Violent crime is increasing all over the world he goes on and people are realising that
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Violent crime is increasing all over the world," he goes on, "and people are realising that the only thing to do is take the bad guys off the streets and punish them. That's why I'm getting all this attention."Arpaio has also noticed that what gets all these foreign television crews' attention is his posses, and maintains that this is because "The whole world wants to know how ordinary citizens can help fight the war against crime." When I suggest that, to foreigners, the posse is perhaps just a wacky piece of Americana, he glowers "My possemen put their lives on the line. They're giving up their free time to try and make this county a better place to live and they're not getting paid a penny for it. They're the kind of people that built this nation."While Arpaio was planning his 1992 election strategy, he found out that a posse already existed in Maricopa County, to help the sheriff's department on search and rescue missions in the deserts and mountains of Arizona. Arpaio pledged to expand it into a kind of auxiliary police force, and he now has approximately 3,000 volunteer posse members at his beck and call, including a 103-year-old woman (sworn in on The Phil Donahue Show), and the state governor, Fife Symington III. They are divided up into 46 different posses, including the mounted posse and the 400-member "executive posse", which is made up of doctors, lawyers and white-collar professionals, who cruise the South Side ghettos and barrios of Phoenix in their own vehicles.
Eight hundred posse members have completed the 60-hour firearms training course, which qualifies them to carry a gun. There have been several instances in which posse members have drawn their weapons; so far, no bullets have been fired.Louis Rhodes, of the Arizona Civil Liberties Union, regards the posses as further evidence of Arpaio's "comic book mentality. What we have here is a lot of middle-aged and elderly men living out their fantasies. They get to ride around in uniforms with their guns on their hips and go out after the bad guys. All they really do is serve a few outstanding vehicle warrants, and scare a few people. It's frilly, showy stuff, but there is a very real potential for harm: they have the power of life and death."A dozen white males are gathered in the office of Deputy Sheriff Rich Burden The air is thick with jargon and acronyms. The men refer to themselves as QAPs [Qualified Armed Possemen] and discuss in endless detail the technical specifications of their guns: Glock 9mm semi-automatics are the preferred model.
The sheriff's department provides the ammunition - 52 bullets a year - but the posse members are expected to buy their guns, their uniforms, and as much equipment as possible: handcuffs, batons, binoculars, radios, torches, holsters and bullet-proof vests.Bob Harris, a burly, good-humoured man who collects outstanding car loans for a living, estimates that he has spent $2,300 on equipment so far. He has gone through 256 hours of training, in weapons handling, arrest procedure, legal classes, paperwork, fingerprinting, you name it. He spends nearly every evening out with the posse, and he's paid nothing Why?"I want to give something back to society," he says. "I've seen my neighbourhood deteriorate, seen the gangs and the graffiti take over I'm sick and tired of it and I want to make a difference. If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem." This is standard stuff.
