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Jerry Sheridan continues his never-ending wrestling match with veracity. The onetime second-in-command to notorious former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio is now running for Arpaio’s old job…
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Stephen Lemons
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“I reflected back on it and thought if I don’t do it, I’m going to regret it,” Skinner said during a press conference. “So I guess I can officially say, ‘Yes, I am (running for sheriff).’ But it all depends on signatures, what the community wants and what the public wants. So, I’m committed to at least keeping up this side of the bargain. If there’s enough support out there, I’ll continue.”
Skinner was a chief deputy for six years under Sheriff Paul Penzone and has been running the office since the former sheriff’s departure in January. He was appointed by the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors in a 4-1 vote on Feb. 8 to finish Penzone’s term and lead the embattled agency, which has been under court-ordered monitoring for racial profiling since 2013.
State law required the board to appoint someone in the same political party as Penzone, a Democrat. Skinner — a Republican since 1987 — switched parties in October the day after Penzone announced he was resigning, according to the Arizona Republic.
But Skinner is now sticking with the Democratic Party, though he said party affiliation doesn’t matter for the county’s top cop.
“This is not a political job, at least in my eyes,” Skinner said. “The voters elected a Democrat. The voters want a Democrat to finish out his term. That’s what I’m doing, and I will continue down that path.”
Skinner told Phoenix New Times that he didn’t choose to run as a Democrat from a campaign strategy standpoint.
“I don’t understand the strategy. I don’t even know how to run a campaign, to be honest with you,” he said. “I’m doing it because it’s the right thing to do, or at least I feel it’s the right thing to do.”
Skinner is one of three Democrats and four Republicans running for the office. Skinner will face Jeffrey Kirkham and Tyler Kamp in the Democratic primary. Republican candidates include Frank Crawford, Jerry Sheridan, Joel Ellis and Joe Melone. The primary election is July 30 with the general election on Nov. 5.
The sheriff’s office has an annual budget of $526 million and approximately 3,500 employees. By both metrics, it is one of the largest sheriff’s departments in the country.
Sheriff Russ Skinner faced questions from reporters during his first formal press conference on Tuesday.
TJ L’Heureux
Skinner also noted at the press conference that the sheriff’s office is focused on ensuring elections this year in Maricopa County run smoothly and safely.
He said his office has been meeting with county supervisors and elections officials to prepare and “make sure there is a safe and secure environment for everybody.”
“We take all these threats seriously,” Skinner said. “We continue to monitor that intelligence as well as work with our electeds out there and make sure that if there is anything that they become aware of where they’re threatened, that gets immediately over to law enforcement for us to start action on and start to investigate.”
Another major challenge for Skinner will be meeting the court-ordered requirements of a decades-old legal case.
The class-action lawsuit, Melendres v. Arpaio, challenged the racial profiling practices of former Sheriff Joe Arpaio, recently named one of Arizona’s 12 worst politicians by Phoenix New Times. Penzone inherited the lawsuit when he became sheriff.
In November 2022, U.S. District Court Judge Murray Snow held Penzone in contempt in the case. According to Snow, the massive backlog of misconduct investigations had swelled during Penzone’s tenure, and it took the agency an average of 611 days to look into a complaint — far beyond the 85-day limit imposed under Snow’s court order.
In October, Guadalupe residents said the sheriff’s office continues to racially profile drivers. The town contracts with the sheriff’s office to provide law enforcement.
Skinner is optimistic that the agency can make “progressive” changes to the agency and meet the demands of the court, including addressing the higher rates of traffic stops that Black and brown drivers face by sheriff’s deputies.
“There are some areas within the order where I hope we can move forward,” he said. “Are there things in the order we still need to work through? Every time we have a sight visit, the monitors come, and we discuss the process, we discuss progress.”
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TJ L’Heureux
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Police arrested Richmond, 36, on Feb. 16 on a Maricopa County arrest warrant for a single felony county of animal cruelty. He’s sitting in an Alabama jail on $20,000 bond, accused of killing a Husky puppy by taping its mouth shut. The dog’s body was found in a Scottsdale alley in June.
Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell, in a Feb. 21 press release, thanked law enforcement agencies in two states for their efforts in nabbing Richmond.
“His extradition is expected in the next 30 days; once he is in Maricopa County we can proceed with prosecution,” Mitchell added.
So, Mitchell isn’t against all extraditions, despite her social media spat last week with Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg over alleged serial stabber Raad Almansoori. Bragg wants Almansoori extradited to New York City to face charges for allegedly killing a woman there on Feb. 8.
Mitchell said nope, causing an uproar and garnering her some serious media attention.
“It is normal practice for the jurisdiction with custody to go first,” Mitchell’s spokesperson Jeanine L’Ecuyer later told Phoenix New Times.
The Feb. 21 press release was the second from Mitchell’s office on the Richmond case. The first was on Dec. 20. It announced Richmond’s indictment and asked for the public’s help in locating him.
Not every arrest or indictment earns a press release, much less two. According to the county attorney’s “data dashboard,” 47,027 cases were referred to the office for review in 2023. Around 56% of those, or 26,230, resulted in cases being filed.
“In Maricopa County, cases involving animal cruelty regularly include other crimes. And just to give you some numbers, in 2020, we had 34 cases. In 2021, we had 38. And so far in 2022, we have had 44,” Mitchell said during a press conference in August 2022.
When asked recently, the county attorney’s office did not immediately have the number of animal cruelty cases filed in 2023. Based on past years, it’s likely the total falls well short of 1% of total cases filed in 2023.
Given the paucity of animal abuse cases filed, it’s revealing that Mitchell’s office had an investigator on the hunt for an alleged puppy killer. In fact, in her Feb. 21 press release, Mitchell credited her office’s animal cruelty detective, Heather Krimm, with tracking down Richmond.
Mitchell, who is running for reelection this year, has made a crackdown on animal cruelty a priority of her office, particularly cases involving dogs, the most popular pet in the U.S., according to Forbes Magazine. She’s thrown the book at dog abusers, supported legislation that could make Arizona’s animal cruelty laws tougher and taken the opportunity to be photographed with rescue dogs at the Arizona Humane Society.
Arguably, it’s smart politics. As one public relations guru put it in analyzing Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s use of her dog, Bailey, on the campaign trail, “Everyone loves dogs. It humanizes, if you will, a candidate.”
Look at any local TV news broadcast. Nearly every night, there is at least one dog story. If it’s a slow news day, there may be two.
Playing the dog card is smart politics. Just ask former Sheriff Joe Arpaio.
Arpaio, one of the most prominent, divisive and worst politicians in Arizona history, knew that dog stories were pure gold. He famously converted one of his jails into a no-kill animal shelter, with prisoners taking care of the pooches. And he would often brag about feeding the dogs better than the inmates.
He also pursued controversial dog abuse cases, milking them for publicity. These included: campaigning to save the life of a pit bull who mauled the head of a child, charging and arresting a Chandler police sergeant in the accidental death of his K-9 police dog, and pursuing charges against former U.S. Sen. Jeff Flake’s son and his son’s wife in the accidental deaths of several dogs while the couple were the temporary caretakers of a dog boarding facility in Gilbert.
Mitchell is no Arpaio. It’s hard to beat Arpaio’s 24-year record of media manipulation and self-aggrandizement. But Mitchell is tapping into the same vein of canophilia as Arpaio and many other politicians.
At the August 2022 press conference, Mitchell announced that the gloves were off when it came to animal cruelty. She called animal abuse “a gateway crime” to serious offenses involving humans, such as sexual assault, domestic violence and “violent and nonviolent assault.”
Mitchell said she was hiring a “specialized investigator” to assist in the prosecutions of such crimes. The office already has a prosecutor dedicated to animal cruelty, she added.
“Whether it’s keeping dangerous sex offenders out of our neighborhoods, drug dealers out of our schools or prosecuting animal cruelty, I am not willing to look the other way,” she said.
County Attorney Rachel Mitchell wants to extradite Lester Paul Richmond, 36, from Alabama to Arizona on a single count of animal cruelty.
Pike County Sheriff’s Office
Mitchel’s crusade ramped up on Jan. 10 when she announced that a Maricopa County grand jury hit April McLaughlin with 24 charges — eight of them felonies — for her alleged mistreatment of 55 dogs at her Chandler home. This was in addition to the 77 misdemeanor counts McLaughlin already faced in Chandler City Court.
On Jan. 16, Mitchell participated in a press event at the Arizona Humane Society, during which several of the dogs rescued from McLaughlin were on hand. Mitchell announced her support for two pieces of legislation: Senate Bill 1047, sponsored by Republican state Sen. T.J. Shope, and House Bill 2076, sponsored by Republican state Rep. Barbara Parker.
SB 1047 would amend state animal cruelty laws and extend the definition of “cruel neglect” of animals from denying an animal food, water and shelter to denying an animal food that is given daily and is appropriate for the species, water that is suitable for drinking and shelter that is “necessary and adequate.”
HB 2076 allows law enforcement to treat cruelty to animals, in some instances, as a form of domestic violence.
Though the statutes apply to all species, dogs were the focus of the press conference at the humane society, with a huge photo of a puppy behind the podium and handicapped dogs roaming about.
Mitchell said the bills would remove ambiguities in the law and help prosecutors be more successful.
The county attorney then leaned over to pet a dog being wheeled around in a bassinet, saying the bills needed to be passed “for dogs like Billy, who, by the way, what he lacks in mobility, he makes up for in personality.”
“If you’re looking at this on HDTV, yeah, I have (dog) hair on me,” she added.
The Senate approved SB 1047 on Thursday with a 17-11 vote. It now goes to the House for consideration. Also on Thursday, HB 2076 easily passed the House in a 55-2 vote and moves to the Senate.
Earlier this year, in January, Mitchell’s office announced the indictment of ex-con Ruben Lupe Garza for animal cruelty and misconduct involving weapons. He’s accused of shooting a neighbor’s dog on Jan. 7 in southwest Phoenix.
As the Jan. 24 press release for the incident indicated, Garza did not kill the animal, but the pooch “will likely have his leg amputated.”
Safe to say, this won’t be the last shaggy dog story to come out of Mitchell’s office this election year.
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Stephen Lemons
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In a 4-1 vote, the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors selected Skinner and filled a vacancy created when Paul Penzone left office on Jan. 12. Skinner, who has been chief deputy of the sheriff’s office since 2018, has been carrying out the duties of sheriff since Penzone’s resignation.
State law required the board to appoint someone in the same political party as Penzone, a Democrat. Skinner — a Republican since 1987 — switched parties the day after Penzone resigned, according to the Arizona Republic.
Skinner was one of three finalists supervisors interviewed for the position. The others were Jeffrey Kirkham, most recently an Apache Junction police commander, and Glendale police Lt. Patrick Valenzuela, Sr. Kirkham was also a longtime Republican before recently switching parties.
Voters will pick a sheriff for a four-year term in November. Skinner will serve until that person takes office in January.
“Although I could have just walked away, collected my pension and moved on with my life, I decided to take on the challenge, to say, ‘You know what, I want to keep certainty with this agency, especially with an election cycle coming up, major events coming up and keep continuity with the agency,’” Skinner said during a press conference after taking the oath of office.
Skinner, a county employee for 33 years, also said he was “apolitical.”
“I am bipartisan in the sense that I am a law enforcement professional, and I will do what needs to be done to uphold the law, uphold the constitution and make sure we keep Maricopa County safe moving forward,” he said.
Steve Gallardo, the only Democrat on the board of supervisors, was the lone vote against Skinner. But he congratulated the new sheriff and said he looked forward to working with him to build the public’s trust in the agency.
Supervisor Jack Sellers, the Republican chair of the board, said law enforcement shouldn’t be a partisan political position.
“We as a group really discounted that (former party affiliation) and went to find who is absolutely the best candidate to run the county sheriff’s office during what could be a very contentious year,” Sellers said. “We’re gonna be running three elections this year. We need someone who has the respect of the people in the county sheriff’s office and also the respect of the other law enforcement agencies in Maricopa County. Deputy Chief Skinner meets that qualification.”
In his remarks, Skinner said he would focus on security during elections later this year.
“The biggest thing I look at is this election cycle. I watched the board meeting yesterday, and I saw some unruliness there from the crowd. That’s unacceptable. Let’s respect each other,” Skinner said. “We have to get past the anger, the separation and the polarization.”
Skinner declined to say if he planned to run for election as sheriff in November, adding that he needed to discuss it with his family.
Former Maricopa County Sheriff Paul Penzone announced Oct. 2 that he would step down, which he did on Jan. 12.
O’Hara Shipe
The sheriff’s office has an annual budget of $526 million and 3,500 employees, though Sellers said the office employs 4,000 people. By both metrics, it is one of the largest sheriff departments in the country.
When Penzone took office in 2017, he inherited an office plagued by scandals and controversy thanks to former Sheriff Joe Arpaio, one of Arizona’s 12 worst politicians. Tent City, the notorious open-air jail that former Arpaio created, brought a national spotlight to Arpaio’s discriminatory and dehumanizing policies.
“It represented all the things that are wrong about incarceration and law enforcement,” Penzone said of Tent City, which he closed in 2017. “It was degrading, and it tried to pass this message as though by disrespecting and mistreating inmates that suddenly it would change behavior. And that was nonsense.”
But even with Penzone in command, the sheriff’s office has been under scrutiny for various controversies, including a ballooning list of unresolved misconduct cases.
Penzone also left behind a 16-year-old court case that dates back to Arpaio’s reign.
The class-action lawsuit Melendres v. Arpaio took Arpaio to court for his racial profiling practices. Penzone inherited the lawsuit when he became sheriff. In November 2022, U.S. District Court Judge Murray Snow held Penzone in contempt in the case. According to Snow, the massive backlog of misconduct investigations had swelled during Penzone’s tenure, and it took the agency an average of 611 days to look into a complaint — far beyond the 85-day limit imposed under Snow’s court order.
In October, Guadalupe residents said the sheriff’s office continues to racially profile drivers. The town contracts with the sheriff’s office to provide law enforcement.
Skinner noted he used to patrol Guadalupe and wants to work with the town’s residents to build trust.
“We are committed to gaining that trust and transparency, and I think a lot of that starts right here with communication and transparency,” Skinner said. “What you get with me is I will communicate, I will be transparent. My door is open.”
Sylvia Herrera, a community organizer at Barrio Defense Committees and member of the Community Advisory Board that was created to advise the sheriff’s office, told New Times she and other local activists are concerned about Skinner’s involvement in Arpaio’s administration, which she said became evident during the Melendres case.
“We haven’t got a sense of where he’s coming from other than his participation in some of Arpaio’s activities that were questioned during the court hearings,” Herrera said. “We haven’t had recent interaction with him directly.”
When Penzone announced on Oct. 2 that he would step down, he lamented the court’s oversight of the sheriff’s office.
“I’ll be damned if I’ll do three terms under federal court oversight for a debt I never incurred and not be given the chance to serve this community in the manner that I could if you take the other hand from being tied around my back,” Penzone said.
Skinner struck a different tone on Thursday, though he said the office probably would not be fully compliant with court orders in the Melendres case this year.
“I can’t give you an estimate of when that will happen. All I can tell you is that the agency will progressively, continually and aggressively work towards the compliance efforts relative to that and make sure that we’re doing the right thing moving forward,” Skinner said.
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TJ L’Heureux
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