Sheriff Joe Arpaio is alerting the public once again to his program of placing crosses in the desert of southern Maricopa County, the fourth largest county in the country, linked to GPS markers, denoting the spots where the remains of those who died in the desert were found. The Sheriff intends to keep placing crosses in the desert as more deaths occur.
“This program will save lives,” states Sheriff Arpaio. “Every year, we find the remains of men, women and children who have succumbed to the harsh reality of the desert. The program is important both practically and symbolically. First, I’m trying to do what I can to make it easier for rescuers to locate people before it is too late. Second, this program also serves as a graphic warning to anyone considering such a dangerous journey.”
Inmates in the Sheriff’s jail build the crosses and then are taken into the desert to place them in the ground. To date, almost two dozen crosses have been situated in the desert.
Just this past Saturday, August 15, a call came in just after 11 am to the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office, and the man on the other end was desperate for help. He and several other men had been walking for over 10 days through the desert, and had run out of water and food. They had been reduced to drinking their own urine for the last two days, and the caller said he had been vomiting blood. The caller and another man had gotten separated from three other men somewhere in the vast desert south of Gila Bend, but not before their guide had threatened to kill anyone who phoned the Sheriff’s Office.
All year long, every year, men, women and children try to walk across the desert, often coming up from the southern border. But border crossers aren’t the only people caught up in a situation for which they are not prepared. Just last month, in July, two residents of Prescott Valley, a young boy and his grandfather both died while hiking in the desert outside Gila Bend, after they ran out of water. Their bodies were discovered by Maricopa County Sheriff’s deputies.
Sheriff Joe Arpaio initiated the program in 2013 to place numbered crosses in the desert in the very spots where people died on their treks, in order to provide rescuers with some landmarks to assist them in locating the distressed individuals. Today, Sheriff Arpaio is directing attention to that program in order to try to get word out about it, and make it more effective.
“This isn’t about politics or policy,” Sheriff Arpaio says, “this is about saving lives. Every life is precious.”