The Grijalva interview, Part 3: Arpaio’s failure to investigate 400 sex-crime cases

by David Safier

This is the third part of my interview with Rep. Raúl Grijalva in his D.C. office on Thursday, December 8 (Part 1. Part 2). I smoothed out some phrases for continuity, occasionally added a word or phrase in brackets for clarity and removed a few tangential discussions. Otherwise, this is what Grijalva said on the subject.

The Grijalva interview, Part 3: Arpaio's failure to investigate 400 sex-crime cases

I’m offended by a lot of things Arpaio does. His almost obsessive fixation on the immigrant community and the political capital he’s been able to cash on that campaign he’s run for the last six or seven years, all the Republican presidential candidates coming to see him and kiss the ring, see who gets anointed – there are a lot of things to be offended by.

But this one: I’m reading the paper. Four hundred sex crimes, 400-plus victims, women primarily, thirteen cases of child molestation, rape, as young as a two year old, and the conclusion of this investigative reporting team is that the cases were inadequately investigated or not investigated at all. That’s a dereliction of duty. While Arpaio’s doing his theatrics on other issues, this goes by the wayside. While he’s interviewing Romney, nobody’s interviewing the victim of a rape.

If the preponderance of those people happen to have been undocumented, that’s not a reason to ignore them. Equal application of the law and equal enforcement of the law – Arpaio talks about that all the time. His dereliction struck me on so many levels. Any professional,if it happens under their watch, should take the hit for it and resign. Simple as that.

I know some people are saying, “Why are you sticking your nose in Maricopa County? It’s none of your business. You’re just showboating. You always have this thing going with Arpaio.” The fact of the matter is, I represent part of Maricopa County and will continue to do so even with the new districts. I felt I had an absolute right, not only as a representative of the area, but as a normal person, saying, “This is disgusting.” I wonder why more people weren’t offended by it, to be honest with you. Remove immigration. Remove that issue that is so divisive, so complex it seems impossible to try to deal with, for political reasons more than anything else. Remove that just for a second, and just deal with the fact that we have sex crimes, we have victims, primarily women, and we have children. We saw a cavalier attitude about how to deal with those issues. That’s why I called for his resignation.