Protestors greeted Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio when he came to Tucson to sell his books on Thursday, July 10. Now a local radio station is trying to get one of the protestors fired from her County job.

The station, 104.1 The Truth, is mounting a letter-writing campaign to try and get Isabel Garcia removed from her job as Pima County Public Defender. However, the County says that Garcia has done nothing wrong.

On July 10, when Arpaio came to do a book signing at a Tucson store, Garcia and her group, Derechos Humanos, were there to protest his appearance and denounce his policies, which they say have created great racial divisions in Phoenix. Part of that protest included beating up a piñata with Arpaio’s likeness attached to the head.

John Howard is one of dozens of people who bombarded Fox 11 News with emails calling for Garcia to lose her job as Pima County Public Defender. “To think that it’s OK to do this kind of act, beat up someone that is a sheriff, that is a law official, that’s what really got me,” says Howard.

104.1 The Truth’s website has information and videos about the protest, and calls on people to contact the media demanding an investigation of Garcia’s actions. Journal Broadcasting, which owns 104.1 didn’t have any comment on what Garcia calls a corporate-media-sponsored campaign to get her fired.

Meantime, County officials say as long as the demonstration was legal, and was done on her own time, then Garcia did nothing wrong. “It’s a matter of, was she in violation of some County rule or policy?,” says Pima County Human Resources Division Manager Bill Hansel. “From what I am hearing, and what I have heard through hearsay, I don’t believe that she was.”

Howard disagrees. “I want her to be held accountable for her actions,” he says. “I want to know why she did that, why she felt it was OK.”

Garcia told Fox 11 News that the piñata was “a symbol of Arpaio’s racist, violent, and brutal policies. As an attorney, I find it is not only my right, but my responsibility to stand up when the power of the state is used to crush people. I will continue to do so.”