Sheriff Joe Arpaio, speaking outside a city jail.
(photo: Getty Images)
Sheriff Joe Goes on Trial
16 July 12
ive
years after he started "crime suppression" sweeps that terrorized
Latino neighborhoods across Maricopa County, Arizona, Sheriff Joe Arpaio
is finally having to explain himself. Not to TV crews in Phoenix or to
fawning hosts on Fox News, but before a federal judge.
The trial in Melendres v. Arpaio, a class-action
civil-rights lawsuit, is scheduled to begin Thursday in Federal District
Court in Phoenix. The plaintiffs, represented by the American Civil
Liberties Union and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational
Fund, accuse the sheriff of waging an all-out, unlawful campaign of
discrimination and harassment against Latinos and those who look like
them.
They say the sheriff and his deputies - aided by ad
hoc civilian "posses," anonymous phone tipsters, even motorcycle gangs -
made illegal stops, searches and arrests, staged wrongful neighborhood
and workplace raids, and provoked widespread fear among citizens, legal
residents and undocumented immigrants alike.
One plaintiff, Manuel de Jesus Ortega Melendres, is a
Mexican citizen who had a valid visa when Sheriff Arpaio's deputies
arrested him in 2007. He said he was handcuffed and held for hours, not
read his rights or allowed a phone call, or told why he had been
arrested. Two other plaintiffs, Velia Meraz and Manuel Nieto, were
accosted by deputies at gunpoint during a neighborhood sweep, for no
explained reason. They are citizens.
The outrages to be presented to the court can be added
to a long list of abuses going back years, on the streets of Maricopa
and in the sheriff's jails. As early as 2008, The East Valley Tribune of
Mesa, a city outside Phoenix, published a series of articles examining
the immigration raids as a law-enforcement disaster. While deputies
scoured the county making baseless immigration arrests, they neglected
other duties, racking up millions of dollars in overtime and showing up
ever later to emergencies while the number of criminal arrests and
prosecutions plummeted.
Despite those results, Sheriff Arpaio kept going.
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano could have condemned his
actions years ago and refused to work with him. But instead, he was
allowed to continue the abuse, even as his squad of immigration
enforcers deputized under the federal 287(g) program grew to 160, by far
the country's largest. The sheriff became a right-wing celebrity,
courted by politicians eager to win the anti-immigrant vote. One of
these was Mitt Romney, who accepted his endorsement for president in
2008.
This case is only the first of what is likely to be a
string of civil rights challenges against immigration actions in
Arizona. A civil lawsuit, brought by the Justice Department, accusing
Sheriff Arpaio of systematic and widespread civil rights abuses, is
moving through the courts.
Last month, the United States Supreme Court declined to overturn the section of Arizona's immigration law
that requires local officers to check the papers of suspected illegal
immigrants. But it said the provision could be challenged on
equal-protection grounds, if there is evidence of racial profiling in
the way it is carried out. The trial this week does not deal with police
conduct under that law, but it does suggest that racial profiling is a
deep-seated problem, certainly in Maricopa County.
Sheriff Arpaio is facing the voters for a sixth term
this fall. He has long insisted that he answers to no one but the
county's residents, who keep re-electing him. If voters won't put an end
to his abuses, the courts and the Constitution will have the final
word.
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That only make them more hateful. They should be rehabilitated, so they can re-enter society.
This sheriff is a sadistic SOB. he takes too much pleasure in being nasty. He does not belong in that position.
A sheriff or prison warden has to be strong, measured and fair. He has none of these qualities.
And the ruthless hunting of Latinos is sickening.
HE NEEDS TO GO
Republican = the party of the mean and hateful.