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"Of course he did," Cool said. "We always pray for everyone. For each other, for people that are sick, giving birth, in financial trouble, marriage trouble. That is the nature of the Christian church." Eventually, Cool told Hendershott about the problems with Bearup's son and the explosives.
Hendershott left Cool's office, according to Cool's letter. Five minutes later, the phone rang. It was Hendershott, ordering Cool to write a memo.
"Title it 'Security Concerns,'" Hendershott said, according to Cool. The first paragraph should talk about the explosives under Bearup's son's bed, Hendershott instructed. The second should talk about how upset Tom Bearup was "and how he used to pray for help and strength to battle the attack from within the Sheriff's Office."
Cool blanched. He didn't think the incidents related to each other.
"Just write the memo," Hendershott said.
Cool followed orders. Days later, two detectives came to see him. They wanted to talk about the memo. When Cool protested that he didn't think the prayers and the explosives were related, that there wasn't really a threat to Arpaio, the detectives were confused. Cool explained that he'd written the memo under orders.
The detectives left but returned later, this time with a video camera. They wanted to talk about the memo. Again. Cool explained again that he'd been acting under orders.
Five minutes after he left the videotaped interview, Cool received an angry call from Hendershott.
"I never ordered you to write that fucking memo," Hendershott said, according to Cool's letter. "You don't understand. I need to investigate any threat against the sheriff."
Cool wrote to the county attorney because he was worried about his job and wanted whistleblower status to protect him from the sheriff. When the letter became public, the sheriff fired him anyway — whistleblower status be damned.
Depositions and affidavits from former deputies make one thing clear: In the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office, harassment isn't the work of a few lone wolves. It's a directive from the top. Many dubious activities by deputies can be traced directly to Chief Deputy David Hendershott.
As Arpaio has admitted under oath, Hendershott is the operational head of the Sheriff's Office. According to the testimony of a half-dozen men who've worked under him, Hendershott is as vindictive as they come.
Under Hendershott, the Sheriff's Office developed a special squad devoted to investigating anyone who opposes the sheriff.
In a deposition later cited in court filings by attorney Joel Robbins, Hendershott once described the handpicked Selective Enforcement Unit, or "threat squad," as "a specialized unit . . . formed to do nothing more than follow around the sheriff's political enemies and catch them doing something wrong."
"They pretty much do what he tells them to do," said deputy Sergeant Wayne Scoville, under questioning in a lawsuit.
Sometimes that means going after the sheriff's own guys.
As a deputy in the late '90s, Kelley Waldrip spoke with a New Times reporter who was looking into possible misuse of funds in the Sheriff's Office. When the sheriff found out that Waldrip had talked to the reporter, he was livid. Waldrip announced his retirement partly to avoid being fired.
But the Sheriff's Office didn't let the matter go. According to an affidavit Waldrip later filed, several years after he retired from the office, Waldrip's supervisors in the Naval Reserve informed him that they'd received an allegation against him. Supposedly, he'd misused his Navy Criminal Investigative Service credentials.
Waldrip's supervisor said that Arpaio was behind the matter.
"Among the allegations was that I had violated several Sheriff's Office policies in my relationship with the press and was thus an individual unworthy of a position of trust within the U.S. government," Waldrip wrote.
The Navy ultimately concluded that Waldrip had done nothing wrong. Even then, the sheriff continued to keep an eye on his former employee.
In December 2002, Waldrip wrote in his affidavit, the "threat squad" contacted Waldrip's employer to obtain the IP address on his computer. (That would have allowed Arpaio to track Waldrip's online activity.) The employer, a law enforcement agency in California, refused to supply the information.
The threat squad also has targeted people who've had no connection to the Sheriff's Office. They've been opponents and critics of the sheriff. In fact, it was the threat squad that arrested this newspaper's executives.
Sometimes, those who've angered Arpaio just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
In 2002, a group supporting a ballot initiative to legalize slot machines hired actor Nick Tarr to portray a character named "Joe Arizona," a thinly veiled caricature of Arpaio. (Arpaio was endorsing a rival ballot measure.) "Joe Arizona" wore the sheriff's trademark pink boxer shorts, a hat like those worn by Canadian Mounties, and plastic badges that said "Sheriff Joe" and "Sheriff Nick."
On Halloween, a costumed Tarr entered a restaurant where Hendershott happened to be eating. Hendershott, court files show, called the Arizona Department of Public Safety twice, asking it to cite Tarr for impersonating a law enforcement officer. DPS officers determined there was no crime and refused.
Hendershott then ordered his own men, the threat squad, to arrest Tarr. No surprise: They did.