SHERIFF JOE ARPAIO Maricopa County Arizona Did everything required from us & got abused & mistreated, wasted our time, my dog has better manners, & can't do a real job. SHERIFF JOE, IT'S TIME FOR YOU TO GO! AND DON'T LET THE TENT FLAPS HIT YOU IN THE a*s ON THE WAY OUT! Phoenix Arizona

OK, It's 8:30 am on a Monday morning in the most corrupt city West of the Mississippi. Mesa, Arizona. I go with a girlfriend to the Mesa City Court to find out what is to become of her boyfriend. This bad, bad, boy. Sitting in jail for 8 days now for a "Driving on a Suspended License" charge and a "Shoplifting charge". As we check the monitor in the lobby of the Mesa City Court, we find that (Let's call him Tom for privacy sake) Tom is to see the Judge in courtroom 2 at 9:15 am and the Judge in courtroom 6 at 10:30am. So we go to courtroom 2. It is 8:55 am. Well we sit, and sit, and sit, and sit some more. It is now 10:00am. So we decide to go back out into the lobby and draw a number so that we may speak to a clerk to find out if indeed "Tom" has the court dates and times being displayed on the monitor.

After waiting 40 minutes our number is finally called. We explain our problem to the customer service representative (right!) behind the double mini doors. After some shuffling of papers, schedules, dockets, and who knows what else we are told that "Tom" has not been seen yet. We were told to go back into the lobby and have a seat where the 2 video monitors are running. "Tom" will be in "Video Court" and not in courtrooms 2 and 6.

Since he is an inmate, "Tom" will appear on television and not in person. So back to the lobby we go. We have a seat in front of the monitors and we wait. And wait, and wait, and wait. Finally at 11:40 am Tom appears on the monitor before a Mesa City Judge. Like the others before him, Tom has decided to cop to a plea and plead guilty to both charges in hopes that he would be released with a fine, some community service and probably a year or two of unsupervised probation.

Oh! I forgot to tell you that he was being held in the Durango St. facility on $500.00 bond. $250.00 per charge. The judge accepts his plea and after a scolding and a what for, sentences Tom to unsupervised probation and a fine. Times 2. One for each charge. Well my girlfriend was very happy to find this out because now he can be released. He has been sentenced so the bond no longer is a factor. He now has a fine and other duties to fulfill.

Now there is only one thing that is stopping Tom from being released from the Durango St. Facility. It is a $270.00 CASH ONLY bond out of another Mesa Court for a Driving on a Suspended License. And by the way, if you live in Mesa and have a VALID drivers license you are the minority. Here is Mesa, your license can be suspended for just about anything. Most of the time you don't even know it's suspended until your pulled over for a minor traffic infringement. Then, HELLO, your arrested and going off to jail to let the judge deal with you. How long that will take is not an issue. It's not even discussed. (I think it's TOP SECRET. They could tell us but then they would have to kill us. ***

I don't think Joe Arpaio can continue to explain yet another dead inmate and the circumstances surrounding the cause. *** Well it just so happens that my girlfriend has $300.00 in cash in her pocket. Since his court date for the remaining charge is June 18, 2003 at 9:00 am, Tom's girlfriend is going to post his bond so he can come home and go back to work while awaiting his next appearance. So now it's off to the Madison St. Jail to post the $270.00 CASH Bond. We pull up the to metered parking on the south side of the jail, put in 3 quarters that gives us 1 hour and 10 minutes of parking time. That should be enough. Don't you think? We go into the lobby of the Madison St. Jail and pull our number.

We got number 117. Not too bad. But what's this? They are on number 91. Oh well. How long can it take to get through 26 numbers? It is now 1:45 pm. At 3:30 pm one of the two clerks behind the window calls out 105. Yes folks it's true. It took 2 hours and 5 minutes to serve 14 numbers. We have been observing these two civil servants for 2 plus hours. We have watched them serve a number or two, then bullshit with each other for 15 - 20 minutes.

We have watched people WITHOUT numbers just go up to the window and get all their questions answered. And while they were already up there why not just let them put money on someone's books or pay a fine or pay a bond. I mean, none of us sitting out here in the lobby waiting patiently for our numbers to be called are going to care if these highly trained, civil servants just make the rules up as they go. And the whole time this is going on we sit and watch that STUPID blinking sign above the enter/exit door. "Welcome to Madison St. Jail. Joe Arpaio is dedicated to customer satisfaction. We hope your experience here is a pleasant one. Bla, Bla, Bla, Bla.

Yeah Right ! Joe wouldn't know a pleasant experience if one crawled up his leg and excited him. I mean bit him.
Funny how you strike up conversations with complete strangers. We met a girl who was there to find out how to bond out her boyfriend. We found out she was homeless. So I got this great idea. To find out if her number is before ours. Well it was. A little. She had number 113. Well I figured a dollar per number would be a fair deal since she didn't have any money at all. So I offered her $4.00 to switch numbers. She gratefully accepted stating she had nothing better to do and it was a lot cooler in the lobby than outside. A

t approximately 4:50 pm number 113 was called. My girlfriend and I rushed up to the window before our gracious clerks found something else to occupy their non-productive time. We handed the clerk the paper we filled out with Tom's name, booking number, birthdate, and the $270.00 bond amount. The clerk takes it to a desk behind her and starts the routine. She flips through some papers on her desk. Then she flips through some papers on top of the partition. Then she rearranges some papers on a clipboard hanging on the wall inside her cubical. Then she gets on the phone and dials some number. She talks on the phone for about 5 minutes. Then she hangs up the phone and takes some papers to her co-worker. They have a nice long 15 minute discussion about something.

Finally she returns to our window only to tell us that even though she knows that Tom had been to court this morning, and that he was sentenced for 2 out of the 3 charges he had against him, and the the two $250.00 bonds are no more, and that he only has the $270.00 CASH bond remaining, that her system has not caught up with his outcome in court. Meaning, she wanted us to pay a total of $770.00 in bonds to get Tom out of jail. We said no way of course. We tried to explain to her that 6 hours and 20 minutes ago we sat in the Mesa City Court and watched Tom get sentenced for the 2 charges that carried the $250.00 each bond on them. And since he was now sentenced, those two $250.00 bonds equaling $500.00 were no more.

All Tom had left was the $270.00 CASH bond out of a different Mesa Court. Her response was that she knew and understood what we were saying but she couldn't accept the $270.00 until the $500.00 was removed. She told us to call the Jail Information Line every hour until the bond dropped to $270.00. Then we would know that the system had updated. 6 and 1/2 hours we sat in the lobby at the Madison St. Jail only to be told "Sorry, Come back later after our system updates." What was said to her by myself and my girlfriend at that point we won't repeat. I'm not sure I could anyway.

Obviously we (myself and my girlfriend) were very, very upset. We came all the way from East Mesa to get the run-around of a lifetime. And this civil servant lit up like a Christmas Tree when she had to pass on the bad news. So we left. Walking out the door with the $270.00 in bond money still in our hands. Feeling very betrayed and ripped-off. What our time isn't as precious as anyone else's? That's when it hit me. I turned to my friend and said...."Why don't we drive over to the Durango St. Facility and pay the bond there?" Maybe they know what their doing over there. So back to the car we went. And to add salt to the wounds, there on my windshield, a parking ticket. Now I get to pay $31.00 for all my trouble. I get to pay to have some idiotic civil servant who can't count or tell time, tell me I can't post a bond for a person that is bondable.

We get to the Durango Facility at about 6:30 pm. Fill out our paper on Tom and handed it to the guard type person behind the window. We started telling our story from the beginning of our day and told her everything we had gone through up to and not including handing her the paper on Tom.

She did some clicking and typing on her keyboard and kind of lightened up the situation by telling us she has a system. This was very good since it showed us that she was a real person and not some clock-bleeder. We had to laugh as she started to hand my girlfriend the wrong drivers license. It was a very pleasant experience. But things have a way of turning on you. She handed my friend her receipt and said, " ok, your all set. Tom should be released in the next 6 to 8 hours." What the F*#K? We couldn't believe what we were hearing. The earliest Tom would be released was approx. 10:30 pm. Ok I'll do the math. That would mean that it takes approx. 10 to 12 hours to get someone released from jail after paying their bond after they see a judge. What's up with that? This is Arpaio's idea of effientcy? NO, it's not efficient. It's job security. This is one of the many, many reasons the King Idiot, Joe Arpaio is 8 million dollars over budget. Can you say......Enough is Enough?

I sure can. And it doesn't take me 10 to 12 hours to figure out that, "This is NO WAY to run a railroad". Or any other business for that matter.......It's time for you to go JOE. And don't let the tent flaps hit you on the a*s on your way out.

Jill
Mesa, Arizona
U.S.A.

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