• Live
    • Audio Only
  • google plus
  • facebook
  • twitter
News > World

Arizona's Ex-Sheriff Joe Arpaio Guilty of Criminal Contempt, Racial Targeting of Latinos

  • An effigy showing Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio in handcuffs is on parade at a protest in downtown Phoenix on November 8, 2016.

    An effigy showing Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio in handcuffs is on parade at a protest in downtown Phoenix on November 8, 2016. | Photo: Reuters

Published 31 July 2017
Opinion

“He has always been guilty of racism and hatred, breaking families apart and disappearing thousands of people from their communities,” Puente AZ said.

Former Arizona lawman and self-styled “toughest sheriff” in the United States, Joe Arpaio, has been found guilty of criminal contempt for violating the terms of a 2011 court order in a case where he was accused of encouraging racially targeted policing against Latinos suspected of being in the U.S. without authorization.

RELATED:
US Sheriffs Collaborate with Anti-Immigrant Hate Groups to Shocking Extent: Report

The former Maricopa County sheriff now faces a maximum penalty of six months in prison for putting into practice the anti-immigrant measures.

U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton ruled that Arpaio "willfully violated" a 2011 court order barring his officers from stopping and detaining Latino motorists solely on the suspicion that they were in the country without authorization. Federal prosecutors said the racial profiling of Latino drivers continued for about 18 months after the injunction was issued, with 170 more people wrongfully detained.

The judge in the underlying lawsuit, brought by the American Civil Liberties Union and others in 2007, held that such traffic stops violated motorists’ constitutional rights.

Arpaio was infamous among migrant rights advocates for using the Maricopa County Sheriff's Department to supplement federal immigration enforcement efforts. Sheriff's deputies were instructed to use the normal policing tools within their mandate — such as traffic stops and raids — against Latino communities and those with observable ethnic or racial characteristics in hopes of netting undocumented immigrants, who were subsequently handed over to agencies like U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Grassroots migrant advocacy group Puente Arizona called the verdict “historic.” The organization had previously filed a lawsuit against Arpaio in 2014 for his raids on workplaces suspected of employing unauthorized immigrants who used false documents.

“The community has always known Arpaio is guilty,” the group said. “He has always been guilty of racism and hatred, guilty of breaking families apart, disappearing thousands of people from their communities and of a gross abuse of his powers.”

Bolton delivered her verdict more than four weeks after the conclusion of a five-day non-jury trial in which Arpaio stood accused of deliberately violating the injunction, issued by another federal judge.

RELATED:
Tent City, Arizona's Desert 'Concentration Camp,' to Shut Down

Bolton wrote that the evidence at trial proved "beyond a reasonable doubt" that the previous judge issued a clear order barring Arpaio from detaining people for further investigation without reasonable suspicion, yet Arpaio “willfully violated the order by failing to do anything to ensure his subordinates’ compliance and by directing them to continue to detain persons for whom no criminal charges could be filed.”

“This verdict is a vindication for the many victims of Joe Arpaio’s immigration policies, which were unconstitutional to begin with, and were doubly illegal when Arpaio flouted the court’s orders,” the ACLU said following the verdict. “Joe Arpaio learned his lesson the hard way — no one, not even America’s so-called toughest sheriff, is above the law.”

During the 2007 trial, Arpaio was found to have acted on various crude and racially-charged complaints that he forwarded to his senior command staff while deputies also regularly circulated emails with racist commentary about Latinos. The Department of Justice later found that Arpaio had created “a general culture of bias” in the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office and had, through its failures in training and oversight, fostered and perpetuated discriminatory police practices.

“If you have dark skin, then you have dark skin,” stated a 2008 letter to then-Sheriff Arpaio, which was admitted as evidence during trial proceedings. “Unfortunately, that is the look of the Mexican illegal who are here ILLEGALLY ... They bring their unclean, disrespectful, integrity-less, law breaking selves here … I am begging you to come over to the 29thSt/Greenway Pkwy area and round them all up! ...They crawl around here all day and night.”

“I am very disappointed with her decision, but the case will be appealed,” Arpaio said after the verdict, promising to secure a new jury trial. His attorneys said in a written statement the 2011 order was not clear.

While many are celebrating Arpaio's conviction, federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies remain entangled with federal immigration enforcement efforts through such laws as Arizona's “show me your papers” act, SB 1070, the “poli-migra” program 287(g) and the recently-restarted Secure Communities program.

In Maricopa County itself, ICE retains a presence within the jails of the current sheriff, Paul Penzone, opening the door to potential abuses by deputies who detain undocumented suspects so that they can later be deported from the United States. For local advocates, the ICE presence at local facilities remains proof that Arpaio's anti-immigrant legacy is alive and well in the department he once controlled.

“As long as ICE is in the jails, Arpaio is still in control,” Puente AZ Executive Director noted. “True justice will be served when Sheriff Penzone ends all collaboration with ICE and finally breaks with the legacy of Sheriff Arpaio.”

Comment
0
Comments
Post with no comments.