The Department of Justice Civil Rights Division just released the long-awaited results of its investigation into Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his department. Sheriff Joe's tactics may have been headline-grabbing, but they have caused serious harm to his community and the people he swore an oath to protect and serve.
What citizens and community-policing advocates have known for years was officially confirmed by the Justice Department's investigative findings. Arpaio, far from being a role model for local or federal law enforcement, has destroyed the trust of his community, especially when it comes to immigrants and Latinos in Arizona.
The report confirms that tactics like Arpaio's are rooted in racial profiling: "Since roughly 2007, in the course of establishing its immigration enforcement program, MCSO has implemented practices that treat Latinos as if they are all undocumented, regardless of whether a legitimate factual basis exists to suspect that a person is undocumented" (page 6); that his policing practices damage law enforcement's relationship with all Latinos in the community: a "wall of distrust between MCSO officers and Maricopa County Latino residents" (page 2); and that he has made it harder for law enforcement officers to fight crime, as expressed by the MCSO deputy who "bemoaned the impact of MCSO's immigration-related operations, stressing that they 'affect our ability to work in a community that hates you'" (page 16).
Every day that Arpaio has focused on terrorizing immigrant and Latino communities, while serious criminals roam the streets of Maricopa County, it has made other law enforcement officials' jobs harder across the nation. Law enforcement, and especially those of us who value the Constitution of the United States, should thank the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice for finally taking steps to hold Arpaio accountable for his actions.
The sheriff's obsession with rounding up immigrants was at the cost of more than 400 sex crimes, including dozens of child molestation cases which were ignored or botched. He pursued his extreme immigration enforcement agenda at the expense of criminal activity of every sort. Worse still, his practices have spread to other sheriffs and have even become enshrined in several state laws.
Last week the Department of Homeland Security took unprecedented steps in limiting its cooperation with Arpaio, but until the racial profiling and aggressive tactics he championed are no longer encouraged through state laws like Arizona's and Alabama's, or tacitly condoned by federal programs like Secure Communities, we have not yet eradicated his legacy of fear.
Now let me tell you about another law enforcement leader, one who might be the precise opposite of Sheriff Arpaio. Patrick Vincent Murphy grew up with the New York Police Department, the son of a cop who also became a cop. In 1970 he became Commissioner of NYPD, named to the position by Mayor John Lindsay. Commissioner Murphy, a reformer, battled corruption and championed professionalism through better education, race relations and less physical force by cops. He led the police departments of Washington, D.C., Detroit and Syracuse in addition to NYPD. He was also the first director of the federal Law Enforcement Assistance Administration, an agency responsible for making law enforcement more professional and accountable.
Murphy went on to become President of the Police Foundation, advocating new and better practices that promoted sound and just policing in a democratic society. Aware that there was a need to develop an organization to research critical issues with which the law enforcement profession was struggling, Commissioner Murphy was one of ten visionary leaders who created the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF).
Both the Police Foundation and PERF have recently concluded studies and produced reports that recommended the need to have local law enforcement removed from the enforcement of immigration law - just the opposite of what Sheriff Arpaio and his department have been doing. Both concluded that the impact of such enforcement would lead to negative impacts on community policing and they cautioned about the possibility that racial profiling could be a by-product. In fact, these tactics and their result was exactly what the U.S. Department of Justice uncovered in their investigation of the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office.
I had the honor of knowing and talking to Commissioner Murphy during my career. Pat was a wise man who shared his knowledge and wisdom to the benefit of our profession. Our leaders, communities and nation are the better for his work.
At another point in my career, I also had the opportunity to attend a class with Sheriff Arpaio. At the conclusion of the class, he asked us to wait because he had a gift for us. He went to his vehicle and returned with a box full of the book he had written. It was the book that detailed his infamous practices of putting prisoners in tents, feeding them bologna sandwiches, and clothing them in pink undergarments.
During a week where a true leader in our profession passed away, and another "leader" was castigated by the Department of Justice, I can't help but draw a parallel and wonder what the future of our profession beholds. One can only hope that the legacy of Patrick Murphy will live on and his vision and wisdom will eclipse the grandstanding tactics that have stained our profession in Maricopa County, Arizona.
Rev. G. Jude Geiger: Love vs Sheriff Arapio's Tent City
Ali Noorani: Dear Secretary Napolitano: Suspend Secure Communities
What the Democrats are pushing for is a nation in which employers can import the world's poor and keep driving down wages. They want poverty.
You will never hear Democrats fighting to punish employers of illegals. You will never hear Democrats fighting to punish Microsoft for laying off Americans and replacing them with H-1b work visa holders!!! Never.
The FACT is that criminals are supposed to fear the police. Since when is that a bad thing? In a community composed in its majority of illegals, they of course, WILL HATE those who would hold them to account. So your idea is to simply not enforce our laws,or the ones you don't like.
Then you forget the fact that Secure Communities has caught major criminals by its use. It is truly bizarre that you will simply take a persons word as to who they are, and where they live and their citizenship. That is beyond extreme, but I know that every crook appreciates your efforts to sheild them. Talk to the Bologna family and let them know your thoughts.
There are lots of theories on Obama's motives, but the one that is unavoidable is that Obama, Holder, and Napolitano are seeking to demonstrate to the Supreme Court that immigration ENFORCEMENT is racist, profiling, cruel, and UNCONSTITUTIONAL. And they was to drive this point home BEFORE Arizona's SB 1070 comes to the floor of the court for judgement in April, and is decided in June. They are trying to biased the justices on the court before hearings ever start.
This is not a trend obama or bush before him started but under both and under the next president the arrests will go up.
Unless of course we as a country stop dangling a carrot (jobs, amnesty after amnesty, anchor baby status, welfare, schooling, medical, etc) in front of the 4 or so billion people of this world who live in abject poverty.
If we stop doing this then those here will leave and few more will come. Taxpayers will save billions on enforcement alone, not counting all the socioeconomic negatives of a massive increase in uneducated, high birth rate and low income people who cost far more than they can possibly produce. I know that sounds harsh but India is a tad harsher and if you think mass humanity if so great please visit them before you decide what kind of country we should emulate.
SB1070 does not, repeat, does NOT give civil subpoena authority to the county prosecutors ( who are responsible enforcing this law). That means a county official cannot go into a business, with a civil warrant, and inspect employment records, the way, say, the department of weights and measures can go into a gas station and check the accuracy of the dispensing gas pumps.
The only avenue available for the prosecutors is a criminal warrant, which requires probable cause of a crime, a much higher standard.
So, only if the cops knew a business was hiring underage, or dealing drugs could they go in with a criminal warrant and pursuant to that inspect employment records for illegal hiring.
Ask yourself why the conservatives in the AZ legislature left out this CRITICAL law enforcement tool when they wrote SB1070.
Even recently re-called russell Pearce, the author, said it was an oversight that has to be fixed.
Remember, a conservative solution to a problem is always worse than the actual problem.
Secure Communities is being used by the Harris County Sheriff. Adrian Garcia for ALL his inmates. I guess that he does NOT agree with this poor excuse for a law enforcement type who will not enforce cetain laws against minorities who he wishes to give preferential treatment too. Illegals get a pass on driving without a license, registration, insurance, and cannot be arrested for other crimes the cops might find in the process. Incredible!
But did you ask yourself why there was no civil subpoena power given to the county prosecutors under SB1070 that was written by conservatives, passed into law by conservatives and signed by a conservative governor?
But nice try at trying to blame liberals for conservtives' screw ups.
What he failed to tell was the fact that FEDERAL law enforcement officers would now be doing what these local deputies once were. Shouldn't that make constitutional conservatives VERY happy? Now all is in order. The FEDERAL government is enforcing immigration law. Where are conservatives cheering this take over of ICE functions by the duly constituted authority?
Now, as a taxpaying american citizen who certainly agrees we should live within our budgetary means and who doesn't want to see his taxes go up, where would you like to see your law enforcement dollars spent? On chasing landscapers and dishwashers who are paying taxes or on the criminal element. The answer "both" is not a choice under these budgetary circumstances.
And, oh, yes, there is no "unconstitutional notion" of only deporting the ones convicted of major crimes since this president in just 3 yearas has deported 800,000 illegals.
For each person illegally living in the USA there is at least one violation of the law taking place. More if you count Identity Fraud, Identity Theft, and other crimes people living illegally in the USA commit in order to work. Thus the number of people violating our law to live and work illegally in the USA in 2008 was greater than all violent and property crimes in the USA combined. Plus, we have 20 million Americans who want to work but cannot find a job. Per Pew Center and US Government statistics there are 7.2 million people living illegally in the USA who work in the same jobs that most of these unemployed Americans used to do.
In our law crossing our border illegally is a violation of Criminal Law. Overstaying a visa is a violation of Civil Law. Read Section 1325 of the Immigration and Nationality Act. So let me make sure I understand this properly - Police should avoid enforcing Criminal and Civil Law violations because they are afraid that it may hamper the enforcement of Criminal and Civil Law violations? That makes no sense.
Based on your logic, if those 11 million people were deported 100% of our crime would be eliminated.
Stupidity is probably this country's biggest problem. Not mexicans.
He clearly stated (to those with reading comprehension) that the number of crimes committed by illegals matches and likely exceeds the total number of reported crimes in our federal FBI records.
Have you ever heard of that mark twain quote when he wrote about people opening their mouth and removing all doubt? It certainly fits you.
There is nothing like guilt by association. Arpio is aleged to be bad so everything else that even remotely looks similar must be bad too.
Nobody has yet shown how a Finger Print Sharing Database like Secure Communities can racially profile. But per Pew Center data 78% of the people living in the USA illegally are identified as Latino. EVERY definition of racial profiling relies purely on statistics. Racial Profiling is defined as proportionally many more people of one race or ethnic background being involved in something compared to their share of the RELEVANT population.
Because of the Composition of our Illegal Immigrant population there is no way ANY form of immigration law enforcement can escape the label of Racial Profiling as long as people insist on comparing arrest rates to the general US population. But our antidiscrimination law is not set up that way. The key is the term “relevant population”. No business located in a mostly Latino city that hires mostly Anglos would escape the label of discriminatory just because they compare themselves to the US population as a whole.
Do these Racial Profiling claims represent a knowing misuse of a legal concept ment to defend the disadvantaged just to shelter illegal activity? You decide.
Apparently you are unaware that the majority of unions representing rank and file officers fully support any and all actions allowing them the tools to remove criminal illegals from our country.
Of course the chiefs (read - politicians and NOT real police) associations all pander like our spineless cowards in congress to illegals at most every turn. So yuou support criminals and allowing them to continue to be criminals.
Question for you - would you pick and choose what other crimes you personally (or rather politically) feel are advantageous for you or your pocketbook to enforce?
Do you advocate this country not only ignoring a known ms-13 member until they are CONVICTED of a serious crime? Since we both know a large number of gang members are also illegals you must want that.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arizona_SB1070 (pan down to the law enforcement section)
http://www.kold.com/Global/story.asp?S=12624459
The reason the cops who actually do law enforcement work want these types of laws is they know a large number of people who are criminals are here illegally. Those same officers are frustrated that a person here illegally needs to be PROVEN guilty of a serious crime before their chiefs will allow them to do anything about it.
When an officer sees a known gang member who is here illegally they shouldn't have to wait until that person commits yet more crimes before they are allowed to take action. that is just common sense.
So no I'm not lying but these chiefs most certainly are and for personal gain!
Maybe then, crime will recede a bit, and AZ can get back a bit of its common sense. Well, at least after Corpse Bride is ousted too....