Via twitterer @Dhunterauthor, we learn that America’s sheriff, Maricopa County’s Joe Arpaio may have some — how should we put this?– issues with his unsolicited provision of defenders of youth.
You may recall that Arpaio, last seen vainly trying to keep Birtherism on life support (whilst the Kenyan Usurper enters his second term of occupation of the Definitely-Not-Black-House) had declared that his posse (his term) of possibly (house) trained armed yahoos would provide a weaponized security presence at local schools, whether or not those schools sought or welcomed such “assistance.”
Nothing to worry about, right? Nothing says “good idea” like kids and guns.
Let me surrender the floor to Wonkette:
Arpaio told ABC/Univision in December that it was not up for debate whether the schools had posse members posted outside.
“It doesn’t matter whether they like it or don’t,” he said. “I’m still going to do it. I can’t imagine criticism coming when they’re given free protection.”
Well, yeah! Who would object to free protection from volunteers who are no doubt carefully vetted and very responsible and definitely good people to be carrying firearms? Oh wait:
And then there was Jacob Cutler. According to a Flagstaff police report, Cutler threw his girlfriend to the ground and choked her while trying to sexually assault her in 2008. When she didn’t cooperate, he allegedly threatened to call police and said they would side with him, because he “has a badge.” He was a member of Arpaio’s posse at the time.
There’s more, up to and including report that the posse now offering unavoidable “protection” to schools that just happen to be filled with kids (who knew?) includes a member with a record of arrest for “sexual crimes against children.”
So I guess this is the line of reasoning: more guns, even those wielded by thugs with toy badges, make us safer. Good to know.
Go get the rest at Wonkette — but better lock the alcohol away first; this is truly one of those drive you to drink stories.
Image: Arthur William Devis, Emily and George Mason, between 1794 and 1795.
TenguPhule
And they gave these people guns. AT A SCHOOL.
What next? Arpaio going to have mandatory beds for his posse sent there too?
Maude
Does the state have any say in this?
Who protects the school from the “protectors”?
Peter
It boggles my mind that this yahoo is able to act consistently and flagrantly outside of the law, and nothing happens to him. Christ.
Chris
“Because I have a badge.”
And in that, you have the root of all my problems with the institution of the police. And the security state in general.
GregB
Hitler had posses called brown-shirts.
Suck on that Godwin.
mai naem
Arpaio is an asshole. Will always be an attention whore dickwad. I wouldn’t be surprised if this turns out to finally be the end of Arpaio when it goes wrong. I don’t understand why people think that having armed people in a school, especially a grade school, is not an accident waiting to happen.
Odie Hugh Manatee
So if some ‘lucky’ kids see Steven Seagal parked in a tank outside of their school…
I smell a new movie script.
sm*t cl*de
“It doesn’t matter whether they like it or don’t,” he said. “I’m still going to do it. I can’t imagine criticism coming when they’re given free protection.”
Please tell me that this is an episode of the Sopranos.
freelancer
@sm*t cl*de:
It’s Arizona, Jake. Forget about it.
As an aside, when this made local news, most of the police forces in the Valley made a point of stating that they already have jurisdiction over the schools in their respective communities. The Sheriff’s Dept doesn’t have as much power as they claim they do.
emma
I really should not read things like this before going to bed. Nightmares here I come.
MikeJ
@Odie Hugh Manatee: Boys have a word that WP will put you in moderation for, girls have a vagina.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQvnZOR_oIk
? Martin
Honest question:
How does one open carrier discern another open carrier from an active threat?
The rest of us assume anyone with a gun and without a badge is a threat. Seems to me that in a world of open carry, you have to wait until gun is drawn and about to fire to identify the threat. That seems entirely too late to act, no?
Miss Cellania
Another concern expressed by schoolteachers, is that when Arpaio’s men come in, students who have any undocumented family members won’t come to school anymore. They are more afraid of the sheriff than of intruders.
Liquid
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
He has a bulletproof kimono doncha know.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@? Martin:
simple. Is the other person white?
freelancer
@? Martin:
This is my common response to the few times I’ve heard people trot out that old cannard: “An armed society is a polite society.”
“Yeah? You haven’t seen too many fucking Westerns, have you?”
Suzanne
Joe Arpaio is old and with any luck, will die soon. Hopefully in a painful and embarrassing manner.
Hint to Karma: “bare ass” is in the middle of “embarrassing”….just an idea.
danielx
Like the post title says…what could possibly go wrong? This on top of a previous discussion about negligent weapons discharge (translation: being a complete fuckup with a firearm) is enough to make me not want to leave the house, and most especially not to visit Arizona.
Smiling Mortician
@Maude:
Um. It’s Arizona. Jan Brewer?
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
I’m afraid we now have to change the prediction for an injury caused by school protectors to the end of the month. There are a frighteningly large number of people in this country in florid psychosis, and many of them are elected officials. And far too many are armed. This will not end well.
Chris
@freelancer:
Ironically, when Wyatt Earp cleaned up town, he did it by prohibiting firearm carrying. And it worked.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Chris: Don’t hold this against the police. The guy saying this wasn’t part of the police.
kay
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):
I honestly wonder if you could get some kind of blanket order that applied to your specific kid?
“No member of Citizen School Posse w/in 500 feet of so and so”
? Martin
@kay: Honest to god, if they pulled this shit outside my kids school, I’d yell ‘Gun!’ and shoot the first armed motherfucker I saw and claim self-defense of my kid.
The reasoning behind this move is just impenetrable. We’re going to send out armed civilians to protect our kids from armed civilians. Ok. Fine. Let’s see how that plays out.
SiubhanDuinne
@Chris:
Long live his fame
And long live his glory,
And long may his story
Be told.
Punchy
@? Martin: Easy. You shoot em if they’re black or Hispanic. Not so much if they’re crackers. Simple.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@kay: Had I a kiddo in school, you’d best believe I’d be in court by morning. I suspect you couldn’t but I’d find the time to take it up the appeal chain.
? Martin
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): Actually, not flying off the handle, I’d organize the parents to call the police and principal every time they saw one of these yahoos. I’d have every parent call every morning and every afternoon. They’d be gone within a week.
piratedan
@freelancer: well nobody is gonna mistake Sheriff Joe and his “posse dummitatus” for John Wayne and the calvary. Maybe if we just give ’em all a CD of Marty Robbins Gunfighter Ballads they would all just go away.
Yutsano
@piratedan: I wish. Sheriff Joe has some real power down in Maricopa county, and power does not cede lightly. If he thinks he can
abuseuse this situation for his personal gain, he will. A perfect excuse to shoot some browns and blahs for looking shifty is just gravy to him.piratedan
@Yutsano: I know, still the activism that he’s inspired is incredible, in a way Sheriff Joe and Cactus Barbie have truly re-energized the Dems in AZ due to their continued intransigence in the face of common sense, much less the will of the people. Latest rumours are that Carmona may take a run at the statehouse and considering the laundry list of R’s that could stand in line if/when Our Little Jannie gets impeached or drives her car into a cactus isn’t exactly impressive.
The Dems made gains in the lege this year, thanks to the independent commission redrawing districts and removing some of the gerrymandering. While we still have a good many of the chimps still flinging poo, some adults are being let back onto the grounds to start tidying up.
Cargo
Arpaio is one of those figures in american politics who is an unrepentant, full-on, straight-up fascist. G. Gordon Liddy is another. There aren’t that many, even on the right, but he’s one of ’em.
Yutsano
@piratedan:
Whyfor do you make teh Russell Pearce cry? He was already of the opinion he was governour and she was just his puppet anyway.
She DRIVES?? I figure she wastes the state budget on a driving service.
Villago Delenda Est
@Chris:
Someone questioned the legality of some policy that Reinhard Heydrich wanted to impose, and Heydrich’s response was along the lines of “We are the police. Who is going to do anything to stop us?”
kathy a.
i really like the ideas of calling the police and the school every single time one of these buffalo are sighted, and trying to get protective orders against the posse sitting outside school. it’s threatening to students and parents; and dangerous.
i hope that the parents in the schools are in touch about this, too, and that they stick together about how to oppose this stupid thing.
Villago Delenda Est
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
Law Enforcement then. Or in Arpaio’s case, law warping for personal gain.
Villago Delenda Est
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
Law Enforcement then. Or in Arpaio’s case, law warping for personal gain.
Forum Transmitted Disease
I thought “ehhh, just more of the same shit from the NRA. No one is actually going to allow non-law enforcement people to have guns in schools.”
And here we are. Well, not just Arizona, all over the fucking place, janitors and teachers and principals are arming up and taking the classes and in a decade grade-school teachers all over the country, every state, are going to be toting a sidearm into class. Hooray.
I remember not so long ago when national and California park rangers didn’t just NOT carry sidearms, they were forbidden to. Then they had that incident down in Big Sur in the mid 1990s, and a few others out in Yosemite, and they started arming up, and now even the guy who runs the gate kiosk down at the beach is carrying. Where does this lunacy end? Are we truly all going to be strapped in public soon?
The Other Bob
So basically this Sheriff is creating his own army.
Or the other way to look at it is, he is creating a bunch of George Zimmermans ready to shoot without conscience.
John M. Burt
Maude @2 re “Does the state have any say in this?”: How about the FBI?
Martin @ 12 re “[Wouldn’t] you have to wait until gun is drawn and about to fire to identify the threat[?]”: That is why Arizona courts accept “He was reaching for his back pocket” as a defense against a murder charge.
Miss Cellania @13 re “[S]tudents who have any undocumented family members won’t come to school anymore.”: Doubtless regarded as a feature, rather than a bug. Illegal immigrants working in the fields are not a threat to the status quo. Literate Latino citizens are.
Comrade Rutherford
@? Martin:
In the fevered minds of the gun nuts, the bad guy are easy to stop because they all wear black cowboy hats.