Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu - suffering from latent Arpaioism

Paul Babeu, the Sheriff in Pinal County, has been making the rounds of various MSM outlets and events in support of the newly-enacted police state bill, SB1070.

He's been touting the measure as something that protects the people of Arizona.

He was the featured speaker at an Andrew Thomas press conference at the Capitol on Tuesday, supporting Thomas' plan to take over all illegal immigration-related prosecutions if he is elected as Attorney General in November. Even better, he was a guest on a KPHO (Phoenix channel 5) newscast on Friday to support Jan Brewer's decision to sign SB1070 into law.

The video of his appearance is here; the money quote starts at around the :56 mark of the segment (referring to the current laws regarding the actions of law enforcement officials) -

"...we're given the authority to suspend people's Constitutional rights..."

Actually, he's not given such authority - people who are accused of a crime or even convicted of a crime still have rights.

The law enforcement officers involved may or may not like that fact, but it *is* the way it is.

However, more to the point of this post, after living for more than a decade and a half in Maricopa County with a sheriff that exhibits no respect for the Bill of Rights, or even basic human decency, I fear for the people of Pinal County.

They may be in for some of the abuses that we have been getting.