Sheriff Joe Botches Child-Molestation Cases

All that time spent harassing illegal immigrants may come at the expense of investigating other crimes. America’s self-described “toughest sheriff,” Arizona’s Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, failed to adequately investigate more than 400 sex crimes between 2004 and 2007, according to the Associated Press. In just the town of El Mirage, where Arpaio’s office provided contract police services, he never followed through on 32 reported child molestations, even though suspects were known in all but six cases. A spokesman for Arpaio’s office declined to say why the cases weren’t investigated, saying only, “There are policy violations that have occurred here.”