Goldwater Institute seeks probe of Arpaio

The Goldwater Institute has asked the state attorney general and Maricopa County attorney to investigate Sheriff Joe Arpaio's office for its policies on solved and unsolved crimes.

Clint Bolick with the Goldwater Institute, a conservative think tank, said Thursday that Arpaio is violating FBI standards by declaring unsolved crimes solved.

He said that is a ticking time bomb for residents of Maricopa County "becasue not only are there criminals at large in these cases, but nobody is looking for them."

Bolick said there are two ways to declare a crime solved: by arrest or by knowing who should be arrested, but not being able to. He said police should neevr declare a crime "cleared" unless it really has been solved. Doing otherwise deprives crime victims of justice, Bolick said.

The complaint centered around a woman, now 23, who said she was 14 when she was raped by a party "at the hands of a dozen men, or young men."

The woman said the sheriff's office cleared the case, with the investigator saying the alleged crime was not reported for seven months, the woman had been drinking and that she could not positively identify her attacker or attackers.

"It makes no sense to me now, nor did it back then," the woman said. "And even since I got the files and have looked into them, it still makes no sense to me."

The woman said she wants the case reopened, not for vengeance but to help future victims.

"The policy and the practice of law enforcement, as shown in my case, leaves young people like me completely unprotected and the men who partake in these crimes, undeterred," she said.

She said her high school life was unbearable and she eventually dropped out.

Arpaio did not immediately respond to the Goldwater Institute's request.