Posted inUncategorized

Gunslingers, sheriffs and the militarization of law enforcement

By Cal Lash, Guest Rogue

Human social evolution created the gunslinger.

Human Cowardice bought us the political lawman.

Since the beginning of socialization and the family unit, group control has been administered by the dominant figure in a group. Groups grew larger and became villages, towns, cities, states, kingdoms and empires.

In Europe, royalty hired out tax collection, to the “High Sheriff.”  The Sheriff also attended to other civil disputes, attended royal ceremonies and was responsible the enforcement of some criminal statutes. As Europe grew, municipalities provided their own law enforcement constabulary and contemporary High Sheriffs now have few genuine responsibilities and their functions are largely representational.

Marshal Wyatt Earp may or may not have been the best thing for Tombstone, Arizona, but he set the tone for paid protection along with other gunslingers and companies like Pinkerton. These hired “lawmen” were given a badge and the responsibility of making a town safe for the people who out of fear believed this was the way to create a safe environment. Different versions exist of the deeds and the resultant benefits or determents of people like Wyatt Earp and Tom Horn, who was a hired killer for cattleman. Horn’s killing of “rustlers” was tolerated until he allegedly shot a young boy.  Eventually many citizens in the old west began to wonder if the hired gunslinger was not worse than the problem they hired the gunman to solve.

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Posted inPhoenix

‘America’s toughest sheriff’s’ cowardly war against illegal immigrants

In my David Mapstone Mysteries series, the Maricopa County Sheriff is a Mexican-American tough guy — bull-headed, manipulative, egotistical, fascinating. Nobody ever accused him of violating prisoners’ rights, however, and he brings an ambivalent realist’s view to illegal immigration. In real life, we get Joe Arpaio, who casts himself, thanks to a gullible media and public, as "America’s toughest sheriff."

Many real police officers have nothing but contempt for Arpaio — they call him the "badged ego" for his endless publicity stunts. They talk about how the media leave largely unexamined the troubled record of Arpaio’s department (an honorable exception is the weekly New Times and my friend, journalist John Dougherty). But nobody wants to listen to reality in Arizona, particularly when the Arpaio fantasy so appeals to the simplistic minds of the many Anglos who want the Salt River Valley to be Des Moines with hot weather.

The latest spectacle involves Arpaio sending deputies and "posse" members into the city of Phoenix to arrest illegal immigrants. Phoenix PD wasn’t happy about it, and Mayor Phil Gordon belatedly condemned it, albeit before a safely sympathetic Hispanic audience. An Arizona Republic poll — an unscientific, self-selecting Web thang — shows most support the sheriff.

Whatever faith-and-prejudice-based ether Arizona’s Web lurkers live in, the reality is far different. Arpaio plays to the mob while doing nothing to address this complex issue of, in Joe Wambaugh’s words, lines and shadows.

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