REVENGED BY A SPIDER (THE LORD WORKS IN MYSTERIOUS WAYS..)
Barbara Lightle
"It's not a bomb, but it's still a threat, and I'm getting tired of
these threats," an angry Sheriff Joe Arpaio said Saturday.
The Arizona Republic
April 25, 1999
It was a sculpture when it was outside the artist's home. But when the
metal spider was plopped outside Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio's
front door Saturday, it turned into a possible bomb and needed to be
blown apart.
The iron insect went out with a loud kaboom around 10:30 a.m. Saturday
after being pummeled with water. The Sheriff's Office bomb squad said
the spider sculpture was hollow.
Arpaio said he saw the spider, bomb or no bomb, as a direct threat on
his life.
"It's not a bomb, but it's still a threat, and I'm getting tired of
these threats," an angry Arpaio said outside his northeast Phoenix home,
where the metal spider lay in pieces.
Arpaio said he'd add to the team of investigators looking into death
threats he's received.
The sheriff said the threat might be linked to a Web site whose
operators claim to sympathize with the shooters in the Littleton, Colo.,
massacre.
The Web site listed Arpaio as a hero - and Arpaio fired off a nasty
e-mail ordering his name off the site.
"Spiders live in webs, don't they?" Arpaio said, linking the two events.
"I knew when I sent that e-mail that I would get some sort of
retaliation."
Detectives tracked down the man who made the spider, Thomas Hall, 37,
who said the sculpture was stolen from his front lawn Saturday, probably
by a man with whom he was feuding over a woman.
Hall said he gave the man's name to deputies, but the deputies hadn't
talked with him by Saturday night.
Hall, who lives in the 3300 block of East Saint John Road, said his
friend probably wasn't trying to make any kind of statement against
Arpaio.
"Someone was just trying to create a hassle for me," Hall said.
The Sheriff's Office said it couldn't take any chances and needed to
make sure the insect artwork wasn't set to explode.
The ordeal began around 7 a.m. when Arpaio's wife, Ava, peeked out the
window before getting The Republic and saw the 2-foot-long insect on the
sidewalk, the sheriff said.
"She came in and told me, "There's a bomb outside,' " Arpaio said. "I
looked out . . . and that looked very menacing."
Christine Keith/The Arizona Republic
The troublesome spider was made by Thomas Hall, who said the sculpture
was stolen from his front lawn Saturday.
The Sheriff's Office SWAT team hustled the Arpaios out the back door and
Phoenix police started evacuating neighbors.
Meanwhile, the spider, with a black metal body, brown metal legs and
grilles for eyes, sat staring into the Arpaio home.
A bomb robot, sent over by the Department of Public Safety, scooted up
to the sculpture and shot a projectile into it, causing a loud bang.
A few minutes later, in a scene out of a science-fiction movie, a bomb
squad officer dressed head-to-toe in a protective suit knelt down and
peered into the spider's innards with a flashlight.
"We treat it like it's going to get us," said Deputy Phil Harris, who
went nose-to-nose with the metal spider.
The remote-controlled robot tipped the spider over on its back, setting
it rocking on the asphalt. It then used a water cannon to shoot off its
hind end.
Other bomb squad officers poked around the remains and found nothing
dangerous.
"If it was a prank," Chief Deputy Sheriff Dave Hendershott said, "it was
a damn expensive one."
Meanwhile, deputies about five miles away combed around the spot where
the spider was lifted.
Hall, a machinist whose yard is decorated with the iron artwork he
started making five years ago, said the spider theft comes in the middle
of an ugly domestic dispute. He said this as he loaded his possessions
into a pickup truck, leaving behind his "soon-to-be-ex old lady."
Hall described the man he thinks placed the spider in front of Arpaio's
house as a "drinking buddy I'm not seeing eye-to-eye with right now."
Hall said the man didn't have any particular beef with Arpaio. But he
didn't like the spider too much.
Deputies took Hall to the scene where he could see his destroyed
creation.
"I thought it was cool, because the legs were all up in the air," he
said.
Hall said he told the Sheriff's Office he wants the remains of his
spider back. He said he hopes the water cannon made a good-size artistic
hole in the side.
"I knew my art would get me in the paper someday," he said.
CSOUPKID
>From: blli...@webtv.net (Barbara Lightle)
>Date: 4/26/99 12:49 AM Eastern
ROFLMAO! This is funny shit, Barb! Also, since you mention the Good Lord in
this post, what happened there reminds me of those scriptures that speak of
people fleeing when no one is persuing, and the mighty being brought low by the
small and foolish things. The bomb squad, for a metal spider? he he he!
>Subject: REVENGED BY A SPIDER (THE LORD WORKS IN MYSTERIOUS WAYS..)
>From: blli...@webtv.net (Barbara Lightle)
>Date: 4/26/99 12:49 AM Eastern Daylight Time
>Message-id: <12555-37...@newsd-123.bryant.webtv.net>
