Just when he was getting really uncomfortable, Sheriff Joe Arpaio escaped on Monday night  from  the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University.  He stepped off the podium.   His aides led him away.

I’ll tell you why.

First, though,  full disclosure.

I am the writer-in-residence at the Cronkite school. I am writing a book about the undocumented underground in Arizona. The professors who grilled Arpaio in the aborted  Meet-the-Press-style forum are my colleagues. This blog, however, is not affiliated with ASU. It is my personal blog. No one tells me what to write. Hey, I  even follow the writing rules of the Chicago Manual of Style, which is more writerly  than  Associated Press style, which journalism schools tend to use.

Okay. Back to the story.

In  August, when I spoke with Sheriff Joe,  he appeared to relish the idea of facing off against the Cronkite journalism profs in a Meet-the-Press-ish forum. “They’re gonna slam me,” he told me. You’ve got to understand that in  Joe Arpaio’s lexicon, the words “slam me” don’t  necessarily have a negative connotation. I mean, the sheriff  doesn’t just sit there and answer questions.  Instead, he shoots back with polished sound bites that signal to his conservative base that he’s on the job, sparring with  those  journos.

On Monday, the  usual cast of Sheriff Joe’s supporters began showing up in front of the Cronkite building in downtown Phoenix at about 6 p.m. Here’s a picture of one supporter. 

The  guy held two signs. One said: We love you Sheriff Joe! The other said: ASU students can’t read this sign. I’d say  maybe thirty  similarly minded supporters showed up. Some carried signs that said: Illegals Must Go.  The protesters were mostly old Anglos who didn’t like illegal immigration. Or Mexicans. Some packed guns. (Although non-felons are allowed to carry guns in Arizona, they can’t pack on ASU campuses.) The  cops asked the pro-Joe demonstrators to get rid of their sidearms.  The demonstrators disappeared  for a few minutes, then returned unarmed. Or so they said.

About three times as many anti-Arpaioists, non-students and college students of every race, carried signs with messages ranging from opposition to the sheriff’s alleged human-rights abuses of undocumented immigrants to suggestions that sheriff was a card-carrying member of the  KKK.

Photo by Janessa Hilliard

A couple of these anti-Arpaioists  also had guns.

One anti-Arpaioist  packed a pistol and a World War II-era Russian rifle with a bayonet. The cops made him stand on the other side of Central Avenue.

The evening was progressing predictably.  Just as they always do, the  anti-Arpaioists waved aromatic  sage smoke through the air  to purify the place from bad pro-Joe vibes. They beat drums and pots. They chanted: Joe must go. A few of them wore black hoodies and bandannas around their faces so you could only see their eyes. These people understood street theater.

At the pizza store near the journalism school, I saw a sign on the door.

Photo by Terry Greene Sterling

It read: Arpaio Supporters Not Welcome. The assistant manager said he put the sign up because he didn’t “appreciate Aryan Brotherhood people” coming into his store.

By then, probably three  hundred people had gathered outside of the Cronkite school. Maybe a fourth  of the crowd consisted of  cops and journalists.

Only  students, professors and journalists were allowed inside the Cronkite building to hear the journalism professors question the sheriff.  Those not affiliated with ASU could watch the hour-long forum on a giant screen outside, on the mall.

Inside, I couldn’t find a seat. Students crowded around the railings on the third floor. They perched on the stairs. Many were  students I didn’t recognize. They weren’t journalism students.

At first,  Sheriff Joe responded to questions with his usual sound bites. Stuff like “I answer only to the people of Maricopa County who have elected me.” But I heard an edge creep into his voice as he fielded  well-researched questions about things that really matter–like the Sheriff’s alleged stonewalling of  public records requests.

The students, our future journalists,  were learning from seasoned professionals how to ask big-time politicos tough questions, persistently. Public  records may sound boring, but journalists  rely on  them to figure out what’s going on in taxpayer-funded projects. Like the Iraq War.  Or  Sheriff Joe’s jails.

Public records are key to keeping government honest.  As Americans, we have a right to see how our elected officials are spending taxpayer money and running taxpayer-funded projects. Of course, public officials  don’t always want to hand over public records because if they do journalists will learn the truth and convey the truth to voters. Or maybe get them indicted.

So long story short, the Cronkite students were getting one heck of an education as they listened to their profs  put Sheriff Joe’s feet to the fire about public records requests and other  journalism-related questions.

My own feet were hurting, I couldn’t see the panel, so I wandered downstairs to see if I could catch the forum on the outside screen. Suddenly, dozens  of  protesters crowded into the lobby,  blasting the journalism school for having the forum in the first place. It  was all very Cal-Berkeley in the 1960′s.

Only this time, it was stupid.

Photo by Terry Greene Sterling

Photo by Terry Greene Sterling

What was the matter with the protesters, anyway? Couldn’t they see that the school was training future journalists? Didn’t they understand that  students were learning how to interview powerful public figures who were rarely held accountable for their alleged abuses of power?

I walked over to the outside screen, where about a hundred people had gathered to watch the forum inside. To my surprise,  Rick Rodriguez, a Cronkite prof who once ran The Sacramento Bee, was  making the sheriff visibly uncomfortable as he asked persistent questions about why the sheriff refused to cooperate with the U.S. Justice Department, which is investigating the sheriff’s alleged retaliatory abuses of power against judges and mayors and politicians and cops who dared criticize him.

Then suddenly, the forum fell apart.

Non-journalism student protesters in the audience, those  students I didn’t recognize who had crowded around the rails, began an organized demonstration that involved high-decibel  singing and chanting and yelling.  They wouldn’t stop. They wouldn’t shut up. They went on and on, preventing  Rodriguez from getting key answers from the sheriff about why he would not  cooperate with the agency  investigating him for tormenting his enemies.

This was great for Sheriff Joe.

The demonstrators  gave him an excuse to quit the forum just as it was getting very very awkward for him.

The sheriff left  the building.

Scowling, of course.

I wondered if he was secretly relieved.  Did  the sheriff sense the truth–that  Rodriguez would have pursued him  into the gates of hell to learn why he wouldn’t cooperate with the Justice Department?

I think so.

And I don’t think the sheriff wanted to answer Professor Rodriguez’s  questions.

For obvious reasons.

After the sheriff’s exit, the demonstrators were jubilant. They played music. They sang. They hugged each other. They climbed on a shelf and hung out a banner. Hey, they’d  broken up the forum. They’d run the sheriff off the stage.

They were just kids. They didn’t understand that they had rescued Sheriff Joe.

They didn’t understand that thanks to them, Arizona’s most controversial public official avoided answering questions that mattered.

To  all of us.