Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office detectives, working closely with the Los Angeles Police department, investigated a man accused of making death threats against Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Stephen Crow, age 35, was arrested in a hotel in Winnetka, California.
Maricopa County Sheriff’s detectives were contacted by Buckeye Police Department communications regarding several telephone calls they received around 9 pm last night on the non-emergency line.
Crow, who has previously spent time in a Pennsylvania Prison for terroristic threats, ranted on the phone that Arpaio was a ‘racist’ and a ‘Hitler’. Crow added he was “gonna take over your county and kill Sheriff Joe”.
Crow’s criminal record continues to stretch across multiple states, where he is wanted on five separate warrants, at least three of which are within Arizona, two inside Maricopa County.
Known to reside in Tempe, Crow has spent at least four separate occasions in Sheriff Arpaio’s jails on charges of shoplifting, and threatening and intimidating. He has even been arrested in the Town of Maricopa, where he was found to be in possession of several weapons and marijuana plants.
During the threat investigation, Maricopa County Sheriff’s detective, Brian Mackiewicz was able to track down Crow in California, where the LAPD arrested him.
Crow is currently being held in a LA County Jail on a $50,000.00 bond.
Sheriff Arpaio has received numerous threats because of his tough stance on crime and immigration. His threats have come from all over including Canada and Mexico. The latest conviction from these threats was of Gregory Schrader, of Oklahoma, who received 7 years in federal prison after a mail bomb a addressed to Arpaio was intercepted by an alert postal worker in Flagstaff, Arizona.
Detective Brian Mackiewicz says, “Unfortunately, there is an increasing number of people that appear to have dangerous ideas planted in their heads.” Mackiewicz adds, “The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office is not going to tolerate these types of threats and takes each of them very serious.”