A lot of people are asking who signed off on the possibly unprecedented nighttime search warrant that allowed sheriff’s deputies to bust into Mesa City Hall and other buildings on Thursday. The answer is Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Gary Donahoe (pictured). He has been on the superior court bench since 2000 and is widely seen as the next in line to succeed the chief criminal judge in the county, Anna Baca.
I called Donahoe’s office yesterday to ask for comment on the warrant, but his assistant said he declined to talk.
On another note, we were able to pull an excerpt from my interview yesterday with Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who was pretty mad at the criticism he’d been getting because of the raid. (See the link at the bottom of the post.) He continued to defend the raid and the deputies who conducted it, even in the face of Mesa’s accusations that one of the deputies had lied to a Mesa police officer about the operation.
The interview came at the end of a day when Arpaio had already answered dozens of questions at a news conference and also appeared nationally on Fox News. What you won’t hear in this excerpt is Arpaio’s apology near the end of the interview for going a bit nuclear earlier. “It’s been a long day,” he told me.
So what? Joe lost his temper after a very long day. Big %$# deal.
I don’t care if they got just ONE illegal in that night time raid.
Think of it as a training exercise in for the tactical squad.
It now alerts the ILLEGALs that they cannot hide in the darkness by working at night.
It also alerts the City (any of them) that they better pay closer attention to the contracts they let and the companies they allow to bid.
It also continues to alert the employers that they will be held accountable for hiring ILLEGALs.
Hopefully, since we can’t deport the employers, we will begin to take them to court and imprison some of them. Amusement Park, Landscaper, Candlemaker, Commercial Cleaner and Door Manufacturer. A variety of employers, so they cannot scream ‘profiling’.
Nothing like a few CEO’s doing some hard time to get their attention.
Too funny….
I’m laughing alright Bozo Joe…..at you !
What a MAJOR MORON Arpaio is.
THANK GAWD THERE ARE STILL SOME JUDGES ON THE BENCH WHO ARE COURAGEOUS ENOUGH TO MAKE THE “LAWFUL” DECISION…NOT THE “POLITICALLY CORRECT” DECISION…..AS TO OTHER “CRITICS WHO HAVE CRITISIZED THE “APPROPRIATENESS” OF ACTIONS OF MARICOPA COUNTY SHERIFF JOE ARPAIO AND HIS BRAVE DEPUTIES ENFORCING UNITED STATES ANTI-ILLEGAL FEDERAL STATUTES IN RAIDING THE MESA CITY HALL AND MESA MAIN CITY LIBRARY….MAY I DIRECT YOUR ATTENTION TO THE “ANANT TRIPATI” ARIZONA LEGAL SCANDAL THAT ANYONE CAN RESEARCH ON YAHOO SEARCH. THE NAMES OF SOME PREVIOUSLY QUOTED “EMINENCES” SHOULD “JUMP” OUT AT YOU.
Nice how you moved this to copshop to delete all the comments. Tribune, did you get a nasty call from some elected judge who does not want the voter to know what he did?
Any rational person who listened to that 2-minute interview segment of the sheriff doesn’t need a degree in psychiatry to recognize his megalomaniacal tendancies, with high-powered weaponry and overtime deputies at his disposal. “I’m right, everyone else is wrong, and I’m the one who calls the shots, so stick it in your ear.”
Another article in today’s EVT, “Documents contradict Arpaio’s claim in Mesa raid,” is also worth reading. Contrary to Arpaio’s claims during daylight hours after the raids, the Mesa PD Lieutenant had followed up on the city employee’s complaint, and Management Cleaning Controls was put on notice, that its contract with the City requires the company to hire only legal workers.
I’d still like to know what specific information was contained on those warrants which Judge Donohoe signed and whether or not it was accurate information.
More points of fact are brought out today regarding the 2:00 a.m raid on the Mesa Public Library and the Mesa City Plaza (city hall), a block and a half away.
“Arpaio said the sheriff’s office had been investigating allegations (against the janitorial firm) since May. But less than three weeks before he stands for re-election. Arpaio didn’t rely on rank-and-file deputies working a regular early morning shift, but on elite-trained SWAT officers and K-9 units — to arrest janitors. Arpaio has yet to bring charges against a single employer under the 9-month-old law, despite devoting so many resources that his office is falling behind on calls for help and solving other crimes.”
If Arpaio is re-elected, his abuse-of-power and faulty unprofessional judgment can only accelerate against those he perceives to be his enemies.
Arpaio is a bully and a jerk. He is so busy worrying about powerless undocumented workers that he probably has let many White Americans get away with serious crimes. But that is OK because they are AMERICANS, right? If that is the kind of public safety that you want, you deserve more of it. Probably wasted a lot of taxpayers money, too; like the Republican war in IRAQ and the Wall St. fat cats that took us ALL for that nice ride, while they took GOOD care of themselves, right? That makes it all White, now don’t it. That’s Arpaio, ALL HAT, NO CATTLE!
Well, here’s a twist.
I just listened to the nationally broadcast Fox News piece from the link provided here, which was a “news conference” with Sheriff Joe Arpaio.
Here are some of the things Arpaio said.
“We’re enforcing the new law on employer sanctions. We had 25 warrants to go into the library belonging to the city government. We had a force because we didn’t know what we would come up with, arresting 25 illegals that are felons.”
Then Arpaio emphatically said, “We DID notify the Mesa Police Department before we went into the library.” (This statement was not questioned by the Fox News announcer, or elaborated upon by Arpaio.)
At the end of the broadcast the announcer said, “We should note that we asked Mayor Scott Smith of Mesa to come on the program. He declined our request.”
These assertions by Arpaio, inconsistent with those made by the city, cry out for more answers, particularly, “WHO in the Mesa Police Department was notified by the MCSO BEFORE the MSCO went into the library? WHEN was that notification to the Mesa Police Department made?”
Answers are desperately needed to get to the truth.
Isn’t illegal for someone to lie to a police officer? Something about obstruction of justice???
Sheriff Joe needs to go.
“ACTIONS OF MARICOPA COUNTY SHERIFF JOE ARPAIO AND HIS BRAVE DEPUTIES ENFORCING UNITED STATES ANTI-ILLEGAL FEDERAL STATUTES IN RAIDING THE MESA CITY HALL AND MESA MAIN CITY LIBRARY” This seems to be the issue. We have federal enforcement agencies for that. Why the sheriff has taken it upon himself to “round up illegals” is idiotic. That’s saying that they don’t have enough to do that the have to go raid these places at 2 in the morning. Not enough warrants to issue, not enough crime in the county to try and stop. Ohh that’s right, our crime rate is at 0%. No one is commiting any crimes because they are just scared of the sheriff. Stop spending my tax dollars on libraries. Go patrol the county and capture the real criminals. Wait, I forgot there are no criminals in MC couny, only those damn illegals. Lets sic our highly trained swat team against them.
Arpaio doesn’t have a clue what the real story is.
What a BAFFOON Bozo Joke Arpaio is.
It can’t be emphasized enough that Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio assertively told the nation on nationally broadcast Fox News, “We DID notify the Mesa Police Department before we went into the library.”
That broadcast of Arpaio’s statement was seen and heard by law enforcement agencies throughout the country, and would be standard operating procedure for any credible law enforcement agency in like situations.
On that same topic, the Tribune’s extensive report of the sheriff’s 2:00 a.m. raids into Mesa’s library and city hall by a few dozen of his heavily armed SWAT officers (”Mesa mayor rips Arpaio on city buildings raid” by reporters Nick R. Martin and John Leptich) reports as follows:
“”The (Mesa) mayor said neither the city nor its police department were given any warning. The secrecy created the potential for accidental violence or conflict between agencies, he said.
Arpaio also said his agency told the city about the raids days in advance, but offered no proof of it.
The mayor said Arpaio’s claim was false.
“We received no information from anyone,” Smith said.”"
Somebody is lying through their teeth. Is it Mesa Mayor Scott Smith? The Mesa Police Department? Or Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio?
This needs to be flushed out.
First, thank you Nick Martin for following up on this story.
Secondly, it’s probably hopeless to do so, but I’m going to point out that Hiskoledukated’s comment about the Anat Tripati “legal scandal” needs to be taken with a grain of salt. Lack of credible sources aside, Hiskoledukated failed to mention that Tripati accuses Judge Gary Donahoe of the same dishonesty as he does those other judges.
AnyOne whom “really listens” to this must agree….
JOE ARPAIO IS “WELL PAST”…..LOSING IT!
As usual….Joe always Knows BEST!
He has only ONE AGENDA: His…….
“He is gonna give the Mayor an EarFull”:
Give Me A Break!
Joe: Your going to get an EARFUL on election day!
“YOUR GETTING FED UP…JOE????
We are all FED UP WITH YOU!!!!
Now go home to Ava and hire a personal attorney to depfend yourself!
This unholy trinity of political corruption is complete:
Arpaio–Thomas–Donahoe
What a cesspool.
Decent, educated people are Always proud of
Sheriff Joe!!!!!
Go Joe, keep protecting us!
My dear-departed daddy used to say some people do the right thing for the wrong reason. So’s the case with Arpaio. He’s only going after illegals because its expedient to his reelection. Lest you think I’m pro-illegal, I’m certainly not. ALL police agencies ought to arrest illegals. I can’t vote for someone who is solely out for his own self-aggrandizement, not matter how “worthy” the cause. Arpaio is the P.T. Barnum of law enforcement.
You’re funny Doc. I’m decent, very educated (3 degrees) and I am disgusted with what occured here.
Doc
Protecting us from house cleaning crininals trying to make a good life for themselves…unfortunetly the laws now make it almost impossiable for them to become legal without having to wait 10 yrs to get in…i think raids are good but not on janitors and landscaping company’s.
I think everyone forgot about the big raid that nabbed a bunch or real criminals
that actually had an effect on the crime rate here in AZ.
SPEND OUR MONEY GOING AFTER REAL CRIMINALS JOE!!!!
NOT PEOPLE TRYING TO GET THEMSELVES OUT OF POVERTY!!!!!!
Way to go, Joe! I’m glad to see someone enforcing the laws and not ignoring the illegal immigration problem. Just wish the Govenor and Phoenix Mayor would start backing the laws and not the “money” groups.