Jill’s right, why does Joe Arpaio still have a job?

A woman who was nine months into her pregnancy lost her baby because officials at the jail wouldn’t give her medical attention. The woman was serving a sentence for a DUI she had gotten almost a year before, before she had gotten pregnant. From the New Times:

By the time the ambulance arrived at the Maricopa County Hospital, Spencer had been in severe pain and without a doctor for almost four hours. Doctors delivered Ambria Renee Spencer, a 9-pound baby girl with a quarter-inch of thick hair on her head.

Ambria was dead. Spencer’s pain had been caused by internal bleeding — a malady known as placental abruption. Babies often survive the condition, if their mothers go immediately to a hospital. The treatment is simple: immediate delivery. Otherwise, the baby dies from blood loss.

Inmates in Arpaio’s jails aren’t usually allowed to see their babies after birth. Despite protests from the jail guard, hospital employees brought baby Ambria to Spencer, so she could see her daughter before the funeral.

The thing about Arpaio is that he is adored by hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of ignorant asswipes who apparently think that letting a full-term, very much wanted baby die inside her mother is just a fitting sentence for a DUI. That’ll learn her! She won’t drive drunk again! You can bet that an overwhelming majority of Arpaio’s supporters also consider themselves “pro-life.” And yet when you ask them how they manage to reconcile the senseless deaths that take place in Arpaio’s jails with their views on the sanctity of life, they sputter some nonsense about how we can’t be getting soft on crime, now, revealing how little they care about human lives that are in any degree of peril.

Another thing I hear again and again regarding Arpaio is that he’s saving us all this money by manufacturing dangerous conditions in the jails and feeding the inmates piles of rotten shit that you wouldn’t even feed a dog. In reality, of course, all of these deaths result in lawsuits, and the judgments are huge. So far, Arpaio’s grandstanding has cost Maricopa County taxpayers almost $500 million dollars. I suppose that’s a price they’re willing to pay to see mentally disabled people suffocate to death after getting arrested for loitering.

From Wikipedia:

Charles Agster
Charles Agster, a 33-year-old mentally handicapped man, died in the county jail three days after being forced by sheriff’s officers into a restraint chair used for controlling combative arrestees. Agster’s parents had been taking him to a psychiatric hospital because he was exhibiting paranoia, then called police when he refused to leave a convenience store where they had stopped enroute. Officers took Agster to the Madison Street jail, placed a “spit hood” over his face and strapped him to the chair, where he had an apparent seizure and lost consciousness. He was declared brain dead three days later. A medical examiner later concluded that Agster died of complications of methamphetamine intoxication. In a subsequent lawsuit, an attorney for the sheriff’s office described the amount of methamphetamine in Agster’s system as 17 times the known lethal dose. The lawsuit resulted in a $9 million jury verdict against the county, the sheriff’s office, and Correctional Health Services.

Scott Norberg
One major controversy includes the 1996 death of inmate Scott Norberg, a former Brigham Young University football wide receiver, who died while in custody of the Sheriff’s office. Norberg was arrested for assaulting a police officer in Mesa, Arizona, after neighbors in a residential area had reported a delirious man walking in their neighborhood. Arpaio’s office repeatedly claimed Norberg was also high on methamphetamine, but a blood toxicology performed post-mortem was inconclusive. Norberg did, however, have methamphetamine in his urine, proving that he had used the drug at some point fairly recently before his death. During his internment, evidence suggests detention officers shocked Norberg several times with a stun-gun. According to an investigation by Amnesty International, Norberg was already handcuffed and face down when officers dragged him from his cell and placed him in a restraint chair with a towel covering his face. After Norberg’s corpse was discovered, detention officers accused Norberg of attacking them as they were trying to restrain him. The cause of his death, according to the Maricopa County medical examiner, was due to “positional asphyxia”. Sheriff Arpaio investigated and subsequently cleared detention officers of any criminal wrongdoing.

Norberg’s parents filed a lawsuit against Arpaio and his office. The lawsuit was settled for $8.25 million (USD).

Brian Crenshaw
Brian Crenshaw was a blind inmate allegedly beaten into a coma by guards working under Arpaio. Crenshaw suffered injuries that included a perforated intestine and a broken neck. He later died at a local hospital.

Crenshaw’s family filed a lawsuit against Arpaio and his office, which resulted in an award of $2 million dollars. As in the Scott Norberg case, it was alleged that Arpaio’s office destroyed evidence in the case. In the Crenshaw case, the attorney who represented the case before a jury alleged digital video evidence was destroyed.

Richard Post
Richard Post was a paraplegic inmate arrested in 1996 for possession of marijuana and criminal trespass. Post was placed in a restraint chair by guards and his neck was broken in the process. The event, caught on video, shows guards smiling and laughing while Post is being injured. Because of his injuries, Post has lost much of the use of his arms. Post settled his claims against the Sheriff’s office for $800,000.

Jeremy Flanders
In 1996, Jeremy Flanders was attacked by inmates at Tent City who used rebar tent stakes, which were not concreted into the ground. Although these stakes had been used as weapons in a previous riot at the facility, the Sheriff’s office chose not to secure them properly. During the trial, the defendant “presented evidence that, among other things, the Sheriff and his deputies had actual knowledge that prisoners used rebar tent stakes and tent poles as weapons and did nothing to prevent it.” Furthermore, “the Sheriff admitted knowing about, and in fact intentionally designing, some conditions at Tent City that created a substantial risk of inmate violence.” After the attack: “another inmate entered the tent and found Flanders unconscious, gasping for air, and spewing blood out of his mouth, nose and ears. Flanders had been bloodied and beaten so badly that the other inmate initially did not recognize Flanders.” Flanders suffered permanent brain damage as a result of the attack. On appeal, Flanders was awarded $635,532, of which Arpaio was personally responsible for thirty-five percent.

…And that’s only a sampling of the many, many lives that have been lost or damaged needlessly, all so the most cowardly people in Maricopa County could feel safe. Call me crazy, but it doesn’t make me feel safe to know that a diabetic woman died in jail as a result of not being provided with her life sustaining medication. It makes me really sad, actually, and ashamed. To all of Arpaio’s supporters: this blood, baby Ambria’s and Charles Agsters, Debborah Braillard’s and all these poor souls, it’s on your hands as well. By voting for him, you helped do this. I hope you’re proud of yourselves.