The Dupnik Recall and The Guerena Killing

Sheriff Dupnik’s irresponsible comments following the massacre in Tucson on January 8th and his department’s apparent prior mishandling of contacts with shooter Jared Loughner spawned a recall effort in Pima County. However, the effort to recall Dupnik was never properly organized and the different groups promoting it began to squabble among each other late in April. With the recall effort floundering and unlikely to garner the necessary signatures before the deadline, Dupnik felt confident enough to announce his intention to run for reelection in 2012 on May 3rd. Two days later, Cpl. Guerena was gunned down in his home by Pima County SWAT (which on a side note appears to be nothing more than a mish-mash of officers from different local units, as Jonn points out). Of course initially, Pima County Sheriff’s Office said that Guerena fired at officers so the story didn’t get much attention until a week later when Pima County changed its story for the first of many times. By that time (around May 11th and 12th), leftist blogs in Tucson were celebrating the collapse of the recall effort which was now officially dead.

I doubt that had more details come out about the shooting that the recall effort would have turned around quickly enough to meet its deadlines and get enough signatures. However, there has been a political angle to this story from the beginning and I have documented in almost all my posts on this matter the hypocrisy of the leftist establishment in Arizona in ignoring this story. There was likely some in the Democratic establishment whom felt that a story like this could alienate Dupnik from Latino voters, whom the Democrats have been trying to scare into voting for them by pretty much lying about SB1070 and other immigration enforcement efforts.

This is an unfortunate by-product of politicized law enforcement in the state of Arizona and needs to change not only in Pima County but the rest of the state as well.

Category: The Guerena Killing