This letter was sent to both area newspapers following
one of the scams of the 1998 period, in which Mesa
was the main player. It did not run, of course.
But it explains a great deal about the slimy nature
of what passes for "law enforcement" in this community.
12 November, 1998
To the Editors:
Mesa P.D. Has finally fired one officer in an incident of perjury—not one, mind you, which evolved in the courtroom or in a police report designed to convict or trouble or even kill an innocent citizen, but an episode which basically involves violations of "club" rules, namely police internal policies. There's a lot more lying and perjury in Maricopa County Courts which conforms to policy than that which does not, and it goes on every day, in vast numbers.
Unfortunately, in Mesa, and in much of the rest of Maricopa County, perjury, unlawful suppression of evidence, without the authority of the courts, and out of sight of the defendants, who are usually locked up to allow these fabrications, false probable cause, the knowing use of perjured testimony by police and prosecutors in order to make cases dominate proceedings. This seems to be particularly so in marginal or false D.U.I. Cases and in matters which involve conflicts between citizens.in the latter, the department seems only to consider the incomes of those involved, and to take the maximum perjured or exaggerated testimony as the basis for charges.
I know. I went all the way to trial based on false evidence a five-year-old could've seen through, under circumstances any civilized venue would've found shameful. And though a jury of my peers quickly saw through the bogus evidence and fabricated circumstances, including a bogus "map" concocted for the express purpose of exaggerating everything in the perjuring prosecutor's favor, the whole process is still a mortifying and expensive experience. Two further false charges, based upon false evidence and false probable cause, were dismissed. But this goes on all the time, and if anyone tells you corrupt quotas and promotions and internal "perks" are not at the root of this evil, then they're part of this horrible problem. Friends and associates of mine have gone through similar experiences. I've seen about thirty Mesa P.D. Police reports, and every one contained "facts" which simply could not possibly be true.
The real tragedy of this is manifold. Taxpayers spit up enormous amounts of money to house people incarcerated for what amounts to junk, and the jails are kept in the insane condition they are to promote fast and easy plea bargains. People lose jobs over nothing. Those who refer to jail inmates as "criminals" fail to realize: (a. Most of them are merely suspects, from both literal and Constitutional points of view; (b. Many of the people who arrested them belong in hard incarceration.
To avoid a serious schism in this community, and throughout this county, it's high time to put some of the more serious criminals in this jurisdiction in prison, in the general population, and for their actual crimes, not for violating the rules of what has become a closed club of dangerous fanatics. And a great many of them wear blue uniforms, and others are city and county prosecutors.
The alternative is what we now have: a law enforcement/judicial system which operates on the wholesale level to generate numbers, and whose truth content is minimal.
Addendum—It would be a ludicrous miscarriage of justice if because of the events of September 11, the particular collection of religious lunatic fringe scum who comprise our local leadership were given yet more excesses of power, to use in their corrupt spider's web of intrigue and lies. That episode was spawned in the minds of just such criminal fanatics. The Mesa "leadership" effectively comprises fourth and fifth rate fantatics, who have made this place into a concentration camp, filled with crime, in which MOST arrests are bogus. Giving these jerks any kind of power, especially any more than the excess they already have, is not just an error, it is suicide.
The Hammer
Mesa, Arizona
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