Arizona to pay for sheriff to patrol Colorado City
Jun 7, 2012, 1:40 PM | Updated: 3:02 pm
PHOENIX – The Arizona Attorney General’s Office plans to provide funding
to the Mohave County sheriff to provide law enforcement patrols in a northern
Arizona community with a polygamist enclave.
Attorney General Tom Horne announced Thursday his office will provide $420,0
for deputies to patrol Colorado City, located in a remote area between the Grand
Canyon and Utah. The money comes from assets seized in criminal drug
prosecutions.
Horne announced the plan just over a month after the Arizona Legislature
rejected Horne-backed legislation to abolish the Colorado City’s Marshal’s
Office and to have sheriff’s deputies patrol Colorado City instead.
“This grant will serve as a bridge until next year, when hopefully the
legislation will pass,” Horne said.
Horne contends that marshal’s officers are followers of polygamist sect leader
Warren Jeffs and put following Jeffs over obeying the law.
Jeffs is serving a prison sentence of life and 20 years in Texas where he was
convicted of sexually assaulting two underage sect girls whom he took as plural
wives.
Jeff Matura, a lawyer for Colorado City, said town officials dispute Horne’s
characterizations of marshal’s officers but welcome the increased presence by
sheriff’s deputies.
“The more police force, the safer the community,” Matura said. “We don’t
mind them coming in. We have nothing to hide.”
Sheriff Tom Sheahan did not immediately return a call for comment, but he said
in a statement included in Horne’s announcement that the plan would “provide
unbiased law enforcement services that the citizens do not have with the Town
Marshal’s Office.”
Horne’s office said the plan will take effect upon approval by the county Board
of Supervisors. The board will consider it on July 2, officials said.
Supervisors Chairman Buster Johnson welcomed Horne’s plan, which Johnson said
would provide “legitimate law enforcement” in Colorado City.
“I truly thank Tom Horne for not giving up on us up here,” Johnson said in a
statement. “His support for our efforts to supply real justice to the residents
of the Colorado City area shows an insight that, apparently, our Legislature
didn’t have this last session.”
During legislative consideration of the bill, Horne said Colorado City officers
who are members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day
Saints flout the law, particularly when sect members commit crimes against
non-members, and are simply replaced by other followers of Jeffs if removed
individually.
Critics of the bill, including two Mohave County legislators whose districts
include Colorado City, said it unfairly targeted the town and that current
officers haven’t done anything wrong.
Horne was state superintendent of public instruction when Arizona seized
control of the Colorado City school district based on findings of financial
mismanagement. The district has since emerged from receivership.
The FLDS practices polygamy, a legacy of early Mormon church teachings that
held plural marriage brought exaltation in heaven.
However, the mainstream Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints abandoned
the practice in 1890 as a condition of Utah’s statehood and excommunicates
members who engage in the practice.
