Where's the Sheriff?
Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Arizona's Maricopa County boasts that he's the "toughest sheriff in America." Two years ago he began a highly publicized crackdown on illegal immigration, and last month he announced that deputies had booked their 1,000th suspected illegal immigrant. But in a comprehensive East Valley Tribune series, "Reasonable Doubt," Ryan Gabrielson and Paul Giblin report that while illegals are being rounded up, serious felonies are being ignored.
In Guadalupe, grocery store employees waited in vain for help during an armed robbery.
In Queen Creek, vandalism spread through a neighborhood where Maricopa County sheriff's deputies rarely patrolled.
In Aguila, people bought guns in the face of rising crime that deputies couldn't respond to quickly enough.
And in El Mirage, dozens of serious felony cases went uninvestigated.
Response times, arrest rates, investigations and other routine police work throughout Maricopa County have suffered over the past two years as Sheriff Joe Arpaio turned his already short-handed and cash-strapped department into an immigration enforcement agency, a Tribune investigation found.
Response times on life-threatening emergencies have slowed across the county, with residents on average waiting 10 minutes or more in most patrol districts. The County Board of Supervisors has set five minutes as the expected standard.
Detectives' arrest rate on criminal investigations plunged, from 10 percent in 2005 to 3.5 percent last year.
The series includes a searchable database of criminal immigration cases, interactive graphics, maps and several videos.
http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/page/reasonable_doubt