Thread: Arpaio takes immigration sweep to Fountain Hills

May 6, 2008 - 11:37AM
Arpaio takes immigration sweep to Fountain Hills
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Dennis Welch, Tribune
Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio launched another round of his highly publicized crime suppression sweeps in Fountain Hills on Tuesday, arresting three people suspected of being in the country illegally.

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The operations, in which deputies stop drivers for minor traffic violations in part to root out illegal immigrants, has drawn widespread attention as well accusations that the sheriff is violating civil rights laws by racially profiling.

Arpaio, who lives in Fountain Hills, said deputies are patrolling the entire town and said he did not know when the operations would end.

After his last immigration sweeps in Guadalupe last month, Arpaio said he intended to move into Mesa next. He has since clarified that he would wait until after the school year ends to do sweeps in Mesa.

Arapio has said he will alert the Mesa Police Department 48 hours before beginning any sweeps. On Tuesday, after attending a press conference at the state Capitol in support of an illegal immigration measure, he said: “I’m the sheriff and I don’t need to be invited to Mesa. I can go in anytime I want.â€

Sheriff takes patrols to Fountain Hills
May 6th, 2008 @ 1:13pm
by Kevin Tripp/KTAR

Sheriff Joe Arpaio launched another crime suppression sweep Tuesday, this one in his hometown of Fountain Hills.

``We're in Fountain Hills. We're doing a crime suppression operation against all crime, ALL crime, in that town," Arpaio said, emphasizing he was targeting all criminals and not just illegal immigrants as critics of his operations have charged.

In the first couple of hours of the operation, three people were arrested, Arpaio said.

``They happened to be illegals, but it's through information that came to us from a school. An alleged drop house is what led to two of the arrests, I don't know about the third," he said.

Arpaio said, ``We don't go into certain neighborhoods, like people accuse me of doing, like the mayor of Phoenix. We go everywhere."

News of Arpaio's latest sweep came as State Rep. Steve Gallardo, D-Phoenix, and Maricopa County Supervisor Mary Rose Wilcox denounced the sheriff's tactics and said they were organizing to fight a recall effort against Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon.

Arpaio said Wilcox's allegations that his operations are racial profiling are ``garbage."

``We don't do that," he said. ``She can say whatever she wants. It doesn't bother me at all."

The sheriff's previous operations were in two areas of Phoenix where day laborers gather and in the predominantly Hispanic town of Guadalupe on the Phoenix-Tempe border. They drew protests from Gordon, who has asked the federal government to investigate the sheriff's patrols.

As for Wilcox, Arpaio asked, ``Why doesn't she write a letter to the Justice Department and get in line?"

He said he will continue to enforce immigration laws and arrest illegal immigrants.

http://ktar.com/?nid=6&sid=829062

Joe I need you here in my town.

We need some police with guts.

I love sheriff Joe.....was it a hate crime when they had him as a pinaita?

Originally Posted by crazybird

I love sheriff Joe.....

He sure has a better "legacy" than Bush does and will later!

Originally Posted by crazybird

I love sheriff Joe.....was it a hate crime when they had him as a pinaita?

Oh , i certainly thought the pinaita made the list of Hate Crime .And post as such on that article . This is such a mess of America .

KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK JOE!!! YOU HAVE LOTS OF FANS!

Arpaio's crime suppression hits Fountain Hills, 10 arrested
Reported by: Katrina Wessman
Email: kwessman@abc15.com
Last Update: 5:18 pm

(Marnie McKim)
Related Links
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Arpaio launches undocumented immigration sweep in Valley
Sheriff Joe Arpaio cracks down on crime, targets undocumented immigrants
Phoenix Mayor Gordon asks FBI to investigate Sheriff Arpaio
Guadalupe Mayor asks Sheriff Joe Arpaio to leave town
Law enforcement to be terminated for Town of Guadalupe
Sheriff Arpaio conducted another crime suppression operation in Fountain Hills on Tuesday.

A total of seven traffic stops and fourteen contacts were made throughout a seven-hour patrol period.

This resulted in ten arrests, nine of them being of undocumented immigrants, and three felony warrants cleared.

Nicole Chapman, 32, was arrested on two felony drug warrants out of Scottsdale.

Santiago Martinez-Gonzalez, a 28-year-old undocumented immigrant, was arrested on a felony drug warrant out of Phoenix.

Deputies discovered that a 15-year-old girl had not been in school for two weeks and was possibly living in a drop house.

Arpaio's Illegal Immigration Interdiction Unit responded to the home to conduct a welfare check on the girl and found her inside the home with her uncle.

Both were discovered to be undocumented immigrants.

Some elected officials and activists continue to accuse Sheriff Arpaio of targeting Hispanic neighborhoods in Phoenix.

"My crime suppression efforts know no boundaries," said Arpaio.

"My deputies enforce all laws throughout Maricopa County and have saturated a number of areas including Wickenburg, Cave Creek, Fountain Hills, and Queen Creek; so much for their lies."

"The city of Mesa saturation patrol is on track and will be announced at a later date," said Arpaio.

Arpaio will continue to patrol Fountain Hills through
http://www.abc15.com/news/local/story.a ... 4c8766fbfc

Fountain Hills sweep yields similar migrant-arrest result
by JJ Hensley - May. 8, 2008 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic
Critics have railed against Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio for concentrating his "crime-suppression efforts" in neighborhoods with a high percentage of Hispanic and Latino residents.

So this week, he took the operation to Fountain Hills, where Arpaio lives and few Hispanics do.

But the results were the same.
In a two-day traffic-violation patrol, 16 of the 20 people arrested - or 80 percent of them - were suspected of being in the country illegally.

According to the 2000 census, fewer than 5 percent of the 20,000 residents were Hispanic.

Arpaio was surprised that 80 percent of those arrested were suspected illegal immigrants.

Still, the sheriff said everyone arrested was breaking the law.

"I'm a little surprised, quite frankly, when you take (Wednesday's) figures, seven out of 10, and (Tuesday's) figures, nine out of 10, that's double what we arrested in two days in Guadalupe," Arpaio said. "I didn't realize we would get that many illegals in Fountain Hills."

Sheriff's officials attributed the discrepancy to early morning construction traffic in the area.

Arpaio said he brought about 14 deputies and a handful of posse members to Fountain Hills in response to complaints about traffic issues in the small town.

The operation lacked the hype and fanfare of Arpaio's previous crime sweeps in Phoenix and Guadalupe, and it didn't draw any protesters, either.

Deputies simply went out on the main streets of Fountain Hills early Tuesday and Wednesday mornings and stopped cars and trucks for minor traffic violations.

Most of the vehicles were older-model trucks, many with work equipment such as ladders strapped to their roofs.

Deputies cited cracked windshields, burned-out brake lights, dark window tinting and obscured license plates as probable cause for pulling the trucks over.

"There's a lot of construction types going on out there at that time of the morning, and a lot of those types of vehicles have a tendency to have expired plates and broken windshields," said Brian Sands, chief of enforcement with the Sheriff's Office. "Numerically speaking, a lot of it's got to do with the age of the vehicle."

When drivers couldn't produce a license from the United States, deputies began questioning the motorists about their immigration status.

Deputies also arrested three U.S. citizens for driving with suspended licenses, including one who had a warrant for her arrest.

Those apprehensions make the operation a success, said sheriff's Sgt. Brett Palmer, who commanded Wednesday's effort.

Traffic stops are one of the most efficient means of clearing warrants and ferreting out drivers who have suspended licenses, he said, and if the efforts catch people in the country illegally, it doesn't mean deputies
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/ ... p0508.html

When drivers couldn't produce a license from the United States, deputies began questioning the motorists about their immigration status.

Deputies also arrested three U.S. citizens for driving with suspended licenses, including one who had a warrant for her arrest

In a two-day traffic-violation patrol, 16 of the 20 people arrested - or 80 percent of them - were suspected of being in the country illegally.

According to the 2000 census, fewer than 5 percent of the 20,000 residents were Hispanic.

Arpaio was surprised that 80 percent of those arrested were suspected illegal immigrants

Well, well, well he went into an area with very few hispanics and found 80% of those arrested were IA's. I guess this proves that not all IA's are hispanic, huh? Where are activists now? Why aren't they playing the "race" card now? Because it's NEVER been about RACE, DUH!

Great job Sheriff Joe!