Joe Arpaio Critics Dress Up As ‘King Arpaio’ And Jesters
By Elise Foley, Huffington Post Latino Voices
PHOENIX — The nation’s self-professed “Toughest Sheriff” Joe Arpaio is pretty good at getting attention, be it through birther investigations or keeping undocumented immigrants in a tent city and forcing them to wear pink underwear.
Some of his constituents in Maricopa County, Ariz., are sick of it. And on Wednesday, they proved they’re capable of creating a spectacle, too.
Anti-Arpaio protesters carried a man posing as “King Arpaio” into a Maricopa County board of supervisors meeting Wednesday morning to protest the board’s failure to condemn the sheriff. The “king,” a grey-haired and balding man wearing a gold crown, aviator sunglasses and a red velvet cape, was carried by a “royal posse” wearing jester’s hats. He yelled that he would win four more years — Arpaio has been in office for two decades and is 80 years old — and that he has plenty more pink underwear to distribute.
One hundred or so other protesters, organized by progressive group Citizens for a Better Arizona and led by the group’s president, Randy Parraz, yelled back that Arpaio will be ousted soon. They followed the “king” in disrupting the meeting with prayers, chanting and singing until the frustrated chairman, Republican Max Wilson, finally adjourned it and said he would meet with Parraz and a small group of others.
The group wasn’t having it. They wanted the chairman and others on the board to speak publicly, and the whole group, carrying “King Arpaio” on his throne, walked the block to administrative office. They huddled in the hallway outside Wilson’s office, and demanded that their meeting be public and include everyone — an effort that was ultimately unsuccessful, but they vowed to keep trying.
The protesters had several complaints. One was Arpaio’s office’s failure to adequately investigate — or investigate at all — 400 sexual assault allegations between 2004 and 2007. They wanted the sheriff to refund the county for money used on investigating President Barack Obama’s birth certificate, and criticized the time he spends trying to find undocumented immigrants rather than investigating other crime. They also demanded more justice for a woman, Deborah Braillard, who died in 2005 after the sheriff’s office denied her diabetes medication for three days.
At the meeting, the board was set to approve giving Braillard’s family a settlement of $3.2 million. In protesting the fact that it took so long to settle with the family, the group ended up delaying the vote and making the family wait even longer, if only by a matter of hours or days. Parraz and protesters took issue with that assessment when asked about it by reporters, saying the board could have continued the meeting and held the vote.
The protesters expected arrests at some point during the action, but it didn’t happen, even though Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office deputies were in the room at the board of supervisors meeting and were seemingly ready to act.
Three of Arpaio’s critics stood up…
This article was first published in Huffington Post Latino Voices.
[Photo by Elise Foley]