Thread: Lawyers say focus on race infected Arpaio's sweeps

Mexican is a nationality, not a race.

Lawyers say focus on race infected Arpaio's sweeps

By JACQUES BILLEAUD, Associated Press
Tue May 3, 7:51 pm ET

PHOENIX – Records show top deputies in Sheriff Joe Arpaio's office circulated offensive jokes about Mexicans at a time when the department faces a lawsuit alleging officers in Arizona's Maricopa County routinely racially profile immigrants during traffic stops.

One email from someone in the sheriff's office that was included in a flurry of lawyers' filings late last week had an attachment with a joke and image that reinforced stereotypes of drinking by Mexicans. Several officers also distributed an email making fun of Mexican accents, while another officer circulated a photo of a mock driver's license for a fictional state called "Mexifornia" with a photo depicting stereotypical Mexican facial features.

Lawyers for the handful of Latinos who filed the lawsuit also zeroed in on Arpaio in the court filings, saying he passed along letters from people calling for racial profiling to some of his top managers, including an official in charge of selecting the location of his immigration patrols.

"Sheriff Arpaio was communicating both his agreement with these messages and his intent to see them realized in MCSO's anti-illegal immigration enforcement activities," wrote Stanley Young, an attorney for those who filed the lawsuit.

The lawsuit centers on the traffic patrols known as "sweeps" where deputies and posse volunteers flood an area of a city — in some cases heavily Latino areas — to seek out traffic violators and arrest other violators. Arpaio's office has launched nearly 20 sweeps since early 2008.

Some deputies and even members of Arpaio's immigrant smuggling squad used the email system to distribute offensive images of Mexicans, Young said, pointing to a letter from a person asking for a roundup in north Phoenix.

"If you have dark skin, then you have dark skin," the letter said. "Unfortunately, that is the look of the Mexican illegals who are here illegally." Young said Arpaio sent the letter to a top manager and instructed him to "Have someone handle this."

Young said considerations of race have infected the sweeps and that Arpaio has in effect endorsed calls for racial profiling.

Most of the letters don't describe criminal activity, and Arpaio sent thank-you notes in some cases to people who wrote the letters, Young said.

Arpaio, responding to request for comment Tuesday, said he was not concerned with the case. "Let's see what the courts say," he said.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs said some of the emails were circulated by officers and supervisors involved in the patrols or stops that involved their clients.

The U.S. Justice Department also has launched a civil rights investigation of Arpaio's office in early 2009 on allegations of discrimination and unconstitutional searches and seizures. The federal agency also is examining the sheriff's jail policies that discriminate against people with limited English skills. The sheriff's office has repeatedly denied allegations of racial profiling.

Timothy Casey, an attorney for the sheriff's office, has asked for the civil lawsuit to be dismissed, arguing that those who filed the case lack standing to show they face a threat of future injury from the sweeps and people pulled over in the sweeps were approached because deputies had probable cause to believe they had violated a law.

"The undisputed evidence in this case demonstrates that each of the plaintiffs' respective traffic stops was made on either probable cause or reasonable suspicion as required," Casey wrote, noting that there was no evidence that deputies had discriminatory intent in stopping the people who filed the lawsuit.

The lawyers for those who filed the case also asked U.S. District Judge Murray Snow to impose punishments against the sheriff's office for its acknowledged destruction of records that they had sought in the case. The sheriff's lawyers have said some sweeps-related emails were deleted as a result of an unintentional mistake by a manager.

Last year, Snow found grounds to sanction the agency for having thrown away and shredded officers' records of traffic stops made during the immigration patrols, but the judge held off on actually imposing the sanction.

Young proposed a court order saying the sheriff's office based its sweeps on anti-Hispanic sentiments and on citizen complaints that describe no criminal activity and express racial animosity. Snow has yet to rule on that request.

Some sweeps-related emails that were thought to have been deleted by the sheriff's office turned out to have been saved by the county when it was discovered that the county had backed up emails by the sheriff's office as part of a routine document-preservation step in an unrelated lawsuit.

County officials have said a federal grand jury investigating Arpaio for alleged abuses of power had subpoenaed some of the emails.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110503/ap_ ... ion_sweeps

So does that mean there are no mexican officers in the Sheriff's Office?

This is a dumb reason to stop law enforcement from doing their jobs. How arrogant of these OBLers to state "stereotypical mexican features". Not all mexicans look alike. Not all americans look alike either.

If someone is here illegally, throwing up smokescreens should not give them a free pass to continue breaking the laws.

I see nothing wrong with targeting areas where there are a large number of illegal aliens. Illegal aliens are not living in the "shadows", they brag about their status, knowing they can use our laws against us.

We conduct raids on known drug areas don't we? How is this any different?

If you are not here illegally, then there's nothing to worry about. How does that make it racial?

I agree. If most of the illegals in a given area are 1 race then ofcoarse you should have more of that 1 race being picked up its not racial profiling its common sence! Our system has become too complasent when people start to play the race card I'm tired of hearing it. Where I live I'm the miniorty and I obey the laws and get left alone by the police for the most part. I feel its crazy 36000 people have died in mexico and this is what people of latino decent are crying about we have congress men who run around toughting that our imagration system is destroying familys when just across the border you have hit squads working for drug smuggeling cartels killing people faster than any war zone durring the same time frame! Nobody of latino decent seems to care its just busness as usual over there! They only cry for those in our country illegally

So what if they did! Does that mean those apprehended where not breaking the law? Of course it doesn't! The fact is that a substantial majority of those in this country illegally are hispanic and from mexico! That's a fact!

The illegal invader advocates want that to be ignored so as to shield their invaders from arrest and deportation! I'm sick and tired of political correctness being the rule of the day! Enforce the law and quit crying!

Besides....mexican/hispanic is not a race!

From what I see the deputies were the minorities in that area. There is no racial profiling when everyone there is of one race.