Thread: Arpaio's sweeps to get fresh scrutiny?

November 24, 2008 |

Arpaio's sweeps to get fresh scrutiny?
Obama's Justice pick known for work on profiling issues
by Daniel González - Nov. 24, 2008 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic
Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio's crackdown on illegal immigrants could get greater scrutiny from federal investigators under President-elect Barack Obama's administration, criminal-justice experts say.

A telltale clue to that possibility is Obama's top choice to head the U.S. Justice Department, Eric Holder, who has a track record of investigating the kind of racial-profiling allegations leveled at Arpaio's crime and immigration sweeps.

Arpaio denies his deputies have stopped or arrested people based on race.
As deputy attorney general in the Clinton administration, Holder played a key role in the Justice Department's investigation of the New Jersey state police in the late 1990s that showed officers were disproportionately stopping Blacks for minor traffic stops to look for drugs.

During a Senate subcommittee hearing involving the investigation, Holder, who is an African-American and the son of an immigrant from Barbados, said he had become particularly sensitive to complaints of racial profiling after New Jersey police searched his trunk for guns when he was a college student. He said he believed the incident stemmed from racial profiling.

The Justice Department's investigation led to New Jersey state police signing a consent decree that required officers to fully document all traffic stops as part of an effort to ensure they weren't stopping motorists on the basis of race.

The department's civil-rights division under Democratic President Clinton launched several investigations of local police departments accused of using racial profiling. Such investigations fell dormant under Republican President Bush's administration.

With Obama, "I expect that the rules will change somewhat and you will probably see a more active role of the Justice Department investigating cases of police misconduct across the board," said Michael Smith, chairman of the criminology and criminal-justice department at the University of South Carolina.


Allegations

In April, Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon wrote a letter to U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey asking that the Justice Department's civil-rights division and the FBI investigate Arpaio's immigration crackdowns. He alleged that the sweeps included "a pattern and practice of conduct that includes discriminatory harassment, improper stops, searches and arrests."

Gordon sent the letter after Arpaio moved dozens of deputies into neighborhoods with large Latino populations in Phoenix and Guadalupe to conduct what the sheriff called crime-suppression patrols. The patrols ignited an outcry from Latino community leaders and immigrant advocates, who accused deputies of pulling over people who looked Latino in order to look for illegal immigrants.

Four U.S. citizens and a legal immigrant have filed a lawsuit against Arpaio, accusing him and deputies of violating their civil rights in connection with the immigration crackdowns.

An Arizona Republic examination of arrest logs from eight crime sweeps showed that deputies arrested more Latinos than non-Latinos during each of the operations; that even when the patrols were held in mostly White areas deputies arrested more Latinos than non-Latinos; and that deputies arrested Latinos in greater numbers than non-Latinos following minor traffic violations.

Gordon said he believes that under the Obama administration, the Justice Department will take a harder look at the concerns raised in his letter.

"The ball for civil rights has started rolling, and I'm confident that under soon-to-be Attorney General Holder, it will be rolling faster here and across the nation," Gordon said.

Hector Yturralde, president of Somos America, an immigrant-advocacy group that is one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, said he expects the Justice Department to pay more attention to complaints of racial profiling against Arpaio's department.

"We do have high aspirations of this new attorney general because something has to be done. So far our cries have fallen on deaf ears," Yturralde said.

Arpaio said he is not concerned that his office could face greater scrutiny under the Obama administration.

"I don't care," Arpaio said. "I feel very comfortable with the way we do things. . . . I have confidence in my deputies, and nothing is going to change. I am going to continue my operations even though the administration is going to change."

Scot Montrey, a spokesman for the Justice Department's civil-rights division, said the allegations of racial profiling against Arpaio's office were being reviewed to determine whether any action should be taken.

Arpaio said he doesn't believe the Justice Department is looking any further into Gordon's letter because the complaints have no merit.

"It hasn't gone anywhere because there is nothing to it," Arpaio said.

Brian Withrow, a criminal-justice professor at Wichita State University, said that earlier this month he attended a national conference of the American Society of Criminology in St. Louis.

"The consensus of that group was that we will see more of a desire of this new administration to litigate these (racial profiling) cases than the current administration," Withrow said. "The president-elect has already said he intends to beef up the civil-rights division of the Department of Justice, and that is the department most likely to investigate."

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepubli ... g1124.html

added to homepage with note

ALIPAC NOTE: This could be a threat to all police departments enforcing the current laws as the public wishes.

http://www.alipac.us/article3760.html

Originally Posted by ALIPAC

added to homepage with note

ALIPAC NOTE: This could be a threat to all police departments enforcing the current laws as the public wishes.

http://www.alipac.us/article3760.html

Darned right it could W.

How are they going to define and balance what IS actual police misconduct?

According to all of these "civil rights" organizations and activists, particularly those which are pro-illegal, ANY traffic stop or contact with law enforcement is the result of racial motivation on the part of the authorities.

How do you stop them in that argument.......start assigning police officers to areas based upon the race of the officers to be compatible with the majority racial group of that area?

Let's just hope that some of these people obama is choosing can separate real racism from the crying wolf variety.

New Atty Gen. To Stop Immigration Crackdowns
Mon, 11/24/2008 - 15:34 — Judicial Watch Blog

Under Barack Obama’s new attorney general the Justice Department will likely halt an Arizona sheriff’s crackdown on illegal immigration by claiming it constitutes racial profiling, according to legal experts and a mayor who offers illegal aliens sanctuary.

The high-profile arrests by the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Department were actually requested by numerous business owners and city leaders desperate to remedy the illegal immigration crisis that has overwhelmed their border state. In the absence of federal enforcement, the department has stepped in to rid the area of dozens of illegal immigrants—some violent criminals—who should have been deported long ago.

The sheriff’s department also restored much-needed law and order in a Phoenix business district (36th & Thomas) rife with solicitation, trespassing, loitering and public health ordinance violations long ignored by the city’s police department simply because the perpetrators were illegal immigrants.

But illegal alien advocates and Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon have cried racism and ordered the FBI and Justice Department to investigate Maricopa Sheriff Joe Arpaio for violating the civil rights of illegal aliens during arrests. In April Mayor Gordon wrote a letter to U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey asking the Department of Justice to investigate “discriminatory harassmentâ€

We'll have to bring public pressure to bear that we absolutely want our laws enforced and will not accept any excuses pushed by pro-illegal advocates to stop these reasonable, long overdue enforcement measures. If Obama's Justice Dept starts doing this, then we'll alert talk radio, and other new media etc. that Obama is lurching to the far left.

And BTW, Arpaio just won reelection easily. So his constituents support what he is doing and THEY know what's best for their community -- not liberal social engineers sitting in air conditioned offices thousands of miles away in Washington DC.

Under Barack Obama’s new attorney general the Justice Department will likely halt an Arizona sheriff’s crackdown on illegal immigration by claiming it constitutes racial profiling, according to legal experts and a mayor who offers illegal aliens sanctuary.



Isn't that an awful lot to assume at this point?

I mean, if they are talking about one department's operations being shut down, then they are talking that an end would have to come to ALL types of "sweep" type operations........DUI checkpoints, warrant sweeps, gang sweeps, fugitive warrant sweeps, etc.........and they wouldhave to be ended not just in one jurisdiction in one state but ALL jurisdictions in ALL states. And it would most certainly spell the end of any type of immigration enforcement, by anyone.

Basically all types of operations meant to combat all types of crimes ,and apprehend those who commit them, would be ordered stopped.

That action would result in absolutely no kind of law enforcement being carried out, period.

How likely is it that the Justice Dept. and obama are going to declare an anarchist state where criminals are off the hook?

Well maybe the rest of us should start screaming racial profiling every time one of us gets pulled over for something.

They are sending a terrible message that illegals or Mexicans in general do not have to obey the laws because they are not allowed to be pulled over....this is such crap! no wonder Americans are so damn mad and the country is so divided.....

If you are here legally what is the big deal about being pulled over, show your drivers license and move the hell on.

An Arizona Republic examination of arrest logs from eight crime sweeps showed that deputies arrested more Latinos than non-Latinos during each of the operations;

Were I a resident of Maricopa Co. I would volunteer to get arrested just to keep the statistics from being so discriminatory.
What these jerks are avoiding is the fact that Latinos are more prone to breaking laws like illegally coming into the country and committing document fraud. Break law, get arrested. Last time I looked this was a country built on the observance of law, and these laws do not discriminate on the basis of nationality, gender, religion, etc.