The Daily Agenda: To protect and serve?

Constables deal with people at their most difficult times ... But one local constable might be spending his off-hours posting videos of vulnerable people ... Fun in the sun for asylum-seeking kids.

For more than a decade, TMZ Tucson’s social media accounts have been showcasing the very worst Pima County has to offer.

TMZ Tucson claims to highlight “the craziest, wildest and funniest content from Tucson” on X, Facebook, TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram and YouTube. It regularly features videos of fist fights, reckless drivers and drunk bar patrons, and in late April a video of a stabbing at the Pima County Fair racked up more than 183,000 views.

Let’s face it, accounts like this are basically the backbone of social media, and while the content might be distasteful, it’s not illegal.

But it caught our attention after we were told that the operator of these accounts is a constable whose day job with Pima County includes serving eviction notices, orders of protection and other types of legal paperwork.

Frankie Lopez has been interviewed multiple times as the person behind TMZ Tucson and in 2022, our Arizona Agenda colleague Nicole Ludden reported that a Francisco Lopez who operated TMZ Tucson was the sole nominee for constable in Justice Precinct 2, which covers southeast Tucson. A video of a League of Women Voters of Greater Tucson candidate forum confirms they’re the same person.

Lopez didn’t respond to Nicole’s request for comment for her story and he didn’t really respond to ours either.

We tried to talk to him about his affiliation with TMZ Tucson. Caitlin went right to the channel’s most active platform, messaging the account on X and asking first if it was still operated by Lopez.

“Don’t know what you’re talking about, sorry,” was the response.

We replied with a video of the KVOA story, asking if the person in the video who identifies himself as the operator is still the person running the account.

“That person has not been affiliated with this page for almost two years now,” the account holder said. “Thanks for reaching out.”

But when we asked who runs the page now and how that person came to take it over (shortly after Lopez was sworn in as constable,) the thread went silent.

We didn’t hear back until yesterday, when we sent a message saying we were running a story about Lopez’s affiliation with TMZ Tucson unless we received information indicating otherwise.

After a month of silence from the account holder, this message received a response in less than four hours.

“Sorry, that information is incorrect and we are not interested in participating in this gossip,” they said.

A source who has inside knowledge of the constables office tells us this is typical and that Lopez even denied running the account when confronted by Tucson police.

But we also reached out to Lopez through his official channels several times over the past few weeks. He didn’t respond to two inquiries made through the public portal on his constable webpage and an email to his Pima County email account.

TMZ Tucson occasionally posts about local events or businesses, but the vast majority of its content is farther from public service journalism and closer to “Girl Gets Body Slammed In The Face In Downtown Tucson Arizona! 🐱 🥊,” which has racked up almost 300,000 views on YouTube.

The TMZ Tucson X account has more than 40,000 followers and features a pinned video of a motorcyclist flying over the handlebars after attempting to do a stunt, with the caption, “Tucson mountains are so beautiful 😍😆.”

A quick look at the accounts turned up dozens of videos of people being arrested or assaulted, most of the time with their faces visible.

Lopez defended his work to KVOA back in 2020, saying that fights will always happen and that police shouldn’t think he’s “inciting any riots” with his coverage.

If Lopez is indeed still running the TMZ Tucson account, it would be yet another example of Pima County’s constables being the subject of negative press in recent years.

This spring, Constable Oscar Vasquez resigned shortly after Pima County Supervisors suspended him through the remainder of his term following an investigation by the state that showed he did not work between April and September of last year. Vasquez, who represented Justice Precinct 4, said he wasn’t able to work because of “considerable pain and distress” following a minor accident.

And two incumbent constables representing Justice Precincts 9 and 10 failed to get enough signatures to get on the ballot this year, paving the way for write-in candidates. It’s also worth noting that one of those candidates, George Camacho, was fired from his job as a special staff assistant at the constable’s office in April 2020, before being elected Constable later that year. Camacho was twice accused of harassing a female coworker and was temporarily barred from carrying a firearm, due to a protective order filed against him.

But it hasn’t just been controversy that’s plagued the office. There’s also been tragedy.

In 2022, Constable Deborah Martinez and two bystanders were fatally shot while she was serving an eviction notice.

“It’s not just about serving papers, but serving the public,” Lopez said during a League of Women Voters candidate forum leading up to the 2022 election. “And it’s not about just being an officer of the court but being a resource for those affected by the work that we do and doing it right.”

Lopez’s term is up in 2026.

One step closer: The Arizona Senate passed a bill last week that limits faculty participation in decision making at the state's public universities, the Arizona Luminaria’s Carolina Cuellar reports. House Bill 2735 weakens language around the collaboration in decision making between faculty, staff, students and university leaders. The bill will head to Gov. Katie Hobbs, who will either sign it into law or veto it. Hobbs’ office told the Luminaria that they “don’t comment on bills that are on the governor’s desk,” but that she’ll take action early this week.

Best laid plans: Advocacy groups say the Biden administration’s executive order blocking migrants taken into custody from requesting asylum in the U.S. didn’t take international politics into consideration, KJZZ’s Alisa Reznick reports. Most migrants being apprehended now are barred from applying for asylum, even though U.S. laws and international agreements require it, and instead placed into speedy deportation proceedings and returned to their home countries.

"No matter what this order did on paper, it didn’t provide new resources for the removal system, change international agreements, or address the fundamental limitations that prevent the United States from sealing off its borders, as some have called for,” said Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, policy director at American Immigration Council.

Fun in the sun: Local aid group Salvavision hosts a summer camp for children in asylum-seeking families in Tucson, KGUN’s Adam Klepp reports. Kids get to splash around in the water, do arts and crafts, and other camp activities, while their parents pursue asylum claims that could let them live in the United States.

“I feel happiness in my heart. My daughters have seen violence, with everything they’ve gone through. But right now, they are happy," Victoria Alvarez, an asylum seeking mother said.

Resilient buildings: The City of Tucson got a $3.5 million federal grant to work on climate-resilient building codes for the Southwest, the city announced in a press release. The city plans to use the funds from the Department of Energy to “transform building construction across the southwest to achieve highly efficient and climate-resilient buildings and communities while preserving affordability and regional characteristics.”

Stable prices: The housing market in Pima County appears to be more resilient than most, a new report found. The real estate data company Attom ranked 600 counties and found Pima County was one of the least likely to see a drop in home prices, Arizona Public Media’s Zachary Ziegler reports.

Filling vacancies: Local school boards have some new faces, after Pima County Schools Superintendent Dustin Williams appointed new members last week, the Arizona Daily Star’s Jessica Votipka reports. Carole Siegler is back on the Catalina Foothills board; Stephanie Miller took a seat at Flowing Wells; and Sarah King and Daniel Tankersley were appointed to the Altar Valley board. All of the appointments were made to fill vacancies and all the seats are up for election this year.

7: The number of constable seats up for reelection this year. You can find a list of candidates and justice precincts here.