SHATTUCK: SHERIFF JOE DESERVES PARDON,
Arizona’s Joe Arpaio became Maricopa County sheriff in 1993 and thus began the dark ages for the bad guys.
“It’s not a country club,” Sheriff Joe said about his jail. He wasn’t kidding. When more room was needed, he did it on the cheap by erecting an infamous “tent city” out in the Arizona heat. In 2003, when inmates complained about temperatures over 100 degrees, Sheriff Joe was unimpressed.
“It’s 120 degrees in Iraq and the soldiers are wearing combat gear and living in tents and they didn’t commit any crimes, so shut your mouths,” he said, sounding like the Army veteran he is.
Out were the creature comforts. No meat. No coffee. No salt or pepper. No letter-writing. Arpaio was looking out for the taxpayers. When inmates were found taking their undergarments with them upon release, Arpaio made them wear pink ones. Problem solved.
The law-and-order sheriff was high-profile — he wanted potential criminals to get a good look at his facility and to know that life there was miserable and you might be an arrest away from realizing it.
“I’ll always have room. I’ll put more tents up if I have to. That sends a message: the sheriff will make room no matter what,” he said.
Bristol County Sheriff Tom Hodgson, the closest thing Massachusetts has to Sheriff Joe, recalls a visit there in 1999.
“He had a neon vacancy sign on the watch tower,” Hodgson told me.
Arpaio made it clear that ”this is not a place you want to come.”
He brought back chain gangs for men and women.
He had a Mother’s Day tradition of having his officers arrest deadbeat dads and others with crimes against women and slapping pink handcuffs on them.
Back at the jail, the food was minimal and its grotesque appearance legendary. “It’s not a buffet here,” Hodgson recalls the sheriff saying.
Sheriff Joe Arpaio, an 85-year-old Springfield, Mass., native, followed the letter of the law and ran a jail meant to make a lasting impression. He held the line against a culture increasingly critical of law enforcement.
Arpaio lost his election last year and now a federal judge has found him in contempt of court for defying an order to stop detaining people based on their immigration status.
President Trump should pardon him immediately, and he told Fox News on Sunday he is seriously considering it.
Joe Arpaio began serving his country in 1950 and never stopped until this year.
He is a lawman’s lawman. He needs to remain a free man.