Post by LadyBlue on Jan 10, 2013 22:07:49 GMT -5
Arizona Sheriff Sends Armed Posse Volunteers to Patrol Schools
Joe Arpaio, the Arizona sheriff who reinstituted chain gangs and challenged the legitimacy of President Barack Obama’s birth certificate, has dispatched armed volunteers to patrol around schools outside Phoenix after last month’s mass shooting at a Connecticut elementary school.
School officials and parents weren’t asked if they wanted the 500 volunteers, some with automatic and semiautomatic weapons, who were posted to areas around 59 schools in parts of Maricopa County under Arpaio’s jurisdiction, the sheriff said yesterday.
“We had to do this too quickly,” Arpaio said. He said he had no obligation to clear the plan with educators. “We are not going into the schools. This is outside the schools; it is not on school properties or inside the schools.”
Arpaio, who bills himself as “America’s toughest sheriff” and was re-elected to a sixth term in November, said he acted after the arrest last month of a 16-year-old girl in connection with a school shooting plot in Mesa, Arizona.
“This is a preventative program,” Arpaio, 80, said in a telephone interview. “They will be circulating around the schools with high visibility so that everyone, the bad guys, will know we have armed posse members that can take action if something happens with the kids or teachers.”
Posse Volunteers
Arpaio’s volunteers, mostly members of the sheriff’s 3,000 member “posse,” wearing uniforms and in marked vehicles, are patrolling in unincorporated areas of the county as well as small communities that contract with his office for police service. He emphasized that the volunteers are trained in the use of firearms and law-enforcement tactics.
“These are not vigilantes off the street,” Arpaio said.
www.newsmax.com/newswidget/arpaio-armed-posses-schools/2013/01/09/id/470759?promo_code=1030E-1&utm_source=sbgi.net&utm_medium=nmwidget&utm_campaign=widgetphase1
Joe Arpaio, the Arizona sheriff who reinstituted chain gangs and challenged the legitimacy of President Barack Obama’s birth certificate, has dispatched armed volunteers to patrol around schools outside Phoenix after last month’s mass shooting at a Connecticut elementary school.
School officials and parents weren’t asked if they wanted the 500 volunteers, some with automatic and semiautomatic weapons, who were posted to areas around 59 schools in parts of Maricopa County under Arpaio’s jurisdiction, the sheriff said yesterday.
“We had to do this too quickly,” Arpaio said. He said he had no obligation to clear the plan with educators. “We are not going into the schools. This is outside the schools; it is not on school properties or inside the schools.”
Arpaio, who bills himself as “America’s toughest sheriff” and was re-elected to a sixth term in November, said he acted after the arrest last month of a 16-year-old girl in connection with a school shooting plot in Mesa, Arizona.
“This is a preventative program,” Arpaio, 80, said in a telephone interview. “They will be circulating around the schools with high visibility so that everyone, the bad guys, will know we have armed posse members that can take action if something happens with the kids or teachers.”
Posse Volunteers
Arpaio’s volunteers, mostly members of the sheriff’s 3,000 member “posse,” wearing uniforms and in marked vehicles, are patrolling in unincorporated areas of the county as well as small communities that contract with his office for police service. He emphasized that the volunteers are trained in the use of firearms and law-enforcement tactics.
“These are not vigilantes off the street,” Arpaio said.
www.newsmax.com/newswidget/arpaio-armed-posses-schools/2013/01/09/id/470759?promo_code=1030E-1&utm_source=sbgi.net&utm_medium=nmwidget&utm_campaign=widgetphase1