Jeffrey Pataky

PHOENIX – Blogger Jeffrey Pataky is dedicated to ranting about crime – so long as it involves the Phoenix police department.

He’s posted about one officer’s drunken driving arrest and another’s arrest for investigation of sexual exploitation of a minor. He’s also blogged about allegations of racism, corruption and ineptitude.

“Do you have some dirt on the Phoenix PD?” reads one of his blog posts. “Perhaps you have a voicemail or a recording you made of someone in management covering up, lying or trying to cover their ass? Then we want it!”

Now, Pataky says, he’s paying for his public criticism.

Phoenix police raided Pataky’s home last month, seizing computers, electronic records and storage devices. A warrant says Pataky is suspected of felony computer tampering and misdemeanor property theft.

He has another take: “In a nutshell, it was to silence me,” Pataky, a former software executive, told The Associated Press.

Phoenix police won’t comment on the content of the Web site or address Pataky’s allegations, citing an ongoing investigation.

“The department’s stance is we don’t have enough particulars to do an interview,” said Officer James Holmes, a department spokesman. “Because the only thing we’d be saying is, ‘I don’t know. We don’t have a comment.’ ”

The affidavit for the warrant, which would explain the charges, has been sealed.

Pataky, 41, started his blog – called Bad Phoenix Cops – last April “as a personal rant” to vent about the way police handled accusations against him by his ex-wife.

He said he continues to runs the site to expose what he calls corruption and mismanagement on the part of Chief Jack Harris and other department leaders.

Pataky routinely insults individual officers and has bestowed the nickname of “Mr. Potato Head” on one detective he particularly despises, accusing him of cover-ups and racism.

Pataky also has boasted about getting his hands on an internal memo from the city attorney concerning his case and crowed recently that he got a stack of officers’ disciplinary records.

Harris, the chief, is his No. 1 target. “Corruption and Cover-ups are rampant among his Assistant Chiefs and Commanders,” he wrote at one point. “Sexual Liaisons, Drunks, Suicides & Sexual Harassment – all get hidden and ‘swept-under-the-rug’ in Jack Harris’ office. His own Police Union thinks he is inept.”

Pataky said he gets tips and internal memos and critical comments from 50 to 100 former and current officers who support him, and he solicits more.

Mark Spencer, president of the Phoenix Law Enforcement Association, a police union, said the blog is providing an outlet for rank-and-file officers to air frustrations with upper-level mismanagement.

“I think the owner of the Web site is just being honest,” Spencer said. “He feels like he’s been treated unfairly.”

Pataky’s anger with Phoenix police began in 2007 when he was listed as a suspect in complaints filed by his ex-wife, Julie Cioppa.

During their messy divorce and child support and custody battle over their two sons, Cioppa alleged that Pataky had stalked and harassed her, videotaped her at home and at the children’s schools and told their children, “Mommy is going to die soon.”

Pataky denies the allegations. He said in court records that Cioppa was “crazed and bitter and will continually stalk, harass and abuse me.”

Pataky was charged with aggravated harassment and domestic violence after Cioppa said he called her 33 times in violation of an order of protection. A judge dismissed the charges during a trial last May.

Pataky sued Harris, Phoenix police, the city and the mayor in federal court on March 16 because of that investigation. The lawsuit alleges detectives relied on false phone records given to them by Cioppa, rather than certified copies provided by the phone company, in pressing the charges against him.

The lawsuit accuses defendants of malicious prosecution, gross negligence, intentional infliction of emotional distress and defamation of character. He’s seeking unspecified damages.

Police searched Pataky’s home four days before the lawsuit was filed. While Pataky was away, police handcuffed his roommate and drove Pataky’s youngest son to school, according to court records.

“They’re basically on a witch hunt,” Pataky said. “All of a sudden my life is turned upside down and in turmoil. With the raid, when they took my laptops and all my back-ups, they took my entire life. It’s been an emotional toll on me.”

Alessandra Soler Meetze, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona, said her organization is going to look into Pataky’s claims.

“It does certainly set a bad precedent if these actions were based on retaliation,” she said. “It creates a tremendous chilling effect for people who share information online. Hopefully that’s not the case, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it was.”

———

ON THE WEB

Pataky’s blog: badphoenixcops.blogspot.com

Phoenix police: www.phoenix.gov/Police

Phoenix Law Enforcement Association: www.azplea.com

From left to right, Diana Terranova, Dave Sheridan, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, David Storrs and Tori Meyer are seen in chatting while filming an episode of "Smile ...You're Under Arrest!" in this undated handout photo provided by Fox Reality Channel.

America’s self-proclaimed “toughest sheriff” may soon start calling himself the country’s toughest talk-show guest.

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio appeared on “Late Night with Conan O’Brien” Wednesday night to promote his new reality TV show, “Smile … You’re Under Arrest!”

“Smile,” a cross between “Punk’d” and “Cops,” debuted Dec. 27 on Fox Reality Channel.

O’Brien appeared amused and a bit confused by the program, which sets up elaborate sting operations to snare people wanted on outstanding warrants. A clip of “Smile” showed a man being nabbed by Arpaio and several deputies under the guise of getting a free facial, complete with white skin cream and cucumber slices.

“It’s either a brilliant idea,” O’Brien told Arpaio, “or the true sign of the apocalypse, that things are coming apart in this country.”

Later he said: “I really don’t know what’s happening to America.”

Arpaio told O’Brien the idea for the show came from Fox and that he thinks it’s “a great merge of entertainment along with law enforcement.”

O’Brien asked Arpaio about the safety issue of setting up felons.

“It all looks like fun and games; these are felons,” O’Brien said. “Aren’t you worried that you’re going to go, ‘Ha ha. Got you!’ and the guy is going to freak out on you and hurt somebody?”

Arpaio said each of the felons on the show sign an agreement to be on TV, and that “they love it.”

O’Brien also brought up Arpaio’s public image.

“You’re quite a controversial, polarizing figure, you’ll admit that,” O’Brien said. “You’ve done a lot of things in your state that have a lot of people upset.”

O’Brien then asked Arpaio about some of his more controversial policies, including issuing pink underwear to jail inmates, reinstating chain gangs, and allowing inmates to watch only The Weather Channel, the Food Network and C-SPAN.

Arpaio told O’Brien that inmates have to wear pink underwear because they hate the color and have to watch The Weather Channel to remind them of how hot it is, the Food Network “to show them what they’re missing,” and C-SPAN because it’s “cruel and unusual punishment.”

The nation votes

The nation votes

Images from around America, as voters lined up to cast ballots and politicians delivered last stump speeches.

Producer: DYLAN SMITH/Tucson Citizen

Slide 1 of 20.
With the Chicago skyline as a backdrop, workers prepare the stage in Grant Park for the election night party for Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., at Grant Park in Chicago.
Source: The Associated PressSlide 2 of 20.
Customers enjoy a dance in the Ollie Hayes pub as they watch the election results in Moneygall, Ireland, Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2008. The town of Moneygall, is known to be an ancestral home of Brack Obama were local people have taken a keen interest in the elections. The local church has records of Obama's ancestral past in the town, and the US presidential election has provoked great interest.
Source: The Associated PressSlide 3 of 20.
Supporters cheer as they hear results from television that President-elect Barack Obama has been elected President of the United States at his election night party at Grant Park in Chicago.
Source: The Associated PressSlide 4 of 20.
Supporters cheer as they hear results from television that President-elect Barack Obama has been elected President of the United States at his election night party at Grant Park in Chicago.
Source: The Associated PressSlide 5 of 20.
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill. talks to his daughter Malia as he casts his votes at a polling place in Chicago, Tuesday.
Source: The Associated PressSlide 6 of 20.
Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., speaks to the crowd at a rally at Great Southwest Aviation in Roswell, N.M., on the eve of the general election on Monday.
Source: The Associated PressSlide 7 of 20.
A poll worker in Madison, Miss., reaches out with an "I voted" sticker for a voter to put on his shirt Tuesday.
Source: The Associated PressSlide 8 of 20.
Sean "Diddy" Combs emerges from a voting booth after casting his ballot at a polling station at Coalition High School in New York.
Source: The Associated PressSlide 9 of 20.
Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., accompanied by his wife Cindy, votes in the 2008 presidential election at the Albright United Methodist Church in Phoenix, Ariz., Tuesday.
Source: The Associated PressSlide 10 of 20.
Dixville Notch residents wait for the stoke of midnight to be the first voters for the nation's presidential election. The New Hampshire hamlet chose Obama over McCain, 15-6 votes.
Source: The Associated PressSlide 11 of 20.
Voters line up before 6 a.m. outside the City Hall East voting precinct in Richmond, Va.
Source: The Associated PressSlide 12 of 20.
Sheryl Salvadore walks "Mojo" her five-month-old, Obama-sign wearing Australian Shepherd outside a polling place Tuesday Nov. 4, 2008 in Fishhawk Ranch, Fla.
Source: The Associated PressSlide 13 of 20.
Kennedy School student Colten Vander Meulen, marks his ballot in support of US Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., during a mock election at school Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2008 in Dubuque, Iowa.
Source: The Associated PressSlide 14 of 20.
Templeharry Church of Ireland rector Stephen Neill with the record books of births and marriages that contains details of distant ancestors of Senator Barack Obama in the town of Moneygall, Ireland, Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2008. The town of Moneygall , is the ancestral home of Brack Obama where local people have taken a keen interest in the US elections.
Source: The Associated PressSlide 15 of 20.
Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., addresses supporters from the steps of the Yavapai County Court House during a campaign rally in Prescott on Monday night.
Source: The Associated PressSlide 16 of 20.
Harris County Commissioner Steve Radack hands out plungers to passersby at Westcott and Memorial Nov. 4, 2008 in Houston, Texas. Radack, a Republican, bought more than 1,000 plungers to give away as a reference to "Joe the Plumber" in support of the McCain/Palin ticket.
Source: The Associated PressSlide 17 of 20.
Democratic vice-presidential candidate, Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del. delivers his election eve speech at Copley High School in Copley, Ohio.
Source: The Associated PressSlide 18 of 20.
Alaskan governor Sarah Palin speaks during her campaign stop at the Reno, Nev., Livestock Events Center Monday.
Source: The Associated PressSlide 19 of 20.
With the Sears Tower looming in the background at left, workers install bullet-proof glass on the stage near the podium for Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., as the final preparation are made for election night in Grant Park.
Source: The Associated PressSlide 20 of 20.

Related: McCain wins Arizona but loses presidency

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., gestures as he concedes the presidential race at a rally in Phoenix.

Arizona may be the only state where mothers can’t tell their children they can grow up to be president. It’s an old joke that John McCain liked to tell on the campaign trail. It now rings true.

McCain follows in the footsteps of Republican Barry Goldwater and Democrats Mo Udall and Bruce Babbitt — Arizonans who lost presidential bids. The consolation prize for McCain — he managed to defeat Barack Obama in his home state Tuesday and came closer to the White House than any Arizonan since Goldwater.

“The American people have spoken, and they have spoken clearly,” McCain told supporters at the Arizona Biltmore. “Today I was a candidate for the highest office in the country I love so much, and tonight I remain her servant — that is blessing enough for anyone and I thank the people of Arizona for it.”

With 91 percent of precincts reporting, McCain had 53.9 percent of the vote in Arizona to Obama’s 45 percent.

“John McCain solidified his base here in Arizona,” said Doug Cole, who interned for McCain when he was a congressman in 1985 and worked on most of his elections ever since. “He’s well-liked here in Arizona, and I think the results exemplify that.”

Cole said it’s time for the country to rally around Obama, “as John McCain so eloquently said in his speech tonight.”

“That was probably John McCain’s best speech, it was magnificent,” he said. “It was a speech about closure and, you know, the election’s over now and we need to move on and we need to back our president, and that’s a great message.”

He said it’s too early to talk about McCain’s political future beyond 2010, but “John McCain is a world figure and will remain so as long as he wants to remain so.”

Arizona State University pollster Bruce Merrill predicted the major statistic that factored into McCain’s Arizona win will be age.

“We have a lot of older people, and a lot of older veteran people,” he said. “You’ve got to keep in mind that the same winds that blow across the rest of the country blow across Arizona.”

As far as McCain’s political future, Merrill said he’ll become the most powerful Republican senator in the country. “He’s the titular head of the Republican party for the next couple of years,” he said.

Arizona’s state historian, Marshall Trimble, said he wasn’t surprised McCain carried Arizona.

“He should have,” he said. “This is his state. I thought it might be close because the Democrats have been very strong in Arizona. We’ve been well-served by Democrats — and I’m a Republican.”

Trimble said he hopes McCain stays in politics. His term in the Senate is up in 2010.

This race was a bit tighter than McCain’s previous contests in Arizona, reflecting changes in the state’s population. McCain had never lost an election here and won his last two re-election races with more than two-thirds of the vote.

McCain never relinquished the reliable and sizable base that has long supported him in Arizona.

“I think he’s very honest, very truthful,” said Ruth Naliborski, 55, of Flagstaff. “He’s done a great job as our senator.”

Arizona saw a modest amount of TV advertising from the campaigns and few public appearances by the candidates. The race here centered largely on lining up volunteers, canvassing neighborhoods, working phone banks and handing out yard signs to supporters. Both campaigns had dispatched volunteers from Arizona to campaign in nearby states, such as New Mexico.

For the Republican candidate, the goal was to tap into his political base here without spending a lot of money, so contributions from Arizona could be sent to McCain efforts in more competitive states. The Obama campaign staked its hopes in Arizona on thousands of volunteers and a belief that McCain was vulnerable back home.

With less than a week before the election, as a reputable poll showed the race tightening, Obama bought air time on local TV in Arizona. Previously, the only ads running in Arizona were part of national commercial buys that happened to run here.

Alex Corral, a registered Democrat who supported Bush in 2004, cast a vote in Tempe for Obama this time.

“I’m more or less looking for change like everybody else,” Corral said.

Political scientists and the McCain campaign said that if Arizona hadn’t been McCain’s home state, it would probably have stood with Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada as battleground states in the West where both campaigns invested heavily.

Arizona has a long history of supporting Republican presidential candidates. Bill Clinton in 1996 became the first Democrat to prevail here since Harry Truman in 1948. George W. Bush carried the state as the Republican nominee in 2000 and 2004.

Since the 2004 election, the state’s political dynamics have changed in a subtle way.

While Republicans still make up the largest political group in Arizona, their strength in voter registration has slipped 2 percentage points since 2004. Democratic registration dipped less than 1 percentage point since then.

The most significant change came among Independents, who now account for 27 percent of all voters, compared to their nearly 25 percent in late 2004.

Associated Press Writer Jacques Billeaud contributed to this report.Barack’s big win

Obama’s big win

Around the country and around the world, many celebrated the election of Barack Obama to the White House.

Producer: JUDY CARLOCK and DYLAN SMITH/Tucson Citizen

Slide 1 of 19.
President-elect Barack Obama speaks in Chicago.
Source: The Associated PressSlide 2 of 19.
President-elect Barack Obama speaks in Chicago.
Source: The Associated PressSlide 3 of 19.
A sea of supporters wait for Obama to speak.
Source: The Associated PressSlide 4 of 19.
Vice president-elect Joe Biden holds one his grand-daughters during President-elect Barack Obama's election night party.
Source: The Associated PressSlide 5 of 19.
Oprah Winfrey waits with Stedman Graham at the election night party for President-elect Barack Obama at Grant Park in Chicago, Tuesday night.
Source: The Associated PressSlide 6 of 19.
Michelle Moore, of Boise, takes a picture of her husband Tom Moore, as he stands with a Barack Obama life size cutout at the Idaho Democratic Headquarters at the Hilton Garden Inn in Boise, Idaho.
Source: The Associated PressSlide 7 of 19.
The crowd reacts as it is announced on television that Barack Obama has been elected the President of the United States at his election night party at Grant Park in Chicago, Tuesday night.
Source: The Associated PressSlide 8 of 19.
Christine King Farris, sister of civil-rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., is embraced by Rushie Jones after a cable news channel projected Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama as the winner during an election-night party at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Tuesday.
Source: The Associated PressSlide 9 of 19.
Jesse Jackson weeps as returns come in.
Source: The Associated PressSlide 10 of 19.
A group in Japan celebrates Obama's win.
Source: The Associated PressSlide 11 of 19.
A member of Democrats Abroad in the Philippines gestures as she watches results leading to the predicted victory of Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama during an election watch in suburban Manila, Philippines on Wednesday.
Source: The Associated PressSlide 12 of 19.
Kenyan family members of U.S. Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama celebrate after his victory in the U.S. election was announced, at the family's homestead in Kogelo village, Kenya. The village is where Obama's step-grandmother lives. Barack Obama's Kenyan family erupted in cheers Wednesday, singing "We are going to the White House!" as Obama became the first African-American elected president in the United States.
Source: The Associated PressSlide 13 of 19.
Emily Berkson, from Chicago, left, and Krista Anne Nordgren from Chapel Hill, N.C. watch the speech of President-Elect Barack Obama in an overflow area of Grant Park.
Source: The Associated PressSlide 14 of 19.
Obama celebrates with his daughter, Malia.
Source: The Associated PressSlide 15 of 19.
U.S. Army Sgt. Patrick Kopecky, 24, from Manitowoc, Wis., left, phones home as a television broadcasts U.S. President-elect Barack Obama's acceptance speech at Forward Operating Base Marez in Mosul, Iraq
Source: The Associated PressSlide 16 of 19.
Obama kisses his wife, Michelle, after his acceptance speech.
Source: The Associated PressSlide 17 of 19.
Marissa Wilkes, left, and Ladona Miller react as they learn of Barack Obama's victory during an election party for Senator-elect Kay Hagan in Greensboro, N.C., Tuesday.
Source: The Associated PressSlide 18 of 19.
The marquee of the famous Apollo theater proclaims the victory of President-elect Barack Obama early Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2008 in the Harlem section of New York.
Source: The Associated PressSlide 19 of 19.
In Phoenix, U.S. Sen. John McCain, with running mate Sarah Palin, reassured crowds at the Arizona Biltmore, silencing when they booed Sen. Barack Obama.
Source: The Associated Press

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McCain’s Concession

Text of Republican John McCain’s concession speech Tuesday in Phoenix, as transcribed by CQ Transcriptions.

———

MCCAIN: Thank you. Thank you, my friends. Thank you for coming here on this beautiful Arizona evening.

My friends, we have — we have come to the end of a long journey. The American people have spoken, and they have spoken clearly.

A little while ago, I had the honor of calling Senator Barack Obama to congratulate him.

(BOOING)

Please.

To congratulate him on being elected the next president of the country that we both love.

In a contest as long and difficult as this campaign has been, his success alone commands my respect for his ability and perseverance. But that he managed to do so by inspiring the hopes of so many millions of Americans who had once wrongly believed that they had little at stake or little influence in the election of an American president is something I deeply admire and commend him for achieving.

This is an historic election, and I recognize the special significance it has for African-Americans and for the special pride that must be theirs tonight.

I’ve always believed that America offers opportunities to all who have the industry and will to seize it. Senator Obama believes that, too.

But we both recognize that, though we have come a long way from the old injustices that once stained our nation’s reputation and denied some Americans the full blessings of American citizenship, the memory of them still had the power to wound.

A century ago, President Theodore Roosevelt’s invitation of Booker T. Washington to dine at the White House was taken as an outrage in many quarters.

America today is a world away from the cruel and frightful bigotry of that time. There is no better evidence of this than the election of an African-American to the presidency of the United States.

Let there be no reason now … Let there be no reason now for any American to fail to cherish their citizenship in this, the greatest nation on Earth.

Senator Obama has achieved a great thing for himself and for his country. I applaud him for it, and offer him my sincere sympathy that his beloved grandmother did not live to see this day. Though our faith assures us she is at rest in the presence of her creator and so very proud of the good man she helped raise.

Senator Obama and I have had and argued our differences, and he has prevailed. No doubt many of those differences remain.

These are difficult times for our country. And I pledge to him tonight to do all in my power to help him lead us through the many challenges we face.

I urge all Americans … I urge all Americans who supported me to join me in not just congratulating him, but offering our next president our good will and earnest effort to find ways to come together to find the necessary compromises to bridge our differences and help restore our prosperity, defend our security in a dangerous world, and leave our children and grandchildren a stronger, better country than we inherited.

Whatever our differences, we are fellow Americans. And please believe me when I say no association has ever meant more to me than that.

It is natural. It’s natural, tonight, to feel some disappointment. But tomorrow, we must move beyond it and work together to get our country moving again.

We fought — we fought as hard as we could. And though we feel short, the failure is mine, not yours.

AUDIENCE: No!

MCCAIN: I am so…

AUDIENCE: (CHANTING)

MCCAIN: I am so deeply grateful to all of you for the great honor of your support and for all you have done for me. I wish the outcome had been different, my friends.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: We do, too (OFF-MIKE)

MCCAIN: The road was a difficult one from the outset, but your support and friendship never wavered. I cannot adequately express how deeply indebted I am to you.

I’m especially grateful to my wife, Cindy, my children, my dear mother … my dear mother and all my family, and to the many old and dear friends who have stood by my side through the many ups and downs of this long campaign.

I have always been a fortunate man, and never more so for the love and encouragement you have given me.

You know, campaigns are often harder on a candidate’s family than on the candidate, and that’s been true in this campaign.

All I can offer in compensation is my love and gratitude and the promise of more peaceful years ahead.

I am also — I am also, of course, very thankful to Governor Sarah Palin, one of the best campaigners I’ve ever seen … one of the best campaigners I have ever seen, and an impressive new voice in our party for reform and the principles that have always been our greatest strength … her husband Todd and their five beautiful children … for their tireless dedication to our cause, and the courage and grace they showed in the rough and tumble of a presidential campaign.

We can all look forward with great interest to her future service to Alaska, the Republican Party and our country.

To all my campaign comrades, from Rick Davis and Steve Schmidt and Mark Salter, to every last volunteer who fought so hard and valiantly, month after month, in what at times seemed to be the most challenged campaign in modern times, thank you so much. A lost election will never mean more to me than the privilege of your faith and friendship.

I don’t know — I don’t know what more we could have done to try to win this election. I’ll leave that to others to determine. Every candidate makes mistakes, and I’m sure I made my share of them. But I won’t spend a moment of the future regretting what might have been.

This campaign was and will remain the great honor of my life, and my heart is filled with nothing but gratitude for the experience and to the American people for giving me a fair hearing before deciding that Senator Obama and my old friend Senator Joe Biden should have the honor of leading us for the next four years.

(BOOING)

Please. Please.

I would not — I would not be an American worthy of the name should I regret a fate that has allowed me the extraordinary privilege of serving this country for a half a century.

Today, I was a candidate for the highest office in the country I love so much. And tonight, I remain her servant. That is blessing enough for anyone, and I thank the people of Arizona for it.

AUDIENCE: USA. USA. USA. USA.

MCCAIN: Tonight — tonight, more than any night, I hold in my heart nothing but love for this country and for all its citizens, whether they supported me or Senator Obama — whether they supported me or Senator Obama.

I wish Godspeed to the man who was my former opponent and will be my president. And I call on all Americans, as I have often in this campaign, to not despair of our present difficulties, but to believe, always, in the promise and greatness of America, because nothing is inevitable here.

Americans never quit. We never surrender.

We never hide from history. We make history.

Thank you, and God bless you, and God bless America. Thank you all very much.

By Amanda Lee Myers, Andrew Bagnato

Voters line up Tuesday morning outside of the Church of the Painted Hills, 3295 W. Speedway. Those in line at 7 a.m. faced a 45-minute wait to cast their ballots.

In presidential politics this year, the race for Arizona looked as though it was going to be a sleeper, because Republican John McCain had spent more than two decades building a network of supporters here.

The assumption seemed safe, given that McCain had never lost an election here and won his last two re-election races with more than two-thirds of the vote.

Then things heated up in the final weeks of the campaign, when Democrat Barack Obama gained momentum around the nation and polls in Arizona showed that McCain’s lead was narrowing — and that the race for the state was closer than previously thought.

Until that point, Arizona saw a modest amount of TV advertising from the campaigns and few public appearances by the candidates. The race here centered largely on lining up volunteers, canvassing neighborhoods, working phone banks and handing out yard signs to supporters. Both campaigns had dispatched volunteers from Arizona to campaign in nearby states, such as New Mexico.

For the Republican candidate, the goal was to tap into his political base here without spending a lot of money, so contributions from Arizona could be sent to McCain efforts in more competitive states. The Obama campaign staked its hopes in Arizona on thousands of volunteers and a belief that McCain was vulnerable back home.

With less than a week before the election, as a reputable poll showed the race tightening, Obama bought air time on local TV in Arizona. Previously, the only ads running in Arizona were part of national commercial buys that happened to run here.

McCain, whose last public appearance in Arizona had been in late August, held a rally in Prescott on Monday. Most of his return visits during the campaign were spent at his weekend getaway near Sedona.

Political scientists and the McCain campaign said that if Arizona hadn’t been McCain’s home state, it would probably stand with Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada as battleground states in the West where both campaigns invested heavily.

Arizona has a long history of supporting Republican presidential candidates. Bill Clinton in 1996 became the first Democrat to prevail here since Harry Truman in 1948. George W. Bush carried the state as the Republican nominee in 2000 and 2004.

Since the 2004 election, the state’s political dynamics have changed in a subtle way.

While Republicans still make up the largest political group in Arizona, their strength in voter registration has slipped 2 percentage points since 2004. Democratic registration dipped less than 1 percentage point since then.

The most significant change came among Independents, who now account for 27 percent of all voters, compared to their nearly 25 percent in late 2004.

Associated Press Writer Jacques Billeaud contributed to this report.

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RESULTS MAP

Get updated national election results at tucsoncitizen.com/election

PHOENIX – Arizona has been a disappointment to anti-gay marriage activists since 2006, when the state became the first in the nation to reject a ballot measure banning same-sex marriage.

Those same opponents are hoping for redemption Tuesday, when Arizona voters again will have to decide whether they want the state’s constitution to be amended to define marriage as a union between one man and one woman.

“It actually helped us out having it fail the first time because it allowed us to raise more money,” said state Sen. Ron Gould, a Republican and prime sponsor of this year’s measure, which was put on the ballot by the Legislature. “It just motivates people to put the remote down, get out of the La-Z-Boy and do something.”

Twenty-seven states have approved anti-gay marriage ballot measures, including seven in 2006. Similar measures are being considered in California and Florida this year.

Although Arizona voters turned down the 2006 measure, there is a big difference between that one and this year’s measure, Proposition 102.

The 2006 initiative went beyond banning gay marriage. It also would have barred government entities from providing employee benefits to unmarried couples living together – also known as civil unions or domestic partnerships.

A poll after the 2006 vote found that a majority, 60 percent, of those who voted against the measure said they thought it violated individual rights.

This year’s measure, as its backers point out, is 20 words: “Only a union of one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in this state.”

“The simplicity of the amendment is what’s going to help it pass,” said Austin Nimocks, senior legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, one of the backers of the anti-gay marriage measure.

Those 20 words would be added to the state’s constitution if Proposition 102 passes. The state already has a law, enacted in 1996 and upheld in 2003 by a state appellate court, that defines marriage as a union of one man and one woman.

Backers say they want the constitutional change because they’re trying to prevent judges from legislating from the bench and overturning it.

Opponents see the Arizona initiative as pouring salt on a wound.

“It’s clearly discriminatory, it’s clearly hurtful, and we see this as something that is unfair, unneeded, and a complete waste of time, energy, and resources,” said Marty Rouse, national field director for the Human Rights Campaign, a gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender civil rights organization.

Democratic state Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, chairwoman of the group opposing the gay marriage ban, said Arizonans are not worried about same-sex marriage.

“Arizona voters have really important issues on their minds,” she said. “They’re concerned about the economy, they’re concerned about the mortgage crisis, they’re concerned about gas prices. Heck, they’re concerned about the price of milk these days.

“The state Legislature chose to ignore those pressing problems and instead decided to spend time debating an issue voters already decided in 2006,” she said.

Republican presidential candidate John McCain, an Arizona senator, opposes an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to ban gay marriage but supports the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which denies federal recognition of same-sex marriages and gives states the right to refuse to recognize such marriages.

McCain spokeswoman Ivette Barajas said McCain supports Proposition 102 and believes gay marriage is an issue that should be decided by each state. “John McCain has always held the position that marriage is between one man and one woman,” Barajas said.

A recent statewide poll of 976 registered voters found that 49 percent of those surveyed would support the proposal. Forty-two percent said they would vote against it, and 9 percent were undecided.

The poll was conducted Sept. 25 through Sept. 28 by KAET-TV and Arizona State University. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

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On the web

• YesForMarriage.com

• Arizona Together: www.aztogether.org

Tony Hillerman

PHOENIX – Tony Hillerman, author of the acclaimed Navajo Tribal Police mystery novels and creator of two of the unlikeliest of literary heroes — Navajo police officers Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee —died Sunday of pulmonary failure. He was 83.

Hillerman’s daughter, Anne Hillerman, said her father’s health had been declining in the last couple years and that he was at Presbyterian Hospital in Albuquerque when he died at about 3 p.m.

Hillerman lived through two heart attacks and surgeries for prostate and bladder cancer. He kept tapping at his keyboard even as his eyes began to dim, as his hearing faded, as rheumatoid arthritis turned his hands into claws.

“I’m getting old,” he declared in 2002, “but I still like to write.”

Anne Hillerman said Sunday that her father was a born storyteller.

“He had such a wonderful, wonderful curiosity about the world,” she said. “He could take little details and bring them to life, not just in his books, but in conversation, too.”

Lt. Joe Leaphorn, introduced in “The Blessing Way” in 1970, was an experienced police officer who understood, but did not share, his people’s traditional belief in a rich spirit world. Officer Jim Chee, introduced in “People of Darkness” in 1978, was a younger officer studying to become a “hathaali” — Navajo for “shaman.”

Together, they struggled daily to bridge the cultural divide between the dominant Anglo society and the impoverished people who call themselves the Dineh.

Hillerman’s commercial breakthrough was “Skinwalkers,” published in 1987 — the first time he put both characters and their divergent world views in the same book. It sold 430,000 hardcover copies, paving the way for “A Thief of Time,” which made several best seller lists. In all, he wrote 18 books in the Navajo series, the most recent titled “The Shape Shifter.”

Each is characterized by an unadorned writing style, intricate plotting, memorable characterization and vivid descriptions of Indian rituals and of the vast plateau of the Navajo reservation in the Four Corners region of the Southwest.

The most acclaimed of them, including “Talking God” and “The Coyote Waits,” are subtle explorations of human nature and the conflict between cultural assimilation and the pull of the old ways.

“I want Americans to stop thinking of Navajos as primitive persons, to understand that they are sophisticated and complicated,” Hillerman once said.

Occasionally, he was accused of exploiting his knowledge of Navajo culture for personal gain, but in 1987, the Navajo Tribal Council honored him with its Special Friend of the Dineh award. He took greater pride in that, he often said, than in the many awards bestowed by his peers, including the Golden Spur Award from Western Writers of America and the Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America, which elected him its president.

Hollywood was less kind to Hillerman. Its adaptation of his 1981 novel, “Dark Wind,” with Lou Diamond Phillips and Fred Ward regrettably cast as Jim Chee and Joe Leaphorn, was a bomb.

Although Hillerman was best-known for the Navajo series, he wrote more than 30 books, including a novel for young people; the memoir, “Seldom Disappointed”; and books on the history and natural beauty of his beloved Southwest.

“Those places that stir me are empty and lonely,” he wrote in “The Spell of New Mexico,” a collection of his essays. “They invoke a sense of both space and strangeness, and all have about them a sort of fierce inhospitality.”

He also edited or contributed to more than a dozen other books including crime and history anthologies and books on the craft of writing.

Born May 27, 1925, in Sacred Heart, Okla., population 50, Tony Hillerman was the son of August and Lucy Grove Hillerman. They were farmers who also ran a small store. It was there that young Tony listened spellbound to locals who gathered to tell their stories.

The teacher at Sacred Heart’s one-room school house was rumored to be a member of the Ku Klux Klan, so Tony’s parents sent him and his brother, Barney, to St. Mary’s Academy, a school for Potawatomie Indian girls near Asher, Okla. It was at St. Mary’s that he developed a lifelong respect for Indian culture — and an appreciation of what it means to be an outsider in your own land.

In 1943, he interrupted his education at the University of Oklahoma to join the Army. He lugged his mortar ashore at D-Day with the 103rd Infantry Division and was severely wounded in battle at Alsace, France. He returned from Europe a genuine war hero with a Silver Star with Oak Leaf Cluster, temporary blindness and two shattered legs that never stopped causing him pain.

He returned to the university for his degree and, in 1948, married Marie Unzer. Together, they raised six children, five of them adopted.

As a young man, he farmed, drove a truck, toiled as an oil field roughneck and worked as a reporter and editor for the Borger News-Herald in Borger, Texas; the Morning Press-Constitution in Lawton, Okla.; United Press International in Oklahoma City; and the Santa Fe New Mexican, where he rose to executive editor. He quit in 1962 to earn a master’s degree from the University of New Mexico, where he later taught journalism and eventually became chairman of the journalism department. In 1993, he was inducted into the Oklahoma Journalism Hall of Fame.

Hillerman was still teaching when he wrote his first novel, “Blessing Way.” A story that always made him chuckle: His first agent advised him that if he wanted to get published, he would have to “get rid of that Indian stuff.”

Hillerman is survived by his wife, Marie, and their six children. Services are pending.

Associated Press Writer Amanda Lee Myers contributed to this report from Phoenix.

Approximately 50 tourists and Havasupai Tribe members spent the night in a shelter after being lifted out of a flood-devastated gorge off the side of the Grand Canyon by helicopters.

Tracey Kiest, a spokeswoman for the American Red Cross, said the shelter was located in a gymnasium in Peach Springs. She said they were making preparations for the possibility of accomodating more people, adding that the shelter would be in operation as long as it was needed.

Some people who were believed to be in the side canyon along Supai Creek were unaccounted for after the flood struck on Sunday. However, there were no reports of injuries.

Rescuers planned to evaluate weather conditions and the level of flooding Monday morning before deciding when they could safely resume air evacuations, said Grand Canyon National Park spokeswoman Maureen Oltrogge.

On Sunday, Cedar Hemmings and his small party returned from a hike to the spot where they had tied their rafts and discovered they were stranded by the flood.

“We were basically stuck up the canyon without our rafts,” he said. “We had no supplies, no food and very little water, we lost everything.”

The area of northern Arizona got 3 to 6 inches of rain Friday and Saturday and about 2 inches more on Sunday, said Daryl Onton, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Flagstaff. Early Monday, about 0.80 of an inch more fell on the area, the weather service said.

“That’s all it took — just a few days of very heavy thunderstorms,” Onton said.

About 6 a.m. Sunday, the Redlands Earthen Dam about 45 miles upstream from the Havasupai village of Supai broke, park officials said. The dam isn’t a “huge, significant” structure and its rupture was only one factor in the flooding, said Gerry Blair, a spokesman for the Coconino County Sheriff’s Department.

Hemmings and his group were airlifted out of the scenic gorge by helicopter Sunday, along with about 170 other people.

Rescuers worked throughout Sunday to locate campers and Supai Village residents and evacuate them to the top of the canyon. About 400 Havasupai tribe members live in the village.

Dozens of people spent the night at an American Red Cross evacuation center set up in the Hualapai Tribal Gymnasium in Peach Springs.

Many residents and campers chose to stay in Supai, Blair said. There were no confirmed reports of damage in Supai, which is on high ground, he said.

“We’re not as concerned about it as we initially were,” he said.

Some hiking trails and footbridges were washed out and trees were uprooted, according to park officials and the weather service.

Supai is about 75 miles west of Grand Canyon Village, the popular gateway to Grand Canyon National Park.

In 2001, flooding near Supai swept a 2-year-old boy and his parents to their deaths while they were hiking.

A Border Patrol agent examines the grate on a drainage tunnel under the border in Nogales, Ariz.

Three illegal immigrants were rescued after they became trapped by flood waters in tunnels running under the Nogales port of entry on the Arizona-Mexico border, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection said Sunday.

The first rescue occurred Saturday evening when officers heard cries for help and found a 27-year-old Mexican man pinned against a tunnel wall by flood waters, agency spokesman Brian Levin said.

Officers removed several grates, lowered a rope and helped the man climb to safety.

Later that night, officers heard more cries for help coming from the same flood-control channels under the port. They found a 15-year-old boy and a 17-year-old boy trapped by the water.

With help from the officers, the Mexican teens reached a ladder and climbed out.

“They were down there screaming for help,” Levin said. “People can get trapped in there, they have no way out. They’re at the mercy of Mother Nature at that point.”

The man was returned to Mexico and the teens were taken to the Mexican Consulate.

Levin said severe rains flooded the streets and buildings on the Mexican side of the border Saturday, causing extensive damage and even a 10- to 15-foot-wide sinkhole.

The damage forced the closure of one pedestrian crossing and the port of entry’s SENTRI lane — reserved for low-risk border crossers — until damage assessment and repairs can be made. Other vehicle lanes and a pedestrian crossing remained open, and Levin said there were no back-ups.

Levin said the sinkhole was discovered after a commercial bus began to sink into the ground. Passengers were let out and the driver backed the bus out of the hole. Shortly after, a sport-utility vehicle tried to drive down the same lane and got stuck in the hole.

No one was hurt.

Levin said monsoonal rains lead to illegal immigrants getting trapped or killed in tunnels on a yearly basis.

“It’s a massive amount of water coming all at once and it washes people downstream,” he said. “When you’re talking about the amount of water and the force, the danger’s extreme.”

FLAGSTAFF – Federal investigators probing a midair collision between two medical helicopters near Flagstaff Medical Center were at the scene Tuesday assessing what pieces of wreckage they should collect for further analysis in Washington.

The effort comes two days after the choppers collided as they approached the hospital, killing three people on each and leaving a flight nurse in critical condition.

A spokesman with the National Transportation Safety Board said investigators will carefully document the wreckage of the two Bell 407 helicopters and photograph the scene. They continue to conduct interviews with witnesses.

The sole survivor of the crash is James Taylor, 36, of Salt Lake City. He remained in critical condition at the Flagstaff hospital Tuesday morning.

NTSB investigators arrived in Flagstaff on Monday to begin the monthslong process of looking for a cause. They are examining the wreckage and they will also look at the video from a surveillance camera from a hospital parking lot that captured the crash, but it will require technical work to remove the time stamp that blocks footage of the collision.

The collision was only the second midair crash involving a medical helicopter in the past 25 years, and the first that involved two medical aircraft, said Ian Gregor, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration. It was the ninth accident this year involving emergency medical aircraft, bringing the number of deaths to 16, NTSB officials said.

One of the helicopters in the Flagstaff collision was coming from the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, about 70 air miles from Flagstaff, farther by ground. The other chopper was coming from Winslow, about 50 miles away on Interstate 40.

The patient on the helicopter from the Grand Canyon was a firefighter who had suffered anaphylactic shock — a life-threatening allergic reaction — from a treatment he received for a bug bite, authorities said. No information was released on the other patient’s injuries.

Three people died on each of the two helicopters: the pilot, the patient and a flight nurse on one chopper, the pilot, the patient and a paramedic on the other.

PHOENIX – By limiting manmade floods of the Grand Canyon, a watchdog group says the Interior Department is ignoring environmental concerns in favor of power companies.

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, or PEER, released a series of letters Wednesday that the Washington, D.C.-based group says backs up its assertions.

The letters stem from statements made by Grand Canyon Superintendent Steve Martin, who repeatedly has said the science is clear — the massive gorge needs to be flooded every one to two years to restore the ecosystem of the Colorado River below the Glen Canyon Dam.

That statement contradicts the Interior Department’s stance that too little is known about the manmade floods to regularize them.

PEER says Martin’s stance also irks companies that use the dam for hydropower. The floods impact hydropower revenues.

A federal judge on Monday issued a temporary order blocking the town of Cave Creek from enforcing a law aimed at stopping day laborers from gathering on streets to look for work.

In her ruling, U.S. District Judge Roslyn Silver found that the ordinance is an unconstitutional restriction of free speech, and that the possibility of irreparable harm exists.

“Plaintiffs, as day laborers, face not only the loss of First Amendment freedoms, but also the loss of employment opportunities necessary to support themselves and their families,” Silver wrote in the ruling.

The decision prohibits the Town Marshall and the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office, which provides police protection for Cave Creek, from enforcing the ordinance until a lawsuit filed in March is settled.

The lawsuit was filed by three day laborers who are in the country legally. They say the ordinance restricts the free speech rights of people trying to find work as day laborers.

Cave Creek Mayor Vincent Francia said he voted to approve the ordinance in September because it’s unsafe to have day laborers waiting along streets to look for work.

“This affects us in the sense that if our law enforcement people, the sheriff’s deputies and the Town Marshall, saw what they see as a violation of the ordinance, they would not be able to enforce it,” he said.

Dan Pochoda, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, one of the group’s representing the day laborers, called the judge’s ruling a victory.

“We feel the judge properly found that it was an unconstitutional restriction on speech and that it was based on a history of anti-immigrant feelings, and not based on any valid traffic concerns as stated by the town,” he said.

Last year, the Arizona Legislature approved a proposal that would have made it a trespassing offense for day laborers to seek work on public streets and sidewalks. Gov. Janet Napolitano vetoed the bill, saying she recognizes the need to confront illegal hirings, but that the proposal was discriminatory.

Police are hunting for a serial predator who has been linked to four unsolved attacks on women in Phoenix and nearby Mesa, including two unsolved killings.

“We would absolutely like to find this person and get him off the streets before he has a chance to harm anyone else,” Mesa police Detective Steve Berry said Monday.

The newest case to be linked to the crime spree occurred Nov. 4 when a 35-year-old woman was kidnapped, taken to an alley in central Phoenix, raped and beaten, said Phoenix police Detective Reuben Gonzales.

He said investigators believe the woman was left in the alley for dead. She survived with injuries to her head, neck and torso, Gonzales said.

Berry said DNA evidence connected the assault to the rape and killing of two women in Mesa in 2004 and in 2007, and to another rape in Mesa, a Phoenix suburb.

“We’re very concerned,” Berry said. “We’ve got a violent predator out there who abducts these women, and two of them have resulted in homicides and the other two are serious sexual assaults.”

The trail began in Mesa with two slayings. The naked body of Karen Jane Campbell, 44, was found on a roadway in October 2007. The partially clothed body of Alisa Marie Beck, 21, was found in an alley in 2004 about five miles from where Campbell’s body was left. Both had been strangled.

Police connected the killings in December using DNA evidence. At the time, they said both women had a history of drug abuse and prostitution, and that neither had a home.

Earlier this month, police used DNA evidence again to connect the killings to a sexual assault in which a 47-year-old woman was taken to a Mesa home in August and raped before she escaped and flagged down a cab.

Police say they would like to talk to the cab driver in the August case and anyone who either saw the woman being kidnapped in the middle of the day on a busy Mesa street or later saw her fleeing her attacker.

Berry said finding the cab driver is crucial because that person may be able to tell police the approximate area where the woman was assaulted. The woman was unable to tell detectives where the attack occurred.

Mesa and Phoenix police are combing through past cases to see if the suspect is connected to other crimes. Berry said all other agencies in the state have been notified about the attacker.

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ON THE WEB

Mesa police: www.cityofmesa.org/police

Phoenix police: http://phoenix.gov/POLICE

A frenzy of tiny-dog lovers has descended on an animal shelter that rescued hundreds of Chihuahuas from a filthy rural Arizona home, with some potential owners getting into shoving matches and others calling from around the globe.

The nearly 800 small dogs, mostly Chihuahuas, and 36 parrots were found in a large mobile home northwest of Tucson last week. All that were old enough and healthy enough to leave the shelter were adopted by Monday, authorities said.

When news spread Thursday of the dog rescue, hundreds of people packed into the Humane Society of Southern Arizona in hopes of adopting the dogs, spokeswoman Jenny Rose said.

Tempers flared, and a few people got into shoving matches, Rose said. The sheriff’s department cleared everyone out, and the shelter closed for the day.

The next day, Rose said, 500 people lined up to get the dogs, which included terriers, Pomeranians, Chinese cresteds and Lhasa apsos. The shelter passed out numbers and had everyone come back in groups of 100 each day.

“This has been uncharted territory for us,” Rose said. “We would like to give everyone a dog who is interested in one, but we just don’t have enough.”

Rose said calls came in from Germany, Australia and across the nation. One man from Massachusetts found her cell phone number and woke her up at 8 a.m. Saturday.

“He said, ‘I know it’s 8 o’clock there, but I really want a dog,”‘ Rose said.

“Oh, thanks, that’s sweet,” she quipped.

The dogs were rescued from a home in bad condition with urine and feces everywhere, officials said.

Rose called it a hoarding case in which an elderly couple who owned the animals wouldn’t part with them and felt no one else could give them a good home. No charges have been filed against the couple.

The animals appeared to have had enough food, but a few were missing paws — some from having been attacked by other animals, others apparently having caught their feet in fencing outside, Rose said.

The parrots will remain at the Humane Society for two to three weeks because of medical problems, including malnourishment and infections, Rose said.

People who were in Thursday’s line and didn’t get a dog have been put on a waiting list and will be called when one becomes available.

The puppies are in foster homes and will be integrated into the shelter once they’re the right age, Rose said. “You’re just going to have to stop by and see what you get,” she said.

Jany Deng, 31, poses Wednesday, Dec. 5, 2007, inside the AZ Lost Boys Center in Phoenix. Deng and eight other men who survived war in the Sudan are returning to their homeland for the first time in 20 years for the Christmas holiday.

The last time Jany Deng saw his eight brothers and sisters, they were running for their lives after Sudanese government soldiers started burning their village.

Now, 20 years later, Deng and eight other survivors of civil war in Sudan who now live in the United States are returning to their homeland for monthlong visits. While there, they’ll meet with government officials to propose building a center in southern Sudan for those affected by the war, and they’ll get to see their families.

Five of the men, who are known as the Lost Boys of Sudan, left Phoenix for Africa this week. Three Lost Boys living in Atlanta, Pittsburgh and Grand Rapids, Mich. also are going.

Deng, who leaves Saturday, said he expects the trip home to be bittersweet.

“I’m very excited, but at the same time, I don’t know what to expect,” Deng said. “Emotionally, the conditions I’m going to see over there — it’s not going to be good. People are still starving, there’s no running water.

“The war destroyed the country, and I mean destroyed it,” he said.

The war also split Deng up from his family. When soldiers burned down their village in 1987, Deng and his siblings ran for their lives in different directions.

Deng then survived famine, thirst, sickness, ambushes, unforgiving desert conditions, and attacks by wild animals during a four-month, 1,000-mile walk to a refugee camp in Ethiopia. He was only 7.

Deng walked back to Sudan in 1991 when civil war broke out in Ethiopia, only to be met with more hostility. He and the other refugees then walked another 2 1/2 months to Kenya, where they found safety.

Deng’s father, who died of starvation in 1992, was among the more than 2 million people who died during the 21-year civil war in Sudan. The war ended in 2005 with a peace agreement, but the peace deal remains fragile and the southern part of Sudan remains largely lawless. An ongoing conflict has embroiled the country’s western Darfur region, where more than 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million displaced.

Since Deng came to Phoenix in 1995, he has graduated from Arizona State University with a degree in social work, gotten engaged to a Peace Corps volunteer and worked as the program director at the AZ Lost Boys Center in Phoenix.

Deng said he and his family will have a lot of catching up to do and that he’s looking forward to living as he did before the war, even if it’s for just a month.

“I miss it, big time,” he said. “I wish I could have grown up like any other normal child in the world, but instead, my childhood was just running around and hiding for my life.”

Deng said his greatest hope is for the Sudanese government to approve building a center in southern Sudan for people who were affected by the war. Deng said the Child Left Behind Centre would provide help and guidance to thousands of orphans and would be paid for by the AZ Lost Boys Center.

Ralph Serpico, executive director of the AZ Lost Boys Center, said many of the Lost Boys are like Deng and have mixed emotions about returning to Sudan for the first time.

“Certainly they’re hopeful that they can go and see family, and see the villages where they were forced to flee from,” he said. “I’m sure there’s some trepidation and fear that many of the people they knew are no longer alive, and I guess there’s the sense that they were forced to leave a culture they never wanted to leave.

“If they had a choice, they’d still be in these villages raising cattle and herding cows and doing things that they would normally do,” he said.

Serpico said many Lost Boys dream of getting an education in the United States and bringing back what they learn to Sudan.

That’s just what Abraham Nhial, a Lost Boy who now lives in Pittsburgh, hopes he can do.

Nhial, who is flying to Sudan on Saturday to join Deng’s group, said he’s planning on moving to Sudan permanently to become a teacher after he finishes his theology degree in Pittsburgh.

“I don’t think it would be so good to have all these skills and not to go back and use them to help my people and rebuild the country,” he said.

Nhial lost his mother, two brothers and two sisters in the war.

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ON THE WEB

Arizona Lost Boys Center: www.azlostboyscenter.org