Luke Skywalker
Super Moderator
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Maricopa County (Ariz.) Sheriff Joe Arpaio promises his office will be vigilant this week.(Photo: Mark J. Rebilas, USA TODAY Sports)
PHOENIX -- Joe Arpaio, who calls himself "America's Toughest Sheriff," stands up from his office chair and looks at a football behind his desk.
"This is going to piss people off," he says.
Then he flashes a Super Bowl-sized grin.
Arapaio — the 82-year-old sheriff from Maricopa County who forces inmates to wear pink underwear, who houses some outdoors even when temperatures reach 120 degrees and who feeds them two meals a day — is not adverse to angering people, especially with up to 1 million people headed to town for Super Bowl XLIX, to be played Sunday in nearby Glendale.
So he takes the football off a shelf and squeezes it.
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"Oh, look," he says with that grin. "Someone took the air out of it."
Take that, New England Patriots.
Then he notes the football had been autographed by Tony Romo, quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys. Yes, an elected official in Arizona is openly rooting for an out-of-state team.
Take that, Arizona Cardinals.
Because he grew up in Massachusetts, Arpaio tells USA TODAY Sports, he'll be pulling for the Patriots when they play the Seattle Seahawks. But in case anyone thinks he'll look the other way if Tom Brady or his teammates run afoul the law, Arpaio points out his jails have housed boxer Mike Tyson, retired NBA star Charles Barkley and former major leaguer Mark Grace.
"I was thinking of starting a celebrity tent," he says
Arpaio insists he hopes the teams and the fans coming to Arizona this week enjoy their trip — but he's not afraid to ruin it. "Sheriff Joe" oversees what he says is the third-largest jail system in the country, but he's always willing to make room for more — and advertises as much.
Before the 1996 Super Bowl was held in nearby Tempe, Arpaio welcomed visitors with a special touch — a pink neon vacancy sign hanging from the watchtower of his outdoor tent city jails.
The sign remains. But this year he has found a new way to put visitors on notice. A picture of his face is on a a 120-foot-high electronic billboard in New York's Times Square. Beneath his picture reads in part: "ENJOY OUR STATE, OBEY ALL LAWS AND BE SAFE."
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The billboard, paid for by an Arizona business owner, will be in rotation through the Super Bowl.
"I like to get the message out," he says. "I will always have room for the bad guys. I don't let people out early or say I don't have enough room."
Initially, Arpaio seemed mildly uncomfortable with the prospect of being featured on a massive billboard.
But he quickly warmed to the idea when he realized how the sight of his face in downtown New York might strike the Rev. Al Sharpton, one of the sheriff's nemeses who once led demonstrators in protest against Arpaio.
"Think he can get his picture on there?" Arpaio says. "If it was, it won't be for a good cause. He'll say, 'Come on down to the Super Bowl and make sure you demonstrate.'"
For those who think he's too tough on the inmates, Arpaio says he has a special treat for them this week.
"When they watch the Super Bowl, I'm going to give them popcorn," he says. "So I got to start start popping popcorn all over the place."
But "Sheriff Joe" makes it clear he and his department will be doing more than popping popcorn.
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Reading from notes, he says his office will work with 19 other agencies. They'll be focused on, among other things, terrorist threats and drinking and driving.
"When you look at my mandated duties, I am the chief law enforcement officer," he says. "I'm mandated to quell any disturbances or riots. But we're all one team now."
His deputies, in their brown uniforms that Arpaio sported for the billboard photo, will help work security on Super Bowl Sunday.
"So I could put my uniform on and get in there as a security guy," he says. "Or I could get a free ticket and get in that way, which you guys would put in the headlines: 'Sheriff has free ticket.' I don't take any free tickets. Everybody's zeroed in on me, but they can't get me for stuff like that."
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