Sheriff's report dismisses profiling
by JJ Hensley - Jul. 30, 2008 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic
The Maricopa County Sheriff's Office apparently looked into and dismissed racial-profiling allegations from an employee in Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon's office months before the incident mushroomed into a political spat and a federal lawsuit.

According to a report released by the Sheriff's Office Tuesday afternoon, supervisors concluded that a deputy broke no department policies and did not racially profile David and Jessica Rodriguez during a traffic stop near Bartlett Lake. David, whose wife works for Gordon, was issued a $120 citation when he drove around a "road closed" sign after heavy rains had washed out the roads in the area.

The report effectively ended the department's internal investigation into Gordon's accusations that Sheriff Joe Arpaio's deputies were unlawfully targeting Hispanic residents.
But the report resolves nothing.

Gordon was in Washington, D.C., earlier Tuesday to call national attention to help "stop this madness" that Arpaio has created with his aggressive enforcement against undocumented immigrants. When he arrived back in Phoenix in the evening, the mayor effectively dismissed the Sheriff's Office's internal investigation into the December incident.

"I'd say the results of the sheriff's self-serving investigation should surprise exactly no one," Gordon said. "He's misrepresented and twisted the words of my own employee who was absolutely profiled, knowing a lawsuit and other federal investigations prevent her from responding."

According to the sheriff's report, the sergeant who interviewed Jessica in December wrote that she "apologized for throwing out the 'racial card' " - a point that sheriff's officials pointed to as evidence that the profiling claim was baseless.

Jessica did not return a call for comment late Tuesday afternoon.

But Gordon said her quotes to the sergeant weren't accurately reflected in the report and that Jessica still believes her husband was the target of selective enforcement.

"The sheriff can try to make this about me, but this is about abuse of power," Gordon said. "This is about racially profiling U.S. citizens."

Arpaio said the results of the internal investigation were proof enough for him that his deputies obeyed the letter of the law in traffic stops, whether on a rural road or as part of his urban crime suppression operations designed to scare illegal residents out of the Valley.

"I said from Day 1 when I heard (Gordon's) comments at the (Cesar) Chavez meeting when he accused me of everything under the book, I said point by point that all those were lies," Arpaio said. "He can continue to pressure me . . . I'm going to keep doing my job regardless of his allegations."

In the months since the report was written, allegations over the December incident and of Arpaio's aggressive immigration-enforcement policies have had a ripple effect on relationships between the Sheriff's Office and Gordon's.

In an April 4 letter to U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey, Gordon asked the Justice Department's civil-rights division and the FBI to probe what Gordon calls a "pattern and practice of conduct that includes discriminatory harassment, improper stops, searches and arrests."

The charges over the traffic stop of the Rodriguezes led to sheriff's officials filing a broad records request with the mayor's office covering months of e-mail and internal communication in what Arpaio said was an attempt to get to the bottom of Gordon's claim. The mayor said Arpaio's records request was an attempt to intimidate him and others who were speaking out against the sheriff.

The e-mails revealed nothing, and it wasn't until sheriff's administrators posted an internal memo asking division commanders for any racial-profiling complaints that might be related to immigration enforcement that the December incident came to light.

A lake patrol commander brought the investigation and documentation forward a few days later.

The initial complaint in December was investigated and resolved at the division level, and didn't raise flags for internal investigators who were searching through information from crime-suppression operations in the spring to check out Gordon's complaint, said Capt. Paul Chagolla, a Sheriff's Office spokesman.

Earlier this month, David and Jessica Rodriguez joined three others in a federal lawsuit alleging mistreatment and discrimination. The suit says deputies asked David for a Social Security card, driver's license, vehicle registration and proof of insurance but did not ask for documentation from other drivers who had also driven down the same closed road. When Jessica asked why the deputy needed to see a Social Security card, the deputy responded, "standard procedure," the suit says.

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/ ... g0730.html