Sheriff's surrogates speak out
Supervisors' meeting is counterpoint forum
by JJ Hensley - Aug. 21, 2008 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic

After critics attacked Sheriff Joe Arpaio in Board of Supervisors' meetings for the past two months, his underlings copied the activists on Wednesday and took time at the supervisors meeting that is reserved for public comment to counter the charges.

It turned the meeting - typically staid affairs that have become more spirited since the Maricopa Citizens for Safety and Accountability started attending in June - into a point-counterpoint production with high-ranking sheriff's officials squaring off against members of the citizens group in 3-minute increments.

That the Board of Supervisors already has access to the information sheriff's officials presented, or that they had heard the citizen group's complaints before, mattered little to either side.

The presentations were for the benefit of the public as much as for the elected officials, both groups said.

The issues, born out of Arpaio's stepped-up enforcement against illegal immigration, have grown from allegations that deputies are racially profiling to include charges that they are derelict in serving warrants, responding promptly to emergency calls and solving an acceptable percentage of serious crimes.

In response, the Sheriff's Office employees said the allegations are false and are meant to force Arpaio to focus on activities other than locking up illegal immigrants.

"When they try to draw these lines that everything points toward immigration, it has nothing to do with it," said Larry Black, the sheriff's director of special operations. "It's an avenue to say, please don't arrest immigrants because we have other crime problems because of this (enforcement)."

Supervisor Mary Rose Wilcox, who has been openly critical of Arpaio's immigration-enforcement tactics, said sheriff's officials should take the time to discuss the issues with the supervisors in a more comprehensive fashion. She called the use of public-comment time unprecedented and questioned the practice.

"I do feel it's escalating to the point where you wonder what is going to happen," Wilcox said.

"It is a hard issue, but when people believe they are being racially profiled . . . that's a big issue. Taxpayers have a right to question that."

Arpaio made the decision to defend his agency at the meeting, but did not attend himself because he did not want to distract from the issue at hand, said Capt. Paul Chagolla, a sheriff's spokesman.

Chagolla said sending staff members to future meetings likely would not be necessary.

But the Maricopa Citizens for Safety and Accountability has vowed to return.

The group, which held a town-hall-style meeting Tuesday in Phoenix with more than 500 attendees, will speak out at the September supervisors meeting, said Raquel Teran, just as members have at the past three.

The group's members want the supervisors to issue a public apology to citizens whom the Sheriff's Office has harassed and to put the group's concerns on an upcoming agenda.
http://tinyurl.com/63mxe9