpaio, “Is it possible your guards beat Brian Crenshaw to death?

“Is it possible?” Arpaio sneers. After an uncomfortable pause, he continues, “No, they did not, they did not, and if that’s what your critics, or that you’re insinuating we went into that cell block and beat him up and threw him to the floor is ridiculous. We did a thorough investigation on that. The man fell off a bunk.”

Crenshaw’s bunk was 4’2” high, about a foot shorter than a child’s bunk bed , or as Chris Hayes pointed out in his investigation, a little taller than a desk.

You don’t have to be a softy or an advocate of prisoners’ rights to become outraged at reports like these. We all want a sheriff who is tough on crime—and we don’t want our tax dollars to be spent on luxurious accommodations for inmates. Rest bumured, the conditions in Maricopa County’s jails aren’t lavish, comfortable, or even tolerable. The temperatures inside Tent City often reach 120 degrees in the summer, and with only four guards for every thousand prisoners, Arpaio is cutting dangerous corners and endangering both inmates and detention officers. The sheriff brags that he spends more money feeding police dogs than he does inmates. The dogs, he argues, deserve better, since they haven’t done anything illegal. What’s important to remember is that Tent City doesn’t just house hardened criminals—it also houses people who are awaiting trial; people who haven’t been convicted or even accused of any crime. One young man spent four years in Arpaio’s jails before being released—and acquitted on all charges. Arpaio boasts that he’s saving money by keeping inmates in these conditions, but the cost of humiliating inmates is beginning to skyrocket.

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Phillip Wilson, 40, was beaten to death by inmates. When officers returned the contents of Phillip’s wallet to his mother, family photographs, his identification, and other personal items were missing. What she got instead was his Fry’s card and a handful of old receipts. Officers gave his mother a number of different explanations for the bumault. They claimed that Phillip owed money to other inmates who attacked him in retaliation. Maricopa County officials have failed to produce any evidence to substantiate this claim. They also suggested that Phillip was murdered in an aggressive attempt to steal his onyx ring, which would have been taken from him when he was processed in the intake area. The ring was never returned to the family. Robert Butler died in a restraint-chair related incident. Charles Ward’s body was removed from the Durango Jail a few hours before country crooner Glen Campbell started his set. Campbell had been picked up on a DUI, and received star treatment. He was allowed his own private cell in a Mesa jail. Apparently, Arpaio’s tough-on-crime, tough-on-inmates doesn’t apply to celebrities. Men and women have died and will continue to die in Arpaio’s dungeons as long as he is in office.

The cost of all these lives lost has been immense for the families of the victims. Unfortunately, all this blood comes with a bill, too, and it’s tens of millions of dollars. So the next time Joe brags about how much money he’s saving us by cramming inmates into his sweltering dungeons where they eat green bologna, Consider this: when all of the cases pending against Arpaio settle, the wrongful death suits may have cost Maricopa County taxpayers more than fifty million dollars, and will continue to cost us even long after he’s out of office after these cases progress. In fact, the debt Joe has straddled us with may well be his biggest legacy. It’s probably an easier pill to swallow if you’re in an air-conditioned penthouse in downtown Phoenix, but for Maricopa County taxpayers, the effects can be devastating. Currently, Arpaio is listed as the defendant in over fifteen hundred cases. Maricopa County taxpayers shouldn’t have to keep paying for the blood on Joe’s hands.