title: Running of the bulls

text: The English town of Stamford, Lincolnshire was host to the Stamford bull run for almost 700 years until it was abandoned in 1837. According to local tradition, the custom dated from the time of King John when William de Warenne, 5th Earl of Surrey, saw two bulls fighting in the meadow beneath. Some butchers came to part the combatants and one of the bulls ran into the town, causing a great uproar. The earl, mounting his horse, rode after the animal, and enjoyed the sport so much, that he gave the meadow in which the fight began, to the butchers of Stamford, on condition that they should provide a bull, to be run in the town every 13 November, for ever after. As of 2013 the bull run had been revived as a ceremonial, festival-style community event.


title: Running of the bulls

text: A variation is the nightly "fire bull" where balls of inflammable material are placed on the horns. Currently the bull is often replaced by a runner carrying a frame on which fireworks are placed and dodgers, usually children, run to avoid the sparks.


title: Running of the bulls

text: The ("running of the town bus") started in Pamplona on 15 July 1984 when, after the end of the festival, youths would run before the earliest urban bus entering the traditional course.


title: Running of the bulls

text: Currently, the youths run before a cyclist in a yellow jersey as an homage to the Navarrese cycling champion Miguel Induráin.


title: Running of the bulls

text: In 2008, Red Bull Racing driver David Coulthard and Scuderia Toro Rosso driver Sébastien Bourdais performed a version of a 'bull running' event in Pamplona, Spain, with the Formula One cars chasing 500 runners through the actual Pamplona route.


title: Running of the bulls

text: The Big Easy Rollergirls roller derby team has performed an annual mock bull run in New Orleans, Louisiana since 2007. The team, dressed as bulls, skates after runners through the French Quarter. In 2012, there were 14,000 runners and over 400 "bulls" from all over the country, with huge before- and after-parties.


title: Running of the bulls

text: In Ballyjamesduff, Ireland, an annual event called the Pig Run is held with small pigs. It looks just like a mini- but with pigs instead of bulls.


title: Running of the bulls

text: In Dewey Beach, Delaware, a bar named The Starboard sponsors an annual Running of the Bull , in which hundreds of red- and white-clad beachgoers are chased down the shore by a single "bull" (two people in a pantomime horse-style costume).


title: Running of the bulls

text: In Rangiora, New Zealand, an annual Running of the Sheep is held, in which 1000–2000 sheep are released down the main street of the small farming town.


title: Running of the bulls

text: The Running of the Bulls UK is a pub crawl event that takes place on London's Hampstead Heath and uses fast human runners in place of bulls.


title: Running of the bulls

text: In 2014, Pamplona inaugurated a series of running events in June, the San Fermín Marathon, of a full marathon (42.195 km), half-marathon (21.097 km), or 10 km road race that concludes with the final 900m of each race using the route, runners crossing the finish line inside the bullring.


title: Running of the bulls

text: Since 2008 in Anchorage, Alaska during the Fur Rendezvous Festival the Running of the Reindeer sends "herds" of people running down a four-block downtown street, with a group of reindeer released behind them.


title: Running of the bulls

text: Many opponents state that bulls are mentally stressed by the harassment and voicing of both participants and spectators, and some of animals may also die because of the stress, especially if they are roped or bring flares in their horns ("bou embolat" version). Despite all this, the festivities seem to have wide popular support in their villages.


title: Running of the bulls

text: The city of San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, cancelled its "Sanmiguelada" running of the bulls after 2006, citing public disorder associated with the event. After the event was cancelled in San Miguel, the city of Salvatierra, also in the state of Guanajuato, picked up the event. It is now called "La Marquesada" and the three-day event is held during the last weekend of the month of September or first weekend of October.


title: Running of the bulls

text: As of 2002, a Running of the Nudes occurs two days before the running of the bulls. The event is supported by animal welfare groups, including PETA, who object to the running of the bulls, claiming that it is cruel and glorifies bullfighting, which the groups oppose.


title: Charybdis

text: Charybdis (; , ; , ) is a sea monster in Greek mythology. She, with the sea monster Scylla, appears as a challenge to epic characters such as Odysseus, Jason, and Aeneas. Scholarship locates her in the Strait of Messina.


title: Charybdis

text: The idiom "between Scylla and Charybdis" has come to mean being forced to choose between two similarly dangerous situations.


title: Charybdis

text: The sea monster Charybdis was believed to live under a small rock on one side of a narrow channel. Opposite her was Scylla, another sea monster, that lived inside a much larger rock. The sides of the strait were within an arrow-shot of each other, and sailors attempting to avoid one of them would come in reach of the other. To be "between Scylla and Charybdis" therefore means to be presented with two opposite dangers, the task being to find a route that avoids both. Three times a day, Charybdis swallowed a huge amount of water, before belching it back out again, creating large whirlpools capable of dragging a ship underwater. In some variations of the story, Charybdis was simply a large whirlpool instead of a sea monster.


title: Charybdis

text: Through the descriptions of Greek mythical chroniclers and Greek historians such as Thucydides, modern scholars generally agree that Charybdis was said to have been located in the Strait of Messina, off the coast of Sicily and opposite a rock on the mainland identified with Scylla. A whirlpool does exist there, caused by currents meeting, but it is dangerous only to small craft in extreme conditions.


title: Charybdis

text: A later myth makes Charybdis the daughter of Poseidon and Gaia and living as a loyal servant to her father.


title: Charybdis

text: Charybdis aided her father Poseidon in his feud with her paternal uncle Zeus and, as such, helped him engulf lands and islands in water. Zeus, angry over the land she stole from him, captured and chained her to the sea-bed. Charybdis was then cursed by the god and transformed into a hideous bladder of a monster, with flippers for arms and legs, and an uncontrollable thirst for the sea. As such, she drank the water from the sea thrice a day to quench it, which created whirlpools. She lingered on a rock with Scylla facing her directly on another rock, making a strait.


title: Charybdis

text: In some myths, Charybdis was a voracious woman who stole oxen from Heracles, and was hurled by the thunderbolt of Zeus into the sea, where she retained her voracious nature.


title: Charybdis

text: Odysseus faced both Charybdis and Scylla while rowing through a narrow channel. He ordered his men to avoid Charybdis, thus forcing them to pass near Scylla, which resulted in the deaths of six of his men. Later, stranded on a raft, Odysseus was swept back through the strait and passed near Charybdis. His raft was sucked into her maw, but he survived by clinging to a fig tree growing on a rock over her lair. On the next outflow of water, when his raft was expelled, Odysseus recovered it and paddled away safely.


title: Charybdis

text: The Argonauts were able to avoid both dangers because Hera ordered the Nereid nymph Thetis, Achilles' mother, to guide them through the perilous passage.


title: Charybdis

text: In the "Aeneid" the Trojans are warned by Helenus of Scylla and Charybdis, and are advised to avoid them by sailing around Pachynus point (Cape Passero) rather than risk the strait. Later however they find themselves passing Etna, and have to row for their lives to escape Charybdis.


title: Charybdis

text: Aristotle mentions in his "Meteorologica" that Aesop once teased a ferryman by telling him a myth concerning Charybdis. With one gulp of the sea, she brought the mountains to view; islands appeared after the next. The third is yet to come and will dry the sea altogether, thus depriving the ferryman of his livelihood.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: Joseph Michael Arpaio (; born June 14, 1932) is an American former law enforcement officer and politician. He served as the 36th Sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona for 24 years, from 1993 to 2017, losing reelection to Democrat Paul Penzone in 2016.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: Starting in 2005, Arpaio took an outspoken stance against illegal immigration, styling himself as "America's Toughest Sheriff". In 2010, he became a flashpoint for opposition to Arizona's SB1070 anti-illegal immigrant law, which was largely struck down by the Supreme Court of the United States. Arpaio is also known for investigating former U.S. President Barack Obama's birth certificate, and, , he continued to claim without evidence that it was forged.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: Arpaio has been accused of numerous types of police misconduct, including abuse of power, misuse of funds, failure to investigate sex crimes, criminal negligence, abuse of suspects in custody, improper clearance of cases, unlawful enforcement of immigration laws, and election law violations. A Federal court monitor was appointed to oversee his office's operations because of complaints of racial profiling. The U.S. Department of Justice concluded that Arpaio oversaw the worst pattern of racial profiling in U.S. history, and subsequently filed suit against him for unlawful discriminatory police conduct. Arpaio and the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office (MCSO) were named as defendants in dozens of civil lawsuits brought by citizens arrested by Arpaio and his deputies alleging wrongful arrest, wrongful death, entrapment and other claims, costing taxpayers in Maricopa County over $140 million in litigation against Arpaio during his tenure as sheriff.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: Over the course of his career, Arpaio was the subject of several federal civil rights lawsuits. In one case, he was a defendant in a decade-long suit in which a federal court issued an injunction barring him from conducting further "immigration round-ups". A federal court subsequently found that after the order was issued, Arpaio's office continued to detain "persons for further investigation without reasonable suspicion that a crime has been or is being committed." In July 2017, he was convicted of criminal contempt of court, a crime for which he was pardoned by President Donald Trump on August 25, 2017. In a separate racial-profiling case which concluded in 2013, Arpaio and his subordinates were found to have unfairly targeted Hispanics in conducting traffic stops.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: Although Arpaio sought another term as Maricopa County Sheriff in 2016, the contempt of court conviction eroded much of his remaining political support, and he was defeated in the election by Paul Penzone, a Democrat who reversed many of Arpaio's policies after taking office. Arpaio was an unsuccessful candidate in Arizona's Republican primary election for U.S. Senate in 2018. In 2020, Arpaio failed in his attempt to become the Maricopa County Sheriff again. In 2022, he narrowly lost in his attempt to unseat the incumbent mayor of Fountain Hills, Arizona, garnering 49% of the vote.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: Arpaio was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, on June 14, 1932, to Italian parents, both from Lacedonia, Italy. Arpaio's mother died while giving birth to him, and he was raised by his father, who ran an Italian grocery store. Arpaio completed high school and worked in his father's business until age 18 when he enlisted in the United States Army. He served in the Army from 1950 to 1954 in the Medical Department and was stationed in France for part of the time as a military policeman.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: Following his army discharge in 1954, Arpaio moved to Washington, D.C., and became a police officer, moving in 1957 to Las Vegas, Nevada. He served as a police officer in Las Vegas for six months before being appointed as a special agent with the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, which later became part of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). During his 25-year tenure with the DEA, he was stationed in Argentina, Turkey, and Mexico, and advanced through the ranks to the position of head of the DEA's Arizona branch.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: After leaving the DEA, Arpaio became involved in a travel venture through his wife's travel agency Starworld Travel Agency, based in Scottsdale. While there, he sold passage on the Phoenix E space rocket, which was hoped to take off from either Edwards Air Force Base or Vandenberg Air Force Base on the 500th anniversary of Christopher Columbus' voyage to the new world. Although he claimed in 1988 that the first 19 flights of the Phoenix E had been booked, no flights were ever made.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: Arpaio was first elected as sheriff in 1992. He was re-elected in 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008 and 2012. Throughout his tenure as sheriff Arpaio sought out media coverage. He was featured and profiled by news media worldwide and claimed to average 200 television appearances per month. In late 2008 and early 2009, Arpaio appeared in "Smile...You're Under Arrest!", a three-episode Fox Reality Channel series in which persons with outstanding warrants were tricked into presenting themselves for arrest.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: Arpaio's jail detention practices included serving inmates Nutraloaf and edibles recovered from food rescue and limiting meals to twice daily. He also banned inmates from possessing "sexually explicit material" including "Playboy" magazine, after female officers complained that inmates openly masturbated while viewing the articles. The ban was challenged on First Amendment grounds, but was upheld by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. In February 2007, Arpaio instituted an in-house radio station he called KJOE, broadcasting classical music, opera, Frank Sinatra hits, patriotic music, and educational programming five days a week, four hours each day.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: Federal Judge Neil V. Wake ruled in 2008 and 2010 that the Maricopa County jails violated the constitutional rights of inmates in medical and other care-related issues.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: In 2013, National Geographic Channel featured Arpaio's jail in the "Banged Up Abroad" episode of "Raving Arizona". The episode told the story of the Ecstasy dealer Shaun Attwood who started the blog Jon's Jail Journal.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: In 1993, Arpaio set up a "Tent City" — which he described as a "concentration camp" — as a temporary extension of the Maricopa County Jail for convicted and sentenced prisoners. It was located in a yard next to a more permanent structure. He later claimed that the "concentration camp" remark had been a joke, pointing out: "What difference does it make? I still survived. I still kept getting re-elected.”


title: Joe Arpaio

text: In 1997, Amnesty International said Arpaio's tent city jail was not an "adequate or humane alternative to housing inmates in suitable ... jail facilities." Tent City was criticized by groups contending that there were violations of human and constitutional rights. Arpaio stated he reserved the punishment of living in Tent City "for those who have been convicted."


title: Joe Arpaio

text: During the summer of 2003, when outside temperatures exceeded , Arpaio said to complaining inmates, "It's 120 degrees [] in Iraq and the soldiers are living in tents and they didn't commit any crimes, so shut your mouths!" On July 2, 2011, when the temperature in Phoenix hit , Arpaio measured the temperature inside these tents at . Some inmates complained that fans near their beds were not working, and that their shoes were melting from the heat.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: In April 2017, it was announced by newly elected Sheriff Paul Penzone that the Tent City jail would be shut down.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: In 1995, Arpaio reinstituted chain gangs. In 1996, he expanded the chain gang concept by instituting female volunteer chain gangs. Female inmates worked seven hours a day (7 a.m. to 2 p.m.), six days a week. He also instituted the world's first all-juvenile volunteer chain gang; volunteers earned high school credit toward a diploma.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: One of Arpaio's public relations actions was the requirement that inmates wear pink underwear in order to prevent its theft by the released inmates. He claimed this saved the county $70,000 in the first year the rule was in effect. Arpaio subsequently started to sell customized pink boxers (with the Maricopa County Sheriff's logo and "Go Joe") as a fund-raiser for Sheriff's Posse Association. Despite allegations of misuse of funds received from these sales, Arpaio declined to provide an accounting for the money.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: Arpaio's success in gaining press coverage with the pink underwear resulted in his extending the use of the color. He introduced pink handcuffs, using the event to promote his book, "Sheriff Joe Arpaio, America's Toughest Sheriff". Arpaio has said "I can get elected on pink underwear... I've done it five times."


title: Joe Arpaio

text: In 2004, Arpaio ordered all undocumented immigrants then in jail to register for the Selective Service System.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: In November 2010, Arpaio created an armed illegal immigration operations posse to help his deputies enforce immigration law. Members of the posse included actors Steven Seagal, Lou Ferrigno, and Peter Lupus. Because the MCSO lost its authority to enforce immigration law (both by losing its 287(g) authority and through a federal court order in "Melendres v. Arpaio"), , the posse is no longer active. While the MCSO website claimed 3,000 posse members, as of July 29, 2015, the posse had 986 members.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: Arpaio was a controversial sheriff. His practices were criticized by government agencies such as the United States Department of Justice and United States district courts, as well as organizations such as Amnesty International, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Arizona Ecumenical Council, the American Jewish Committee, and the Arizona chapter of the Anti-Defamation League. The editorial board of "The New York Times" called Arpaio "America's Worst Sheriff". Controversies surrounding Arpaio included allegations of racial profiling, for which the ACLU sued the sheriff's office.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: In 2000 it was claimed that the sheriff's office failed to properly investigate serious crimes, including the rape of a 14-year-old girl by classmates, and the rape of a 15-year-old girl by two strangers. These cases were reported as "exceptionally cleared" (solved) by the MCSO without investigation or, in one instance, without even identifying a suspect – in contravention of Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) standards for exceptional clearance. In the case of the 15-year-old girl, the case was closed within one month and before DNA testing was even complete, a 13-year-old's because her mother did not want to "pursue this investigation," and the 14-year-old's because a suspect declined to appear for questioning. In a statement to ABC15, the sheriff's office claimed "The Goldwater Institute's report cites the FBI's Uniform Code "<nowiki>[sic]</nowiki>" Reporting handbook, which is a voluntary crime-reporting program to compile statistical information and reports. The UCR is not intended for oversight on how law enforcement agencies clear cases... The Sheriff's Office has its own criteria for clearing cases." The Arizona Department of Public Safety, which serves as the repository for Arizona case clearance statistics, told 12 News that the guidelines in the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting Handbook are mandatory for all Arizona law enforcement agencies. Those guidelines specify that a case can be cleared by exception only when a perpetrator's identity and location is known and there is sufficient evidence to support prosecution, but, due to special circumstances (such as the suspect dying, or extradition not being possible), an arrest cannot be made.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: In an interview on the ABC's "Nightline" news program, when asked to explain why 82 percent of cases were declared cleared by exception, Arpaio said, "We do clear a higher percentage of that. I know that. We clear many, many cases – not 18 percent." "Nightline" contacted the MCSO after the interview and was told that of 7,346 crimes, only 944, or 15%, had been cleared by arrest.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: Under Arpaio, the MCSO may have improperly cleared (reported as solved) as many as 75% of cases without arrest or proper investigation.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: During a three-year period ending in 2007, more than 400 sex crimes reported to Arpaio's office were inadequately investigated or not investigated at all. While providing police services for El Mirage, Arizona, the MCSO under Arpaio failed to follow through on at least 32 reported child molestations, even though the suspects were known in all but six cases. Many of the victims were children of illegal immigrants.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: In a controversial case, Arpaio's office was accused of ignoring Sabrina Morrison, a teenage girl suffering from a mental disability. On March 7, 2007, the 13-year-old was raped by her uncle, Patrick Morrison. She told her teacher the next day, and her teacher called the MCSO. A rape kit was taken, but the detective assigned to the case told Sabrina and her family that there were no obvious signs of sexual assault, no semen, or signs of trauma.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: As a result of the detective's statements, Sabrina was branded by her family as a liar. Her uncle continued to rape her repeatedly, saying he would kill her if she told anyone. She became pregnant by him, and had an abortion. The family did not know that the rape kit had been tested at the state lab and showed the presence of semen. The lab requested that the detective obtain a blood sample from the suspect, Patrick Morrison. Instead of obtaining the blood sample, or making an arrest, the detective filed the crime-lab note and closed the case for four years.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: In September 2011 the sheriff's office obtained a blood sample from Patrick Morrison, which was a DNA match with the semen taken over four years earlier. Patrick Morrison was arrested and charged in February 2012; he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 24 years in prison.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: In December 2011, responding to continuing media coverage of the controversy, and apparently unaware that there were hundreds of victims in these cases, Arpaio stated in a press conference, "If there were any victims, I apologize to those victims."


title: Joe Arpaio

text: In August 2012, Sabrina Morrison filed a notice of claim against Arpaio and Maricopa County for gross negligence. In April 2015, the case settled for $3.5 million.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: An internal memo written by one of the detectives assigned to the Morrison case blamed a high case load, saying the special victims unit had gone from five detectives to just three, and the detectives left were often called off their cases to investigate special assignments. These included a credit card fraud case involving the Arizona Diamondbacks and a mortgage fraud case in Arpaio's home city of Fountain Hills.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: When county supervisors provided more than $600,000 to fund six additional detective positions to investigate child abuse in fiscal 2007, none were added to the sex-crimes squad. Sheriff's administrators concluded they had no idea where positions were added or what became of the money after it was added to the budget.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: In October 2007, Mike Lacey and Jim Larkin, the founders and leaders of the "Phoenix New Times", were arrested after publishing a news article on a grand jury investigation involving Arpaio's office. On the evening that the article was published, Lacey and Larkin were arrested by plainclothes sheriff's deputies, "handcuffed, put in dark SUVs with tinted windows and driven to jail." Following a public uproar over the arrests, all charges were dropped against Lacey and Larkin. Lacey and Larkin filed a federal Section 1983 lawsuit for the violations of their civil rights, and in 2012 the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that they could sue the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office for the arrests. In 2013, the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors voted to settle the suit for $3.75 million. Lacey and Larkin used the proceeds of the settlement to establish an endowed chair professorship at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, and to establish the Lacey & Larkin Frontera Fund, which advocates for migrant rights and freedom of speech issues in Arizona.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: Between 2008 and 2010, Arpaio and former Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas together undertook a number of government-corruption investigations targeting political opponents, including judges, county supervisors and administrators. These investigations resulted in: lawsuits against the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, a federal civil-racketeering suit against the supervisors, four judges, and attorneys who worked with the county; and filing of criminal charges against several individuals.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: In early 2010, Arpaio and Thomas sought to have a grand jury indict a number of Maricopa County judges, Maricopa County supervisors, and employees of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors. The grand jury, in an unusual rebuke, ordered the investigation ended. This action has been described as meaning that "the case is so bad, there's no further evidence that could be brought" to substantiate it. Legal experts agreed this was a rare move.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: Arpaio's and Thomas' actions in these matters led to Thomas' disbarment by a disciplinary panel of the Arizona Supreme Court, which found that Thomas "outrageously exploited power, flagrantly fostered fear, and disgracefully misused the law" while serving as Maricopa County Attorney. The panel found "clear and convincing evidence" that Thomas brought unfounded and malicious criminal and civil charges against political opponents, including four state judges and the Arizona Attorney General. "Were this a criminal case," the panel concluded, "we are confident that the evidence would establish this conspiracy beyond a reasonable doubt."


title: Joe Arpaio

text: At least 11 individuals filed lawsuits or legal claims as a result of being targeted by Arpaio and Thomas. The county settled all 11 cases:


title: Joe Arpaio

text: In February 2010, Pima County Superior Court Judge John S. Leonardo found that Arpaio "misused the power of his office to target members of the Board of Supervisors for criminal investigation".


title: Joe Arpaio

text: As of June 2014, costs to Maricopa County taxpayers related to Arpaio's and Thomas's failed corruption investigations exceeded $44 million, not including staff time.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: In July 2010, a committee established by Arpaio (the "Campaign to Re-Elect Joe Arpaio 2012") funded advertisements critical of Rick Romley, a candidate in the Republican primary for Maricopa County Attorney, and Arizona Attorney General candidate Tom Horne, despite the fact that Arpaio was not running for re-election at the time (his term did not expire until the end of 2012).


title: Joe Arpaio

text: In August 2010, following the filing of complaints to the Maricopa Elections Department, the Office of Maricopa County Attorney found that one of the advertisements, a direct mailer, advocated the defeat of Romley and was an in-kind contribution to Bill Montgomery (Romley's primary election opponent), in violation of Arizona election law. The order stated that a civil penalty in the amount of three times the amount of money spent on the mailer would be imposed on Campaign to Re-Elect Joe Arpaio 2012. In September 2010, Arpaio's campaign was fined $153,978. Montgomery ultimately defeated Romley in the primary election, with Romley stating Arpaio's ads "hurt" his results.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: An analysis by the Maricopa County Office of Management and Budget, completed in April 2011, found that Arpaio had misspent almost $100 million over the previous 5 years.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: The analysis showed that money from a restricted detention fund which could legally be used only to pay for jail items, such as food, detention officers' salaries, and equipment, was used to pay employees to patrol Maricopa County. The analysis also showed that many sheriff's office employees, whose salaries were paid from the restricted detention fund, were working job assignments different from those recorded in their personnel records. Arpaio's office kept a separate set of personnel books detailing actual work assignments, different from information kept in the county's official human resources records.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: Arpaio used the detention fund to pay for investigations of political rivals, as well as activities involving his human-smuggling unit.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: The analysis also showed a number of inappropriate spending items including a trip to Alaska where deputies stayed at a fishing resort, and trips to Disneyland.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: Separate investigations by "The Arizona Republic" uncovered widespread abuse of public funds and county policies by Arpaio's office, including high-ranking employees routinely charging expensive meals and stays at luxury hotels on their county credit cards.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: "The Republic" also found that a restricted jail-enhancement fund was improperly used to pay for out-of-state training, a staff party at a local amusement park, and a $456,000 bus which Arpaio purchased in violation of county procurement rules.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: In September 2010, a 63-page internal memo written by Maricopa Deputy Chief Frank Munnell, was made public. The memo alleged years of misconduct and mismanagement by Arpaio's second-in-command and other top MCSO officers, including the use of a public-corruption task force to conduct politically motivated probes into political opponents. The memo alleged that top officials in the MCSO "willfully and intentionally committed criminal acts by attempting to obstruct justice, tamper with witnesses, and destroy evidence." Arpaio forwarded the memo to the Pinal County Sheriff's Office, requesting they conduct an administrative investigation. Former top MCSO staffers claimed that Arpaio knew of the acts alleged in the Munnell memo, but took no action to stop them. Arpaio has not commented publicly on the allegations.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: In October 2010, the U.S. Attorney for Arizona confirmed that the FBI and Department of Justice had received copies of the Munnell memo and were conducting criminal investigations into its allegations.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: In 1999, undercover MCSO deputies arrested James Saville, then 18 years old, and charged him with plotting to kill Arpaio with a pipe bomb. A local television station had been tipped off to the arrest by the MCSO, and broadcast footage of the arrest that evening. The MCSO held a news conference shortly after the arrest, and Arpaio appeared in interviews on local television stations, saying "If they think they are going to scare me away with bombs and everything else, it's not going to bother me."


title: Joe Arpaio

text: In July 2003, after spending almost four years in jail awaiting trial, Saville was acquitted by a Maricopa County Superior Court jury. Jurors were persuaded that Saville had been entrapped by the MCSO as part of a publicity stunt by Arpaio. This was a rare example of a successful entrapment defense, which is very difficult to prove. Jurors interviewed following the trial said that "they were convinced that Saville had been a pawn in an elaborate media ploy." The jury forewoman subsequently said: "This was a publicity stunt at the expense of four years of someone's life." Another juror stated that "This was a big setup from the beginning."


title: Joe Arpaio

text: In 2004, Saville, following the acquittal, sued Arpaio and Maricopa County for wrongful arrest and entrapment. In 2008, the suit was settled, with Maricopa County paying Saville $1.1 million. Saville also received an unspecified additional compensation from the county's insurance company.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: In 2008, a federal grand jury began an inquiry of Arpaio for abuse-of-power in connection with an FBI investigation. On August 31, 2012, the Arizona U.S. Attorney's office announced that it was "closing its investigation into allegations of criminal conduct" by Arpaio, without filing charges.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: Arpaio was investigated for politically motivated and "bogus" prosecutions, which a former U.S. Attorney called "utterly unacceptable". Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon called Arpaio's "long list" of questionable prosecutions "a reign of terror".


title: Joe Arpaio

text: As of July 2010, only Sandra Dowling had been successfully prosecuted. Indicted on 25 felony counts, Dowling eventually pleaded guilty to patronage for giving a summer job to her daughter, a single class-2 misdemeanor which was not among the original counts, although as part of the plea bargain she also agreed to recuse herself from the Maricopa County Regional School District. Dowling later filed suit, alleging negligence, malicious prosecution, abuse of process and several constitutional violations, although Arpaio won summary judgment against her claims.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: As of December 2011, a federal grand jury was investigating Arpaio's office on criminal abuse-of-power allegations since at least December 2009 and was specifically examining the investigative work of the sheriff's anti-public corruption squad.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: On August 31, 2012, federal authorities announced they were terminating their abuse-of-power investigation into Arpaio in Arizona without filing charges against him.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: In 2005, Arpaio began focusing on enforcing immigration laws, after Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas was elected with a campaign slogan of "Stop illegal immigration." Arpaio stated that prior to 2005, he didn't view illegal immigration as a "serious legal issue."


title: Joe Arpaio

text: Starting in 2005, Arpaio regularly conducted saturation patrols and immigration sweeps, targeting Latino neighborhoods and day laborers. Arpaio also ran many operations targeting businesses employing Latinos, and arresting employees who were unauthorized immigrants for identity theft. According to Arpaio, 100% of the persons arrested for using stolen IDs in 57 raids conducted up until March 2012 were in the country illegally. Until 2011, when a Federal District Court injunction halted the practice, Arpaio maintained an immigrant smuggling squad which illegally stopped cars with Latino drivers or passengers to check their immigration status.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: Arpaio has said of his immigration law enforcement efforts, "Ours is an operation where we want to go after illegals, not the crime first... It's a pure program. You go after them, and you lock them up."


title: Joe Arpaio

text: As of September 2012, Arpaio was a defendant in a federal class action suit and a United States Department of Justice suit, both of which alleged racial profiling.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: Arpaio repeatedly denied racial profiling, although the MCSO did not have a policy specifically barring the practice nor any reliable internal method of ensuring it was not taking place.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: In 2007 Manuel De Jesus Ortega Melendres, a Mexican tourist who was a passenger in a car stopped in Cave Creek, Maricopa County, filed a lawsuit ("Melendres v. Arpaio") in the United States District Court for the District of Arizona against Sheriff Arpaio, the MCSO, and Maricopa County, claiming to have been detained unlawfully for nine hours as a result of racial profiling. The lawsuit was expanded when several individuals joined in with similar complaints.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: The plaintiffs were represented by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF), and the law firm of Covington & Burling.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: The lawsuit charged that Sheriff Arpaio and the MCSO unlawfully instituted a pattern and practice of targeting Latino drivers and passengers in Maricopa County during traffic stops, and that MCSO's practices discriminated on the basis of race in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and resulted in prolonged traffic stops and baseless extended detentions in violation of the Fourth Amendment.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: The case was initially assigned to U.S. District Judge Mary Murguia. In June 2009, in response to a motion filed by Arpaio's lawyers, she recused herself. The case was then assigned to U.S. District Judge G. Murray Snow.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: In his September 2009 deposition in the case, Arpaio testified he had never read the complaint in the case, was unfamiliar with the details of the allegations of racial profiling therein, didn't know the content of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and had never read the Department of Justice's guidelines concerning the use of race in investigations, which would have applied to his deputies in the field when they were still operating under a 287(g) program agreement with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). He insisted, however, that his deputies didn't profile based on ethnicity or race.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: In a December 2011 order, Judge Snow sanctioned Arpaio and the MCSO for acknowledged destruction of records in the case. Judge Snow also stated:


title: Joe Arpaio

text: Sheriff Arpaio has made public statements that a fact finder could interpret as endorsing racial profiling, such as stating that, even lacking 287(g) authority, his officers can detain people based upon 'their speech, what they look like, if they look like they came from another country'... Moreover, he acknowledges that MCSO provides no training to reduce the risk of racial profiling, stating 'if we do not racial profile, why would I do a training program?'" Judge Snow expanded the complaint into a class-action lawsuit, including all Latino drivers stopped by the Sheriff's Office since 2007, or who will be stopped in the future. He also enjoined the MCSO and all of its officers from "detaining any person based only on knowledge or reasonable belief, without more, that the person is unlawfully present within the United States, because as a matter of law such knowledge does not amount to a reasonable belief that the person either violated or conspired to violate the Arizona human smuggling statute, or any other state or federal criminal law.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: On December 23, 2011, U.S. District Court Judge G. Murray Snow enjoined Arpaio and the MCSO from "detaining any person based only on knowledge or reasonable belief, without more, that the person is unlawfully present within the United States," halting anti-illegal immigration enforcement by MCSO in its current form.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: Arpaio filed an appeal with the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The court upheld Judge Snow's injunction.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: Starting July 19, 2012, a six-day bench trial was held before Judge Snow. On May 24, 2013, Judge Snow issued a decision finding the policies and practices of Arpaio and his office discriminatory, in violation of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: In June 2013, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a Statement of Interest in the case, recommending the appointment of an "independent monitor to assess and report on MCSO's compliance with the remedial measures ordered by the Court." Adopting the DOJ's recommendation, in August 2013 Judge Snow stated in a court hearing that he would be assigning an independent monitor.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: In October 2013, Judge Snow issued a 59-page final order, giving the MCSO a list of reforms and requirements to institute and follow. In January 2014, Judge Snow appointed Robert Warshaw, former Rochester, New York, police chief, to act as monitor over the MCSO.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: Arpaio filed a limited appeal to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, contesting the district court's order, insofar as it covered traffic stops outside of saturation patrols. The appeals court rejected this claim, upholding Judge Snow's inclusion of non-saturation patrols in his finding of racial profiling, and maintaining his rulings of corrective actions that included training and video recording of traffic stops. The appeals court did agree with Arpaio that the court-appointed monitor's oversight of internal investigations must only be related to the constitutional violations.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: Subsequent to Judge Snow's October 2013 order, Arpaio was videotaped during a training session for MCSO deputies, saying "we don't racially profile. I don't care what everybody says." As a result of this, and mischaracterizations of the court's order by MCSO Chief Deputy Jerry Sheridan, Snow convened a hearing in March 2014 where he chastised Arpaio and Sheridan, saying they had "defied and even mocked his order to stop singling out Latinos during routine patrols, traffic stops and workplace raids." He then ordered Arpaio's attorney to prepare a corrective letter setting the record straight, to be distributed to all MCSO deputies. Because of Arpaio's First Amendment free speech rights, the court did not require him to personally sign the corrective letter.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: Two days after the hearing, having just been rebuked for mocking the court's order, Arpaio sent out a fundraising letter complaining of "Rampant UNFOUNDED [sic] charges of racism and racial profiling in my office." Judge Snow responded to this fundraising letter, stating:


title: Joe Arpaio

text: On September 11, 2014, Judge Snow granted more than $4.4 million in attorney's fees to four legal organizations that litigated "Melendres v. Arpaio". Attorney's fees were granted to the ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project, the ACLU of Arizona, MALDEF, and Covington & Burling.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: On June 4, 2014, the "Phoenix New Times" reported that Arpaio had initiated a criminal investigation of Judge Snow as well as the DOJ. The article quoted unnamed sources, including a former detective with the MCSO's Special Investigations Division, who claimed that the investigation was being run directly by Arpaio and was based on his belief that Judge Snow and the DOJ had engaged in a conspiracy against him.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: Arpaio neither confirmed nor denied the investigation to the "Phoenix New Times". However, in an April 2015 civil contempt hearing before Judge Snow, Arpaio testified that his attorney, Tim Casey, had hired a private investigator to investigate Judge Snow's wife, and that the MCSO had paid Dennis L. Montgomery to investigate whether the DOJ had been penetrating Arpaio's e-mails as well as those of local attorneys and judges, including Judge Snow. (This was called the "Seattle Operation.") Subsequently, MCSO Chief Deputy Jerry Sheridan testified that there was no investigation into Snow, his wife, or his family. As a result of the potential for ethical conflicts arizing from Arpaio's and Sheridan's testimony, Casey withdrew as legal counsel for Arpaio and the MCSO.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: During a status conference on May 14, 2015, Judge Snow, reading from a prepared statement, said that documents unearthed from the "Seattle Operation" by the court-appointed monitor revealed "an attempt to construct a conspiracy involving this court" as well as other entities and individuals including the DOJ, former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, former Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon, and former MCSO Executive Chief Brian Sands, among others. One week after this status conference, Arpaio's criminal defense attorney filed a motion to disqualify Judge Snow, claiming that he had moved from being an independent arbiter in the case into the role of investigating "issues involving his own family." Judge Snow temporarily halted further hearings in the case, but ultimately denied the motion and resumed holding hearings. On August 7, 2015, Arpaio asked the Ninth Circuit to remove Judge Snow from the case. On September 15, 2015, the Ninth Circuit denied Arpaio's request to remove Judge Snow, as well as Arpaio's related request to halt the lower court's proceedings.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: As part of the contempt proceedings, Judge Snow concluded Arpaio and others had made intentionally false statements about the efforts to investigate him.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: Federal Judge Neil V. Wake ruled in 2008, and again in 2010, that the county jails violated the constitutional rights of inmates in medical and other care-related issues. This ruling was a result of a lawsuit brought by the ACLU which alleged that "Arpaio routinely abused pre-trial detainees at Maricopa County Jail by feeding them moldy bread, rotten fruit and other contaminated food, housing them in cells so hot as to endanger their health, denying them care for serious medical and mental health needs, and keeping them packed as tightly as sardines in holding cells for days at a time during intake."


title: Joe Arpaio

text: In a ruling issued in October 2010, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ordered Arpaio to comply with Judge Wake's 2008 ruling, which required Arpaio to end the overcrowding and to ensure all detainees received necessary medical and mental health care; be given uninterrupted access to all medications prescribed by correctional medical staff; be given access to exercise and to sinks, toilets, toilet paper and soap; and be served food that met or exceeded the U.S. Department of Agriculture's dietary guidelines.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: In 2005, Deborah Braillard, a diabetic was arrested and detained in county jail on a minor drug-possession charge. Without medical attention, Braillard soon became ill. Although Braillard "groaned and cried for help as she defecated and vomited on herself and others," guards refused to listen to pleas to medical treatment for Braillard, who went into a diabetic coma and died while chained to a hospital bed.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: In the subsequent wrongful death of "Braillard v. Maricopa County", the plaintiff's attorney cited numerous reports commissioned and paid for by Maricopa County, dating back as far as 1996, detailing a "culture of cruelty" where inmates were routinely denied humane healthcare at Maricopa County jails run by Arpaio. Testifying in this case, Arpaio stated he could not deny making the statement that even if he had a billion dollars he wouldn't change the way he runs his jails. Arpaio said his jails were meant as places for punishment, and that the inhabitants were all criminals, although in fact most inmates had not been convicted of a crime and were awaiting trial.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: In the litigation, the former medical director for the country jails and other witnesses testified on the destruction of evidence, specifically "about evidence in the case being swiped and deleted from his computer." In 2012, after the judge assigned to the case "that the jury was to be told about the MCSO's coverup, including missing jail videos and recordings of Braillard's phone calls," the county settled the litigation for $3.25 million. The county spent an additional $1.8 million in legal fees on the Braillard case.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: In June 2008, the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division began an investigation of Arpaio amid accusations of discrimination and unconstitutional searches and seizures. The investigation was conducted under the authority of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which forbids discrimination related to programs that receive federal funds.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: On July 7, 2009, Arpaio held a press conference and announced that he would not cooperate with the investigation, either by providing documents or permitting interviews with personnel. On September 2, 2010, the Department of Justice filed suit against Arpaio to compel his cooperation with the investigation. A spokeswoman for the Justice Department stated that it was unprecedented for an agency to refuse to cooperate with a Title VI investigation, and that this was the first time the Justice Department had sued to compel access to documents and facilities. The suit was settled in June 2011, after Arpaio allowed federal officials to interview Sheriff's office employees and review hundreds of thousands of documents for the investigation.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: On December 15, 2011, the Justice Department released their findings after a 3-year investigation of Arpaio's office amid complaints of racial profiling and a culture of bias at the agency's top level. The report stated that under Arpaio, the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office has "a pervasive culture of discriminatory bias against Latinos" that "reaches the highest levels of the agency."


title: Joe Arpaio

text: The Justice Department accused Arpaio of engaging in "unconstitutional policing" by unfairly targeting Latinos for detention and arrest, and retaliating against critics. In the report, a Justice Department expert concluded that Arpaio oversaw the worst pattern of racial profiling in U.S. history.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: Based on the Justice Department report on discriminatory policing practices within the MCSO, on December 15, 2011, the United States Department of Homeland Security removed the MCSO from the 287(g) program. This decision revoked the MCSO's federal authority to identify and detain illegal immigrants.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: On May 10, 2012, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) in "United States v. Maricopa County, et al" (Case number 2:12-cv-981), filed suit against Arpaio, the MCSO, and Maricopa County, alleging that "The Maricopa County Sheriff's Office (MCSO) and Sheriff Joseph M. Arpaio have engaged and continue to engage in a pattern or practice of unlawful discriminatory police conduct directed at Latinos in Maricopa County and jail practices that unlawfully discriminate against Latino prisoners with limited English language skills." The complaint included accusations that Arpaio and his staff forced women to sleep in their own menstrual blood, assaulted pregnant women, ignored rape, and criminalized being a Latino.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: The United States' claims in this suit encompassed, but were broader than, the unconstitutional discriminatory conduct that the Court in "Melendres v. Arpaio" found the MCSO to have engaged in concerning its immigration enforcement-related traffic stops.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: A DOJ representative said that the agency was left with no choice but to file suit after Arpaio's attorneys balked at a demand for a court-appointed monitor to ensure the sheriff's office complied with any settlement terms. Arpaio rejected the notion of a court-appointed monitor, and denied that the MCSO engaged in racial profiling.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: On June 15, 2015, Senior United States District Judge Roslyn O. Silver of the United States District Court for the District of Arizona entered partial summary judgment for the DOJ, and against Arpaio, on the central racial-profiling allegations in the suit. On July 15, Maricopa County's board of supervisors voted to settle the lawsuit. The partial settlement, however, did not resolve the claims of discriminatory policing.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: At two press conferences held in March 2012, Arpaio and members of his Cold Case Posse claimed that President Barack Obama's long-form birth certificate, released by the White House on April 27, 2011, is a computer-generated forgery. The Posse also claimed that Obama's Selective Service card was a forgery. The allegations regarding the birth certificate were repeated at a July 2012 news conference in which Arpaio stated that Obama's long-form birth certificate was "definitely fraudulent."


title: Joe Arpaio

text: Some of the major claims presented by Arpaio were subsequently shown to be false; specifically, the 1961 Vital Statistics Instruction Manual that Arpaio and his team claimed to possess contradicted what they claimed it said, and images shown by them, purportedly from that manual, were instead from computer specifications dated 1968 and 1969.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: In response to Arpaio's claims, Joshua A. Wisch, a special assistant to the Attorney General of Hawaii, said in a statement, "President Obama was born in Honolulu, and his birth certificate is valid. Regarding the latest allegations from a sheriff in Arizona, they are untrue, misinformed and misconstrue Hawaii law." Arizona state officials, including Governor Jan Brewer and Secretary of State Ken Bennett, also dismissed Arpaio's objections and accepted the validity of Obama's birth certificate. Brewer also stated that Obama's mother's U.S. citizenship made him a citizen by "jus sanguinis", regardless of where he was born.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: During September 2016, Arpaio claimed to be still investigating President Obama's birth certificate, stating, "We are looking at a forged document. Period." On December 15, 2016, Arpaio held a news conference along with posse member Mike Zullo, detailing "9 points of forgery" supposedly found on the digital image of Obama's birth certificate.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: In 2007, Arpaio said that it was an "honor" for his department to be compared to the Ku Klux Klan, a white supremacist terrorist organization. On the witness stand in a civil trial in 2012, however, Arpaio backtracked, saying that he no longer considered the comparison an honor.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: In December 2014, after many warnings, U.S. District Judge G. Murray Snow told Arpaio there was a very real possibility that he would refer Arpaio to the U.S. Attorney's Office for criminal prosecution on contempt of court charges due to the MCSO's failure to comply with the court's order to stop its racial profiling practices. Snow advised Arpaio to retain a criminal defense attorney. In a bid to shield Arpaio from criminal proceedings, his attorneys filed a written statement arguing that any mistakes in complying with the court's orders were unintentional, or the fault of former employees. Judge Snow found Arpaio's arguments unavailing, and, in January 2015, announced that Arpaio would face a contempt hearing in April 2015 for violating court orders in "Melendres v. Arpaio".


title: Joe Arpaio

text: In March 2015, a month before the scheduled contempt hearing, Arpaio admitted that he violated several court orders, and consented to a finding of civil contempt against him. Because the matter of criminal contempt was still at issue, the initial contempt hearing was held as scheduled.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: On July 24, 2015, the court directed U.S. marshals to seize evidence, which was possibly related to the contempt of court charges and was slated for destruction, from the sheriff's office.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: On May 13, 2016, the court held Arpaio in contempt on three counts. On August 19, 2016, the court asked the federal government to file criminal contempt charges against Arpaio and some of his subordinates over his failure to follow the court's instructions. On October 11, 2016, federal prosecutors announced that they would press criminal contempt of court charges against Arpaio. On October 25, 2016, such charges were officially filed, though Arpaio would not be arrested and no mugshot would be taken. The charges were filed just two weeks before an election in which Arpaio was running for re-election.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: On July 31, 2017, Arpaio was found guilty of criminal contempt of court. U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton wrote that Arpaio had "willfully violated an order of the court" by failing "to ensure his subordinates' compliance and by directing them to continue to detain persons for whom no criminal charges could be filed." Arpaio was scheduled to be sentenced in October 2017.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: On August 25, 2017, President Donald Trump pardoned Arpaio for his conviction for criminal contempt of court, a decision that provoked considerable controversy. The pardon covers Arpaio's conviction and "any other offenses under Chapter 21 of Title 18, United States Code that might arise, or be charged, in connection with "Melendres v. Arpaio"."


title: Joe Arpaio

text: Trump also announced his decision on Twitter, declaring that Arpaio is an "American patriot" who had "kept Arizona safe." Arpaio expressed his thanks to the President in a series of tweets and to his "loyal supporters." Arpaio also declared that his conviction was "a political witch hunt by holdovers in the Obama justice department!" "The" "Washington Post" fact-checker gave the claim "Four Pinocchios" (its worst rating), noting that Arpaio was convicted by two federal judges: a Bush-appointed federal judge, and federal judge respected by both Republicans and Democrats. Attorneys for Arpaio have stated that they are moving for his case to be dismissed in light of the pardon.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: Arizona Governor Doug Ducey was among the politicians praising the pardon, crediting Arpaio with helping to reduce crime over a long career, and Ducey also welcomed the finality that the pardon gave to the whole matter. The pardon was strongly criticized by Arizona Senator John McCain as Arpaio had expressed no remorse for his actions. Arizona Senator Jeff Flake and House Speaker Paul Ryan signaled their opposition to the pardon.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: A number of law professors and political scientists described the pardon as troubling and unusual. Several experts on authoritarianism described the pardon as illiberal and said that it undermined the rule of law.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: After the pardon, Arpaio filed a motion to vacate his conviction for criminal contempt. District judge Susan R. Bolton denied the motion. She held that Trump's pardon "undoubtedly spared Defendant from any punishment that might otherwise have been imposed. It did not, however, 'revise the historical facts' of this case." Arpaio's attorneys said that he would probably appeal to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. One of the American Civil Liberties Union attorneys who had represented the plaintiffs in the underlying racial-profiling case agreed with the denial of Arpaio's motion, stating, "The court made detailed findings after a bench trial about Joe Arpaio's criminal conduct. The court's findings and documents in the record of the case should stand and now will stand."


title: Joe Arpaio

text: The legal status of the pardon continued to be challenged. Although the federal prosecutors did not contest its validity, some legal groups challenged the pardon as unconstitutional.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: In 2018, Arpaio sued "The New York Times", the "HuffPost", "Rolling Stone", and CNN, alleging that their analyses of Arpaio's proceedings had defamed him. These suits were dismissed by a federal judge, who ruled that Arpaio failed to prove actual malice.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: In November 2007, a group calling itself "Arizonans for the U.S. Constitution and Recall of Joe Arpaio" filed the paperwork to begin an effort to recall Arpaio and County Prosecutor Thomas from office for allegedly disobeying and violating the United States Constitution and abuse of power. Their petition to get a recall question for the two officials onto the next general election ballot failed when the group was unable to collect the more than 200,000 registered voter signatures required. In a survey taken by the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, while the petition was in circulation, nearly three out of four respondents opposed the recall, and 65 percent of the respondents held a positive opinion of Arpaio.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: On May 30, 2013, a recall attempt on Arpaio again failed only a week after a federal judge ruled that the sheriff's office had engaged in systematic discrimination against Latinos in violation of their constitutional rights. Members of "Respect Arizona" and "Citizens for a Better Arizona" started the recall effort, but were unable to get the required 335,000 valid voter signatures by the 5 p.m. deadline.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: Arpaio stated in a September 2017 interview with "American Free Press" that he would consider running for office again, including the United States Congress, if President Donald Trump asked him to. In January 2018, Arpaio announced his intention to seek the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate in 2018. He faced Martha McSally and Kelli Ward in the August 28, 2018, Republican primary. Arpaio was defeated, receiving 19% of the vote to McSally's 52% and Ward's 28%.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: On August 25, 2019, Arpaio issued a statement saying that he would run for Sheriff of Maricopa County in 2020, saying "Watch out world! We are back!" and promising to reinstitute the severe prison conditions he imposed in the past. He lost the primary election to his former right-hand man, Jerry Sheridan.


title: Joe Arpaio

text: Arpaio announced his candidacy for mayor of Fountain Hills, Arizona, on October 5, 2021. This followed comments made in September about running for the office. In the election on August 2, 2022, he failed to oust the incumbent Ginny Dickey, receiving 5,207 votes (49.0%).


title: Joe Arpaio

text: Arpaio married his wife Ava in 1958 and they had two children. In 2021, Ava died of cancer complications. As of 2008, he lived in Fountain Hills, Arizona. In 2018 Arpaio was featured on Sacha Baron Cohen's spoof TV comedy "Who Is America?", in which he discussed gun control with Baron Cohen's fascist-sympathising YouTuber alter ego OMGWhizzBoyOMG.


The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS; also known as in French and Portuguese) is a regional political and economic union of fifteen countries located in West Africa. Collectively, these countries comprise an area of , and in 2015 had an estimated population of over 349 million.


title: Economic Community of West African States

text: Considered one of the pillar regional blocs of the continent-wide African Economic Community (AEC), the stated goal of ECOWAS is to achieve "collective self-sufficiency" for its member states by creating a single large trade bloc by building a full economic and trading union. The union was established on 28 May 1975, with the signing of the Treaty of Lagos, with its stated mission to promote economic integration across the region. A revised version of the treaty was agreed and signed on 24 July 1993 in Cotonou.


text: The ECOWAS also serves as a peacekeeping force in the region, with member states occasionally sending joint military forces to intervene in the bloc's member countries at times of political instability and unrest.


text: As of February 2017, ECOWAS has 15 member states; eight of these are French-speaking, five are English-speaking, and two Portuguese-speaking. All current members joined the community as founding members in May 1975, except Cape Verde which joined in 1977.


text: The only former member of ECOWAS is Arabic-speaking Mauritania, which was also one of the founding members in 1975 and decided to withdraw in December 2000. Mauritania recently signed a new associate-membership agreement in August 2017.


text: Morocco officially requested to join ECOWAS in February 2017. The application was endorsed in principle at the summit of heads of state in June 2017, but Morocco's bid for membership was stalled.


text: Mali was suspended from ECOWAS on 30 May 2021, following its second military coup within nine months. Guinea was also suspended on 8 September 2021, shortly after a military coup took place in the country. Sanctions were placed on both countries on 16 September. On 10 January 2022, Mali announced to close its borders and recalled several ambassadors with ECOWAS in response to sanctions imposed for deferring elections for four years. On 28 January 2022, Burkina Faso was suspended from ECOWAS following a military coup.


text: Statistics for population, nominal GDP and purchasing power parity GDP listed below are taken from World Bank estimates for 2015, published in December 2016. Area data is taken from a 2012 report compiled by the United Nations Statistics Division.


text: The ECOWAS was formed initially from the region's former French, British and Portuguese colonies, and independent Liberia, following post-colonial independence throughout the region (particularly in the 1960s and 1970s). It was formed to provide regional economic cooperation, but has since evolved to include political and military cooperation, as well.


text: The union was established on 28 May 1975, with the signing of the Treaty of Lagos, with its stated mission to promote economic integration across the region. A revised version of the treaty was agreed and signed on 24 July 1993 in Cotonou. Considered one of the pillar regional blocs of the continent-wide African Economic Community (AEC), the stated goal of ECOWAS is to achieve "collective self-sufficiency" for its member states by creating a single large trade bloc by building a full economic and trading union.


text: The ECOWAS also serves as a peacekeeping force in the region, with member states occasionally sending joint military forces to intervene in the bloc's member countries at times of political instability and unrest. In recent years these included interventions in Ivory Coast in 2003, Liberia in 2003, Guinea-Bissau in 2012, Mali in 2013, and The Gambia in 2017.


text: Covering a region once known as a "coup belt," the ECOWAS, since the 1990s, has attempted to defend the region's shift towards democracy against authoritarian attacks. However, the group has been cited for weak and ineffective responses in the early 2020s, when three member countries suffered military coup d'états -- two in Mali, one attempt in Niger, and one in Guinea.


text: In 2011, the ECOWAS adopted its development blueprint for the next decade, "Vision 2020", and, to accompany it, a Policy on Science and Technology (ECOPOST).


text: The ECOWAS consists of two operating institutions to implement policies: the ECOWAS Commission and the ECOWAS Bank for Investment and Development (EBID) -- formerly known as the Fund for Cooperation, until it was renamed in 2001.


text: In addition, ECOWAS includes the following institutions: ECOWAS Commission, Community Court of Justice, Community Parliament, ECOWAS Bank for Investment and Development (EBID), West African Health Organisation (WAHO), and the Inter-Governmental Action Group against Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing in West Africa (GIABA).


text: The ECOWAS nations assigned a non-aggression protocol in 1990 along with two earlier agreements in 1978 and 1981. They also signed a Protocol on Mutual Defence Assistance in Freetown, Sierra Leone, on 29 May 1981, that provided for the establishment of an Allied Armed Force of the Community.


text: The Community Parliament consists of 115 members, distributed based on the population of each member state. This body is headed by the Speaker of the Parliament, who is above the Secretary General.


text: For the third time since its inception in 1975, ECOWAS is undergoing institutional reforms. The first was when it revised its treaty on 24 July 1993; the second was in 2007 when the Secretariat was transformed into a Commission. As of July 2013, ECOWAS now has six new departments (Human Resources Management; Education, Science and Culture; Energy and Mines; Telecommunications and IT; Industry and Private Sector Promotion. Finance and Administration to Sierra Leone has been decoupled, to give the incoming Ghana Commissioner the new portfolio of Administration and Conferences).


text: The ECOWAS Community Court of Justice was created by a protocol signed in 1991 and was later included in Article 6 of the Revised Treaty of the Community in 1993. However, the Court did not officially begin operations until the 1991 protocol came into effect on 5 November 1996. The jurisdiction of the court is outlined in Article 9 and Articles 76 of the Revised Treaty and allows rulings on disputes between states over interpretations of the Revised Treaty. It also provides the ECOWAS Council with advisory opinions on legal issues (Article 10). Like its companion courts, the European Court of Human Rights and East African Court of Justice, it has jurisdiction to rule on fundamental human rights breaches.


text: ECOWAS nations organise a broad array of cultural and sports events under the auspices of the body, including the CEDEAO Cup in football, the 2012 ECOWAS Games and the Miss CEDEAO beauty pageant.


text: The Community Heads of State and Government adopted African Traditional Wrestling as the Community Sport, and through its Specialised Agency in charge of youth and sports development, the Ouagadougou-based ECOWAS Youth and Sports Development Centre (EYSDC), has consistently organised the yearly ECOWAS African Wrestling Tournament mainly in Dakar (Senegal) and Niamey ((Niger) based on a harmonized African wrestling code.


text: The Community, through the EYSDC, also organized 2 editions of the ECOWAS International Cycling tour, taking close to 100 riders from all member States, from Lagos to Accra and then from Lagos o Abidjan. In addition to the sports and well-being objective of the tour, the race also served to demonstrate and put into practice the ECOWAS protocol on free movement of goods and persons.


text: In 2019, the EYSDC instituted the ECOWAS Abuja International Marathon. The first edition brought together international marathoners from West Africa, Kenya, Ethiopia and Cameroon.


text: Similarly, the Community, through its specialised agency, promotes regional sports development by offering sponsorship to regional sports federations and specialized disciplines such as the West African Deaf Sports Union ((WADSU), the West African Liaison Office of the International Council for Military Sports (WALO-CISM), the Region 2 of the African Athletics Federation, the West African University Games (WAUG), among others.


text: The West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU, also known as UEMOA from its name in French, "Union économique et monétaire ouest-africaine") is an organisation of eight, mainly francophone West African states within the ECOWAS, previously colonies of French West Africa, that were dominated otherwise by Anglophone heavyweights like former British colonies Nigeria and Ghana. It was established to promote economic integration among countries that share the CFA franc as a common currency. UEMOA was created by a Treaty signed at Dakar, Senegal, on 10 January 1994, by the heads of state and governments of Benin, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Mali, Niger, Senegal, and Togo. On 2 May 1997, Guinea-Bissau, a former Portuguese colony, became the organisation's eighth (and only non-francophone) member state.


text: Among its achievements, the UEMOA has successfully implemented macro-economic convergence criteria and an effective surveillance mechanism. It has adopted a customs union and common external tariff and has combined indirect taxation regulations, in addition to initiating regional structural and sectoral policies. A September 2002 IMF survey cited the UEMOA as "the furthest along the path toward integration" of all the regional groupings in Africa.


text: ECOWAS and UEMOA have developed a common plan of action on trade liberalisation and macroeconomic policy convergence. The organizations have also agreed on common rules of origin to enhance trade, and ECOWAS has agreed to adopt UEMOA's customs declaration forms and compensation mechanisms.


text: Formed in 2000, the West African Monetary Zone (WAMZ) is a group of six countries within ECOWAS that plan to introduce a common currency called the Eco. The six member states of WAMZ are Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Nigeria and Sierra Leone who founded the organisation together in 2000 and Liberia who joined on 16 February 2010. Apart from Guinea, which is francophone, they are all English-speaking countries. Along with Mauritania, Guinea opted out of the CFA franc currency shared by all other former French colonies in West and Central Africa.


text: The WAMZ attempts to establish a strong stable currency to rival the CFA franc, whose exchange rate is tied to that of the euro and is guaranteed by the French Treasury. The eventual goal is for the CFA franc and eco to merge, giving all of West and Central Africa a single, stable currency. The launch of the new currency is being developed by the West African Monetary Institute based in Accra, Ghana.


text: In 2019, ECOWAS unveiled its Ecotour Action Plan 2019 – 2029. It focuses on tourism heritage protection and development, and on the development of standards, regulations and control systems.


title: Lake Nyos disaster

text: On 21 August 1986, a limnic eruption at Lake Nyos in northwestern Cameroon killed 1,746 people and 3,500 livestock.


title: Lake Nyos disaster

text: The eruption triggered the sudden release of about 100,000–300,000 tons (1.6 million tons, according to some sources) of carbon dioxide (CO). The gas cloud initially rose at nearly and then, being heavier than air, descended onto nearby villages, displacing all the air and suffocating people and livestock within of the lake.


title: Lake Nyos disaster

text: A degassing system has since been installed at the lake, with the aim of reducing the concentration of in the waters and therefore the risk of further eruptions.


title: Lake Nyos disaster

text: What triggered the catastrophic outgassing is not known. Most geologists suspect a landslide, but some believe that a small volcanic eruption may have occurred on the bed of the lake. A third possibility is that cool rainwater falling on one side of the lake triggered the overturn. Others still believe there was a small earthquake, but because witnesses did not report feeling any tremors on the morning of the disaster, this hypothesis is unlikely. The event resulted in the supersaturated deep water rapidly mixing with the upper layers of the lake, where the reduced pressure allowed the stored to effervesce out of solution.


title: Lake Nyos disaster

text: It is believed that about of gas was released. The normally blue waters of the lake turned a deep red after the outgassing, due to iron-rich water from the deep rising to the surface and being oxidised by the air. The level of the lake dropped by about a metre and trees near the lake were knocked down.


title: Lake Nyos disaster

text: Scientists concluded from evidence that a column of water and foam formed at the surface of the lake, spawning a wave of at least that swept the shore on one side.


title: Lake Nyos disaster

text: Since carbon dioxide is 1.5 times the density of air, the cloud hugged the ground and moved down the valleys, where there were various villages. The mass was about thick, and travelled downward at . For roughly , the gas cloud was concentrated enough to suffocate many people in their sleep in the villages of Nyos, Kam, Cha, and Subum. About 4,000 inhabitants fled the area, and many of these developed respiratory problems, lesions, and paralysis as a result of the gas cloud.


title: Lake Nyos disaster

text: It is a possibility that other volcanic gases were released along with the , as some survivors reported a smell of gunpowder or rotten eggs, which indicates that sulfur dioxide and hydrogen sulfide were present at concentrations above their odour thresholds. However, was the only gas detected in samples of lake water, suggesting that this was the predominant gas released and as such the main cause of the incident.


title: Lake Nyos disaster

text: Reporters in the area described the scene as "looking like the aftermath of a neutron bomb." One survivor, Joseph Nkwain from Subum, described himself when he awoke after the gases had struck:Following the eruption, many survivors were treated at the main hospital in Yaoundé, the country's capital. It was believed that many of the victims had been poisoned by a mixture of gases that included hydrogen and sulfur. Poisoning by these gases would lead to burning pains in the eyes and nose, coughing and signs of asphyxiation similar to being strangled.


title: Lake Nyos disaster

text: Interviews with survivors and pathologic studies indicated that victims rapidly lost consciousness and that death was caused by asphyxiation. At nonlethal levels, can produce sensory hallucinations, such that many people exposed to report the odor of sulfuric compounds when none are present. Skin lesions found on survivors represent pressure sores, and in a few cases exposure to a heat source, but there is no evidence of chemical burns or of flash burns from exposure to hot gases.


title: Lake Nyos disaster

text: The scale of the disaster led to much study on how a recurrence could be prevented. Several researchers proposed the installation of degassing columns from rafts in the middle of the lake. The principle is to slowly vent the CO by lifting heavily saturated water from the bottom of the lake through a pipe, initially by using a pump, but only until the release of gas inside the pipe naturally lifts the column of effervescing water, making the process self-sustaining.


title: Lake Nyos disaster

text: Starting from 1995, feasibility studies were successfully conducted, and the first permanent degassing tube was installed at Lake Nyos in 2001. Two additional pipes were installed in 2011. In 2019 it was determined that the degassing had reached an essentially steady state and that a single one of the installed pipes would be able to self-sustain the degassing process into the future, indefinitely maintaining the at a safe level, without any need for external power.


title: Lake Nyos disaster

text: Following the Lake Nyos disaster, scientists investigated other African lakes to see if a similar phenomenon could happen elsewhere. In 2005, Lake Kivu in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, 2,000 times larger than Lake Nyos, was also found to be supersaturated, and geologists found evidence that outgassing events around the lake happened about every thousand years. However, a study undertaken in 2018 and released in 2020 found flaws in the 2005 study, including a possible bias in the conversion of concentrations to partial pressures, to an overestimation of concentrations, or to a problem of calibration of sensors at high pressure. The 2020 study found that when these errors were accounted for, the risk of a gas eruption at Lake Kivu did not seem to be increasing over time.


Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze is a 1991 American superhero film directed by Michael Pressman and written by Todd W. Langen, based on the characters created by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird. The sequel to "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" (1990), it is the second installment in the original trilogy. The film stars Paige Turco and David Warner with the voices of Brian Tochi, Robbie Rist, Adam Carl, and Laurie Faso.


title: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze

text: The film follows the adventures of the four Turtles, Leonardo, Donatello, Michelangelo, Raphael, and their Master Splinter. Resuming from the events of the last film, the villain, the Shredder, returns to take back command of the Foot Clan, and work towards getting revenge on the Turtles. When he learns the secret behind the Turtles' mutation, he becomes more dangerous than ever. The film sheds some light on the origins of Splinter and the Turtles, as well as introduces two new villains, Tokka and Rahzar. Unlike the first film, it differs in the use of the Turtles' weapons. They instead fight bare-fisted for much of this film, as part of an attempt to tone down the violence of the previous installment.


text: The film was released theatrically in the United States on March 22, 1991, by New Line Cinema. It received mixed reviews from critics, who felt it departed from the much darker tone of the original 1990 film. However, it was financially successful, grossing $78.7 million against a budget of $20 million, becoming the thirteenth highest-grossing film domestically in the year of its release. The film is dedicated to Jim Henson, who died less than a year before this film's release. Henson's Creature Shop created the animatronic creature costumes for the film, like the first film.


text: In New York City, a young pizza delivery boy named Keno inadvertently encounters burglars on his route and tries to stop them. The burglars attack Keno, who proves to be a skilled martial artist, but he is soon overwhelmed before the arrival of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. They vanish after rescuing Keno, tying the burglars up, and taking the pizza he was delivering, leaving behind the money to pay for it.


text: Leonardo, Donatello, Michelangelo and Raphael, along with their master Splinter, are currently living with April O'Neil while looking for a new place to live following the events of their last adventure. Splinter wants to remain in the shadows, while Raphael thinks they should live out in the open. At a junkyard where the remnants of The Foot and The Shredder's second-in-command Tatsu are hiding out, they are met by their master, who has been disfigured by his previous defeat and vows revenge on the Turtles.


text: April interviews Professor Jordan Perry of Techno Global Research Industries (TGRI) about a possible toxic waste leak. He assures her that everything is fine, but their scientists secretly discover dandelions which have been mutated by the leak. Freddy, a spy for the Foot posing as April's cameraman, discovers this and reports it to his master, who decides to have Perry interrogated. Back at April's apartment, Splinter reveals to her and the Turtles that the canister of mutagen (dubbed "Ooze" by the Turtles) which mutated them 15 years prior was created by TGRI, and they too decide to talk to Perry. The Foot gets to Perry first and kidnaps him, salvaging the last canister of ooze in the process. The Turtles attempt to get the canister back, but ultimately fail. Afterward, Keno gets into April's apartment under the guise of delivering pizza and discovers Splinter and the Turtles.


text: At the Shredder's hideout, Perry is forced to use the remaining ooze on a snapping turtle and a wolf, which mutate into Tokka and Rahzar, respectively. With the imminent threat to April's safety by the Foot, the Turtles start to actively look for a new home. After an argument with Leonardo, Raphael breaks off from the group, while Michelangelo discovers an abandoned subway station and deems it a perfect hideout. Raphael and Keno defy Splinter's orders and implant Keno into the Foot Clan to find their hideout. However, they are caught and Raphael is captured, while Keno escapes to warn the others. When they come, they are ambushed by the Shredder and the Foot; Splinter saves the group, but leaves as they face Tokka and Rahzar, who prove too strong to defeat. Donatello finds a bound and gagged Perry after being tossed into a building by Tokka, and the five of them make a tactical retreat. Once back in their hideout, Perry explains that the creation of the ooze was an accident, disheartening Donatello, Leonardo and Raphael, who saw a higher purpose for their existence.


text: The Shredder unleashes Tokka and Rahzar into a nearby neighborhood to cause damage. The next day, Freddy sends a message to April that Tokka and Rahzar will be released into Central Park if the Turtles don't meet the Foot Clan at the construction site. Perry develops an antidote to the mutations, but it must be ingested to work. When the Turtles confront the Foot at the site, they try using donuts to trick Tokka and Rahzar into eating the antidote. They discover the trick and brutally attack, throwing Raphael into a public dance club where Vanilla Ice is performing. A big fight ensues among hundreds of witnesses and eventually the Turtles revert Tokka and Rahzar back to their natural state. The Turtles fight with Shredder on the dock, who has transformed into a Super Shredder after consuming the last of the ooze. The heavily-mutated Super Shredder is too strong for the Turtles to fight, but is defeated when he rips the dock apart in his rampage, causing it to collapse onto him.


text: In a press release, April reads a note from Perry, thanking the Turtles for saving him. When they return home, the Turtles deny being seen by the humans, but Splinter holds up the evening's newspaper on which they are front-page news. He then orders the four of them to do 10 flips as punishment.


text: Michael Jai White makes an uncredited cameo as an audience member that joins the Foot Clan with Keno.


text: Due to the massive success of the first film, it was generally expected that a sequel would follow. The film was produced on a budget of US$25 million, nearly twice the budget of the 1990 film, which was $13.5 million. Like the first film, New Line Cinema distributed "The Secret of the Ooze". Both the voice actors of Michaelangelo and Leonardo reprised their roles in the second film, while Corey Feldman did not voice Donatello in the second movie after pleading no contest to a drug possession charge in December 1990. Also, a different actress was cast for the role of April O'Neil, with Paige Turco replacing Judith Hoag from the first film. The character of Casey Jones, who was prominent in the first movie, did not appear here (though he did return in the following movie). Ernie Reyes Jr., who was Donatello's fight double in the first film, was cast as a new character, Keno, as the producers admired Reyes and his performance in the first movie so much they asked him to join the sequel. Todd W. Langen returned from the first film to write the screenplay.


text: The characters of Bebop and Rocksteady, which were popular villains in the 1987 animated series, could not be used due to Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird objecting, with the latter stating that "their constant one-note shtick in the first animated series [was] extremely annoying and silly to the point of being stupid.” As a result, Tokka and Rahzar were created. The abandoned subway station, which serves as the new lair for the Turtles, is based on the real-life decommissioned City Hall station of the New York City Subway, built by the former Interborough Rapid Transit Company. The station is not completely abandoned, as it appears in the movie. Trains pass through the station daily as they turn around to head uptown, passengers are allowed to ride through the station, but the train does not stop and so they cannot disembark. During filming of the scene where the Turtles are trapped in the net and fall to the ground, one of the stuntmen broke an ankle. Some filming took place in North Carolina, much like the first, where the New York City skyline was created at the North Carolina Film Studios. The building used for the entrance to April's apartment is the office of the New York location of Jim Henson's Creature Shop, which did the animatronics work for the film as well as its predecessor. The film is dedicated to the memory of Jim Henson, who had died the previous May. This made it the first movie dedicated to Henson, the second being "The Muppet Christmas Carol" (1992). This is also the first TMNT film to include a dedication; the second would be "TMNT", which was dedicated to the late Mako, the voice actor for Splinter in that film.


text: The soundtrack featured 10 tracks from the film, and music from artists such as Magnificent V11 produced by Troy Duncombe and Mickey Mahoney of Cat and Moose productions Ya Kid K, Cathy Dennis and David Morales, Tribal House and Dan Hartman. The most famous song featured on the soundtrack was "Ninja Rap" performed by rapper Vanilla Ice.


text: The song featured prominently within the feature film, as Ice makes an appearance as himself, and begins to freestyle a ninja rap song when the turtles end up fighting Tokka and Rahzar within the club where he was performing. In terms of the plot, this song was to trick the audience into believing the fight was a harmless "show" and thus not to panic.


text: A music video was also produced for "Ninja Rap" at the time of the film's release. The soundtrack also features two original pieces from the Orchestra On the Half Shell. The original music was composed by John Du Prez, who won a BMI Film Music Award for his work.


text: The film was later released to DVD in Region 1 on 3 September 2002; it contained only minor special features and interactive menus.


text: On 4 August 2009, the film was included in a special 25th-anniversary boxset, released to both DVD and Blu-ray formats. It contains "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles", "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II", "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III", and the animated release, "TMNT" (2007).


text: "The Secret of the Ooze" was released in theatres on March 22, 1991, in the United States, and subsequently in other countries from June through to August. The film was number one in North America on its first weekend of release, taking in over US$20 million, and eventually making $78,656,813 in total, generating theatrical rentals of $41.9 million. The film was a success at the U.S. and Canadian box office, but made less than the first film, becoming the second highest-grossing independent film ever, behind the original. Overseas, the film did not do so well, with 20th Century Fox acquiring the foreign rights for $25 million but the film only earning them rentals of $12 million. In total, the film had worldwide rentals of $54 million. Some fans noted that there was also a reduction in the use of weapons by the turtles in the film, perhaps due to violence in the first film. (Leonardo and Raphael only use their weapons once each in the movie, for example.)


text: Like its predecessor, the second "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" installment was censored in the UK due to usage of forbidden weapons (the nunchaku), most notably during the opening credits sequence where Michelangelo imitates their use by swinging a pair of sausages. The edits were waived for the DVD release in 2002. The German version was not censored visually; as with the first film, funny cartoon sound effects were added to the fight scenes to soften the violence.


text: The second film received mixed reviews from critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a rating of 35% based on reviews from 43 critics, with the consensus: "Not only is the movie's juvenile dialogue unbearable for adults, but the turtles' dopey and casual attitude towards physical violence makes them poor kids' role models". On Metacritic, the film has a score of 45 out of 100 based on reviews from 20 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".


text: Dave Kehr of "The Chicago Sun Times" calls the film "a fast, funny, engagingly unpretentious 88 minutes that, moving between martial-arts dustups and random satirical jibes, achieves a more successful mix of action and humor than the first. There is plenty for adults here as well as children".


text: Janet Maslin of "The New York Times" notes that "the Turtles fight less, clown more and stray too far from their beloved sewers" and calls it an improvement, and is relieved that they have at least made a mainstream movie. Maslin stated that the Turtles "clean up their act" in the movie and also praised "Secret of the Ooze" for containing scenes referencing then-growing popular culture trends which were considered major competitors to the TMNT franchise's "greatest assets," such as rap music and Bart Simpson. Lloyd Bradley of "Empire Magazine" gave the film three out of five stars, saying, "This lacks the darkness and subtlety that makes the first film so good, and so adult, but its simplified plot and gags will appeal to the under tens".


text: Gene Siskel at "The Chicago Tribune" was just as unimpressed by this film as the first, calling it "a martial-arts movie in rubber uniforms". Siskel considers that he is an adult "forgetting the sort of mindless entertainment that he himself enjoyed as a child" but rejects the idea and calls the fight scenes "more depressing than joyful". Roger Ebert of "The Chicago Sun Times" complains that the Turtles look essentially the same, and suggests they are an "emblem of our drab and dreary times" and that they are "an example of the hazards of individuality". He says kids are getting a bad deal and compared to the comic book heroes he grew up with they are being robbed of "a sense of wonder".


text: The "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" franchise was arguably at the height of its popularity around the time that "The Secret of the Ooze" was released in theatres. A number of tie-ins were brought out alongside the release of the film. A new line of toys were introduced for the release of the film, including "Movie Star" toys of all four turtles, with the box art depicting stills from the film, as well as a cartoon rendition of the turtles gathered around a canister of ooze in the top right corner of the package. In contrast to the usual Turtles' figures, the film series figures were softer and more rubbery, to better reflect the look of the animatronic costumes used in the films. They also featured ball joints at the neck, shoulders, and hips, and each figure came with a small, plastic canister with a sticker of "Ooze" wrapped around them. An official film adaptation was also released by Eastman and Laird.


text: Figurines of Super Shredder, Tokka and Rahzar were also available, though they were not as closely aligned to the film as the four turtles were. The Playmates company produced the figurines. The Turtles franchise had by now also immersed itself into the food industry, with characters from the franchise appearing on numerous food products. Royal Gelatin Desserts adapted the "Ooze" name into their product, and featured the Turtles on the packages. The boxes


text: A third film, titled "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III", was released 1993 to a smaller box office take and is the last of the original trilogy of films.


title: Jack Hawkins

text: John Edward Hawkins, CBE (14 September 1910 – 18 July 1973) was an English actor who worked on stage and in film from the 1930s until the 1970s. One of the most popular British film stars of the 1950s, he was known for his portrayal of military men.


title: Jack Hawkins

text: Hawkins was born at 45 Lyndhurst Road, Wood Green, in what is now Haringey, London, the son of a builder. He was educated at Wood Green's Trinity County Grammar School, where, aged eight, he joined the school choir.


title: Jack Hawkins

text: By the age of ten Hawkins had joined the local operatic society, and made his stage debut in Patience by Gilbert and Sullivan. His parents enrolled him in the Italia Conti Academy and whilst he was studying there he made his London stage debut, when aged thirteen, playing the Elf King in "Where the Rainbow Ends" at the Holborn Empire on Boxing Day, December 1923, a production that also included the young Noël Coward. The following year aged 14 he played the page in a production of "Saint Joan" by George Bernard Shaw. Five years later he was in a production of "Beau Geste" alongside Laurence Olivier.


title: Jack Hawkins

text: In the 1930s Hawkins's focus was on the stage. He worked in the companies of Sybil Thorndike, John Gielgud and Basil Dean. His performances included "Port Said" by Emlyn Williams (1931), "Below the Surface" by HL Stoker and LS Hunt (1932), "Red Triangle" by Val Gielgud (1932), "Service" by CI Anthony, for director Basil Dean (1933), "One of Us" by Frank Howard, "As You Like It" by William Shakespeare (1933) and "Iron Flowers" by Cecil Lewis (1933, with Jessica Tandy his wife).


title: Jack Hawkins

text: He started appearing in films, including a number of "quota quickies" as well as more prestigious productions. His appearances included "Birds of Prey" (1930), "The Lodger" (1932) (starring Ivor Novello), "The Good Companions" (1933), "The Lost Chord" (1933), "I Lived with You" (1933), "The Jewel" (1933), "A Shot in the Dark" (1933) and "Autumn Crocus" (1934).


title: Jack Hawkins

text: In 1932 he was in a radio production of "Hamlet" with John Gielgud and Robert Donat and the following year he was in "Danger".


title: Jack Hawkins

text: He was also in "Death at Broadcasting House" (1934), "Lorna Doone" (1934) and "Peg of Old Drury" (1935).


title: Jack Hawkins

text: Stage roles included "While Parents Sleep" (1932) by Anthony Kimmins, "Iron Mistress" (1934) by Arthur Macrae; then an open air Shakespeare festival – "As You Like It" (1934) (with Anna Neagle), "Twelfth Night" (1934), "Comedy of Errors" (1934). Some of these productions were done on radio. "The Maitlands" by Ronald Mackenzie (1934) was for John Gielgud's company. He was Horatio to Gielgud's "Hamlet" (1934). He also appeared in "Accidentally Yours" by Clifford Grey (1935), "The World Waits" by Clifford Hummel (1935), "Coincidence" by Bryce Robertson (1935) and "The Frog" (1935).


title: Jack Hawkins

text: Films in the late 1930s included "Beauty and the Barge" (1937), "The Frog" (1937) (which Hawkins played on stage), "Who Goes Next?" (1938), "A Royal Divorce" (1938), "Murder Will Out" (1939) and "The Flying Squad" (1940).


title: Jack Hawkins

text: Theatre appearances included "A Winter's Tale" (1937), "Autumn" by Margaret Kennedy and Gregory Ratoff (1937, with Flora Robson for Basil Dean), "The King's Breakfast" by Rita Welman and Maurice Marks (1937–38), "No More Music" by Rosamund Lehman (1938), "Can We Tell?" by Robert Gore Brown (1938), "Traitors Gate" by Norma Stuart (1938) and "Dear Octopus" by Dodie Smith (1938–39).


title: Jack Hawkins

text: Having attended an Officer Cadet Training Unit, he was commissioned into the Royal Welch Fusiliers, British Army, as a second lieutenant on 8 March 1941. On 22 January 1944, he transferred to the Expeditionary Force Institutes in the rank of lieutenant. He served with ENSA in India and Southeast Asia. He relinquished his commission as a lieutenant (substantive) on 11 October 1946, and was granted the honorary rank of colonel.