federal account. And I just had a call from Betty Hutto saying that you
had disapproved their credit for some reason. And I'm puzzled. Well, I
don't I'm not up on it right the moment. I'd have to check it out. Well,
she just called me because we haven't had to run sunday. And she says in
display at a classified display and she said she had a note from you not
to accept any advertising. Not cash. Did they fill out a credit
application or something? You know? Western is you sure it's under Western
Federal Corporation? Western Federal Corporation. What's your number there
? Let me check and call you back. My number is 25881688168.
And this company who's a sales rep, you know, sale. No, not in our company
motto. Betty. Hello? Betty. Huh? I don't know. Betty. So advertising
representative, you're on a Republican. She must be one of the newer ones.
Okay, let me check on. And I'll get because we've got to do something
about this sunday. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. All right. Thank you.
Stay in this Model three public. Yeah. We wrote them a letter. We're
requesting a guarantee since it's a new corporation and there's no
sufficient background on them as far as giving credit. And I can hope to
God you're talking about, we're talking about five inches. Well, we wanted
to run another one, which is I'll go ahead and okay. But there I wrote him
a letter asking them to send us a guarantee back. I'll be glad to do that.
And it's The company's got $1 million dollars in most of its cash. It's
been a hell of a but we're looking at the credit background and they don't
have a credit background. Well, they kept credit. Well, I mean on D. And B.
What we've checked out in the references they gave us. In fact, one of
the reference says they got him cash in advance.
No, big pardon? Dun and Bradstreet didn't say that. No. No. I said one of
the references they gave. Well maybe that I don't do that well, but we're
just going by what we have to look at. We'll get a guarantee from. But I
wrote him a letter. They have a letter that was mailed the 18th. So it's
if they won't be getting it to the day. See Right, so are good for it and
if they're not, I am, I'll go ahead and okay. Okay. And thank you cleared
for you. Okay? And I'll make sure they get whatever you want back to you.
Okay steve. Thank you. Thank you
dramatically. Simon
Stuckey. S. T. Double O. K. E. Y.
Walker
Watson
wolf, W. O. L. F.
And young blood.
All right, thank you very much. I didn't find a familiar name there. I I
know hein shape. Yes. Uh Well, Heights was on the committee last year, but
he's on sabbatical uh this semester. And so he declined to a secret
election for you. The august body of executive committee can understand
and he's been pretty busy doing everything else with his appointment from
the governor and the the Arizona League of towns and cities, etcetera. So
he's got a busy semester. All right, well, I'll see you next thursday.
Look forward to it. And if you if you have something worked up by then
please do bring it along. All right. I may or may not, but it's not it's
not necessary. But if you do, I know in general, but I'd I'd like to to do
if it would meet with your approval. Mm. Okay, well, let's have lunch and
discuss it. Fine, thank you, sir. Thank you. Bye bye. Mhm.
Now, I understand that you were on a some sort of committee that had to
deal with the the strike force, the four counties or the Now the narcotics
strike force thing in Tucson. Am I correct? Some sort of Yeah. Can you
tell me what that committee was about and what you tried to do what the
name of the committee was? And well, Jack august, the chairman, and I
don't remember the exact formal title of it. The purpose of the committee
was to look at the conflict between the strike force and GPS and the
county sheriff and some police departments and try to find a a solution to
the tensions. Uh huh. I recall that happened, but I must not have been
paying attention to what was the final
outcome.
I don't have. I suggest the best thing to do would be to get the document
from Jack Dog because we made a report to the legislature urging some
changes.
I understand that
our Let me ask you this was the Strikeforce cooperative with your efforts.
Well, in some ways, yes, we never could get their budget or they're
manning tables.
Yeah. Right. Um
When you when you say manning tables, what does that mean? Does that mean
manpower? There were there 35 employees? You're 100 employees. You're 25.
They have co opted employees, contributed members from a police
department or the Sheriff's office. So we never really knew how many the
individuals were actively engaged in pursuing the strikeforce objectives.
Mhm.
I take it from your answer to the to the to the question about cooperation
that in that in these ways at least they were they were not cooperative or
refused to be cooperative or gave you a song and dance.
I don't know Bill whether the chairman or the requests the committee for
those specifics was ever pressed with them. I just know that we didn't get
that information. Uh huh. Can you tell me what what you found on a general
level to be the problem between the DPS and the in the strike force and
everybody. Oh, it's just turf. That's all the the GPS was in the field
first and the strike force was informed and the strike force is very
jealous of its prerogatives. And because it operated kind of outside of
any budgetary supervision from the legislature, anybody else. It had been
sort of an independent operation. And the strike force just damn sure
didn't want to be consolidated with GPS, which would make the most sense.
And I voted, I think I was in the minority on the committee. I felt we
should tell the legislature to put them together. Uh, there's a great
duplication of effort. There was some apprehension on my part and other
people there about the the files the strikeforce set up. You could get in
that strike force. You might be in it. I might be in their criminal files.
Did this come to your attention while you were doing the investigation?
Yes. Because they entered names on hearsay evidence. They entered names in
their computer on the basis of we'll see an informant Douglas as well. I
happen to know that Bill Leviton has been seeing SAM jones and we all know
SAm jones is a big narcotic dealer. So they put you in there as a person
who is known or no SaM jones. What was the period of that investigation?
The time frame? Oh, it was over. I think Maybe six or 8 months. What year
? I'd have to go look, I think it was two years ago. Okay, asking maybe
you get those dates And I'm foggy on the dates. And we went down and
looked at their operation and they had some good things going, there's no
doubt about it. Uh But they do operate pretty they're not audited by the
state auditor for example. And there is no clear directive to the
strikeforce saying this is your responsibility now do this and don't get
in the way of other people. The aspect which terrified me was the
probability that if both the strikeforce and GPS and uhh some other law
enforcement agency were investigating the same subject, we might have a
situation where one law enforcement officer shoots another in the DPS was
not always informed that the strike force was following a suspect. And the
the strike force was not always aware of the GPS had officers working on
that uh suspicious circumstances. Yeah. Mr Shannon, would you do an
interview with me about just what we've talked about? Oh an on camera
interview bill, I'd have to go and read my notes and and just privately I
was kind of the son of a bit on the
I wasn't overly impressed by the strike force and I felt that it was a
gross duplication of effort, but I don't know that I want to get on camera
with. Well that's you know, I've that's what I'm looking for is kind of
both sides. I'll be talking to people who are really pro, you know pro
that sort of thing. And I strike force, there's a lot of they do a lot of
good things and they have a lot of expertise and their computer capability
is something that the, the uh, DPS should have. But on the other hand, I
found out that most of the information in the strike force computer could
also be had from GPS.
The problem being with GPS, that you had to know what you were looking for.
Yeah. Does that make sense to you? Uh in other words, in the general file
of Watson warrants and arrest, etcetera in GPS, you might not find the
guy's name, but if you call their confidential investigative sections and
said, hey, I'm the chief of Police at Coolidge. And I've got a guy down
here I think might be involved in narcotics and his name is Henry Garcia.
You'd find that DPS had almost as much information as the strike force.
Well, um, I would like to get somebody directly involved in this thing,
you know, on camera saying, you know, whatever you want to say. But I'd
like to get I'd like to get these facts if you consider them to be, you
know, I consider them to be pertinent. And I guess I could stand up there
and say them, but I'd sure like to get you or somebody to well, have you
talked to Jack og No, I haven't, I haven't talked to him. And but he might
not reflect your same opinion. Well, I think there was some others on the
committee who uh who grasped the Ray Shaffer uh, understood that there was
great duplication. Uh, I'm sure that Cynthia Hazleton understood that the
final recommendation was kind of like those things usually are kind of
watered down. Innocuous little recommendation. Uh huh.
Um, how do I reach check? You don't happen to have a number for him, but
he's a judge on the appellate court. Okay, vernon Hoy certainly is well
aware of the of the problem. Is he still in town? Yeah.
Okay. Well, I can't talk you into an interview with me and Bill. I've been
in so damaged trouble after me for so long for a variety of things. And
this is not a great cause with me, some things that I feel very strongly
about one of us the condition of city streets. You know what the city does.
They let any goddamn contractor cut the payment and then they don't say
fix so he fills it with asphalt, concrete and you bump over it because
it's cheaper for you to settle it with your car than it is for him to
Tampa and prepare the surface And then it sinks below the grade and you
bump through it and they're destroyed. If you drive 32nd Street was just
beautiful two years ago, it's now cut and cut and cut in the same is true
of camelback and pavement cuts can be repaired. Aps cut the payment on
first street from Roosevelt for four blocks south and you can't detect
other than the difference in color, but the city just won't demand these
contractors by God fix it right. They won't do it. They won't do it.
Tasers, wow. The roads are, the roads are going to hell. I don't know what
to tell you, But that's an ax. I'd like to grind. I just think it's
terrible. And they had somebody from the city doctor are common. His club
and his response is, well, we don't have the manpower to police and hell.
They gotta give the contractor a permit to cut it.
But if you drive around town, you'll see that what is really destroying a
lot of our roads is the the poor repair of payment.
Well, I can believe it. The problem is who do you juice? You know, who do
you get Ed Hall? Who is he? He's the he's the superintendent, the streets
,
the Superintendent streets. I've got a big file on this damn legislative
committee and I'll try to get it out and go through it and see if I can
find anything there that would really help you? And if I can, I'll make it
available. Okay? Um,
If I do um let me ask you, have we been talking on the record here? Can I
coach verbally or huh? Oh gosh. I'd rather you wouldn't. Okay. Well, what
I decided to do it. I'll do it. But uh, I've just been in so many
controversies, I'd kinda like to stay away from stay low, Keep your head
down. Well let me look back through. All right, well let me urge you to do
it if if you can if you see your way through to it because I've got uh
every time I do stories on this strike force I I'm afraid I look at it
kind of like you do and of course I've um I may not be the exact person to
be doing it, but I got a directive from home relating to do it. So who is
just gonna be the spokesman for the strike force? I'm not sure. I guess
Grimble was down here yesterday on the appropriations committee and
grandma doesn't like me and I don't like him and steve neely doesn't like
me and I'm kind of ambiguous about him. So I don't know. I don't know.
Have you talked to Alan? Oh yes,
Well Alan Schmidt suggested you. Yeah. So that's where we well let me look
back to the notes and see if I can find anything that uh the problem is
that it's not a black and white. Yeah. Well they're not all bad guys. Well
I'm sure they're not but I you know we're starting to you can't just
doesn't seem to me that you can generate that much, press all of a sudden
and not have you know and not be able to come out with some answers
because generally the press, if you give them an answer, you know, that's
logical and you're talking about all these complaints that are surfacing
now. Yeah, I don't know what to do about that. I don't know whether
they're to or are not true. I'm because you can't they won't let you into
their computer. You can't really tell how many innocent people they have
in there. But when they explained to us how you got in the computer, it
became immediately where I think everybody who was on the committee that
there was some danger, Huh? Do you think Jack og might talk to me? How do
you spell his last name? O G O. G. And he's a judge in the appellate court
here in town? Okay. Sandra O'Connor was on and she's in a fella court
judge. Mhm. Okay. Cynthia Hazleton was on that committee. Okay. And
Monsignor Donohoe,
Who might be a good one. And then there's a member of the legislature who
used to be a city police officer. I can't think he's naming him because it
escaped me. But he, you know, he came out of a police background and he
was I think had some strong opinions about it. Okay, Right, well, why
don't you look back at your notes and see what you think and uh if if you
can think you'd like to and let me again urge you then we'll give me a
buzz. Otherwise, I appreciate you talking to me, sir already that way.Mhm