If you’ve seen Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu in any of his TV appearances, you know he repeats several statements about border-related crime. In our interview with him last week for our Sunday story, I asked him where he gets the information for these often-repeated claims.

I wasn’t able to fit much of these conversations in our story, so I wanted to post it here to provide a more ample picture of where Babeu gets his information and how he formulates his views.

As you’ll see below, the answers weren’t a simple list of sources and figures, but rather lengthy explanations. In some cases, he referred to information from other sources and in other cases, he didn’t provide any sources. Many times, during his answer, he ended up talking about other topics. Here are his responses when I asked him about some of his statements in TV appearances:

• Violence being “off the charts”

I asked him about what he’s referring to when he says violence is “off the charts” and has reached “epidemic” proportions. I told him that we had received crime statistics from his department showing that all major crime stats have dipped or stayed the same in the past three years.

He said, “not for us.”

When we showed him the statistics for homicides, rapes, robberies, aggravated assaults, burglaries, thefts, vehicle thefts and arsons (see below), he and spokeswoman Tamatha Villar said these numbers were not being run off of “UCR” codes, which refer to “Uniform Crime Reports” kept by the FBI.

Babeu said, for instance, that in 2010, there had been 26 homicides. Villar said, “I have to confirm that” but agreed there have been more than the 1 listed in the chart.

We asked for them to send us the corrected statistics but never received them. Here are the crime stats we were provided by the Pinal County Sheriff’s records department:

Homicides

2010 (January-April): 1

2009: 10

2008: 9

2007: 12

Rapes

2010 (January-April): 10

2009: 40

2008: 35

2007: 56

Robbery

2010 (January-April): 7

2009: 40

2008: 29

2007: 44

Aggravated Assault

2010 (January-April): 194

2009: 683

2008: 671

2007: 827

Burglary

2010 (January-April): 216

2009: 748

2008: 737

2007: 948

Larceny/Theft

2010 (January-April): 833

2009: 2,491

2008: 2,794

2007: 3,294

Vehicle theft

2010 (January-April): 160

2009: 578

2008: 734

2007: 967

Arson

2010 (January-April): 4

2009: 20

2008: 26

2007: 18

• Increase in home invasions, car jackings and other crimes.

I asked Babeu for a source documenting that assaults against police officers, officer-involved shootings, home invasions, car jackings and violent crimes have increased and what area he was referring to; Pinal County, Arizona.

Babeu said: “Some of this Pinal County and this is where even recently . . and this is where I briefed Sen. McCain and Kyl. . . This morning, we had a staff meeting  — all of our lieutenants from the region come in — and this is where we get current briefings and updates; what are the critical incidents that are happening.

“I can tell you that just in the year and a half now, just shy of a year and a half, that I’ve been . . . clearly we can see over the last four months. You look at the pursuits, and this is where I would ask these very specific questions: ‘Of all these pursuits,’ and I’ll ask Sgt. Villegas who’s out there and has a squad that had a lot of there pursuits, ‘How many of these pursuits,’ and a lot of these things aren’t even tracked and captured but I wanted to know for myself, ‘How many of these pursuits where the operators of the vehicle is armed?’ Because he’s been a cop for 14 years, and I said, ‘How does that compare to the year before?’

“And the reason why, you are asking questions to, we don’t have an analyst. An analyst would glean information and intel. The military is very good at this. . .  Most agencies our size would have an analyst and that’s something that I have requested, to have one or two analysts to take information like this and be asking these questions and who would to take data so you can use it as a benefit so instead of being reactive you are proactive. We don’t even have an analyst here.”

“So, here we’re trying to ascertain what are some of the current indicators of the threat. And that’s some of them.”

“And what he responded back, he goes, ‘Sir, everyone of these times, people would flee.’ He goes, there would be some of them, there was four  of the cars had a gun inside the car that they left. But most of the time, and this is where we wouldn’t even pursue them because say your the only deputy out there and five people just took off.  You are focused on the car and there could be somebody in the car. You’re not chasing after the people. How many of these people left with their weapon?

“Likely, just the same way I’m not going to run off anywhere without my gun, it’s the same way with these guys. They are likely going to have their weapon with them. And that’s where our belief is that every one of these people we have to assume are armed and then the ones that we have apprehended, most of them have been armed.”

Then, his spokeswoman Tamatha Villar interjected that even though fewer police officers were lost in the line of duty nationwide last year than since 1958-1959, the officers who were killed by gunfire increased and was a higher percentage of the total officers killed than since the 1940s.

“So, the dynamic of an increase in violence is definitely presence in our law enforcement officers are seeing that everyday,” Villar said.

• Officers being killed by illegal immigrants.

I asked him which “officers” he was referring to when he said, “We’ve had numerous officers that have been killed by illegal immigrants in Arizona.”

He said he was talking about Arizona in general spanning a decade-plus. He pointed out four Phoenix officers who recently have been killed at the hands of illegal immigrants or by illegal immigrant drunk drivers, and cited Phoenix Law Enforcement Association as a source for some of the information.

“Their numbers that they were looking at was over a dozen,” he said. “And we’ve tried to confirm and track down. . . that’s why we haven’t put out an exact number of how many officers because there was even like a Fish and Game person.”

He was referring to Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument ranger Kris Eggle, who was shot to death during a confrontation with Mexican drug smugglers at the Southwestern Arizona public lands in 2002. That was the same year Babeu moved to Arizona from Massachusetts.

• Spike in pursuits, linked to drug smugglers.

I asked him about how he repeatedly refers to 64 pursuits led by smugglers in one month in one patrol area as evidence that people and drug smugglers are becoming brazen.

He and Villar said the Department doesn’t track pursuits from year-to-year, but Villar said the one-month total was for sure more than the 2009 total. Babeu said he knows all the pursuits were by “illegals” and largely drug smugglers, based on conversations with his officers.

• On criticism that he is embellishing the threat level for his own political gain.

I asked him to respond to critics who have said that while border-related violence has long been an issue in Pinal County perhaps he was exaggerating things for his own political gain.

Babeu said: “What I would say in response is: We can’t avoid not to turn a blind eye. There hasn’t always been the sense of focus and the connection of: ‘Is this a federal problem or this is our problem?’ It is a federal responsibility, yet it is our problem.”

“That is where we have gone out and trained additional deputies in 287(G). We have sent them back at the federal government’s expense to get them trained.

“We have worked in partnership, in a better way than I think ever in the past not just because of me but because of our leadership when (Peter) Hermansen was the chief in charge of the Casa Grande Border Patrol and now there is a new chief and his name escapes me, but we work in partnership with all of them.

“The recent indicators of crime that we’re seeing that aren’t tracked, the UCR codes are a year past. When they are reported, they are not published until June of the following year. So these are some of the things even without a benefit of an analyst that we are trying to glean from, what the heck is really going on here.

“All these cooky ideas of deputy (Louie) Puroll l going out and somehow he shot himself or staged this whole incident. People have been as wild as to suggest that I concocted this idea. I mean, you’ve got to be kidding me.

“There is more than enough stuff that’s going on here, and the threat is real. And I expect things not to improve — and not to worry people — but the fact is that we do have, many times and possibly every night, paramilitary groups.

“And paramilitary is a military-like group as small as 3-5-6 people, which is a squad-size element that operate mainly outside of urban areas but in remote areas along the Sonoran corridor. That’s the truth. They are coming mainly from Santa Cruz, from Nogales, up through Pima County,  through the Vekol Valley and this is where you are going to see. . .

“There are things that are planned that I can’t share with you, that we are not even in charge of that other agencies at the state and federal government are in charge of, where you are going to see some significant reaction to the intelligence they have because I don’t have an intel cell. I don’t even have . . .  I have people that are assigned to work with and as a terrorism liaison officer, all these sorts of things but we don’t have any full time.

“So our information that we are getting . . .talk to  . . I had two ASACs (assistant special agents in charge of federal law enforcement agencies) here yesterday from ICE. And I had the top person from ATCC here yesterday. I’ve got a whole briefing packet here I wish I could share with you.

“Their threat analysis of the Vekol Valley, of the Sonoran drug corridor. . . and if you didn’t know, the Sinaloa drug cartel that operates out of Rocky Point had just established themselves in the plaza in Nogales, south of the border. You know how far that is from Rocky Point to? .  . that is now the territory. And they are now classified, and this part is not even largely reported, most people don’t even know if you mention Sinaloa. . . but now they are called a super or a mega cartel in Mexico.”

I asked, so what you are saying is that they have now gained control of the Nogales corridor they were fighting for?

Babeu continued: “Yeah. You know what is worrisome: You know who operates in this corridor? They do. So, there’s other information now that leads us to believe that things aren’t getting better, they’re getting worse.”

——————-

If you want to know more about Babeu, here’s a blog I posted Sunday with some basic information: Who is Paul Babeu?.

And here are two blogs from my colleague, Tim Steller, on Babeu’s past: Babeu’s near foreclosures, and other border-sheriff notes and A key moment in Babeu’s Mass. political career

Article Source: http://azstarnet.com/news/blogs/border-boletin/article_faa5db6a-6906-11df-a6a8-001cc4c002e0.html

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