“More Prop Than Cop”? Sheriff Joe’s Fight for His Survival
It has been an interesting week in Arizona as Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s racial profiling trial continued. The case has all the ingredients for a television movie, with a famous Sheriff standing trial for civil rights violations, celebrity children (G. Gordon Liddy’s son is a defense lawyer in the case), and more. With the November election fast approaching, Arpaio might be getting a bit concerned about his prospects of relection as Sheriff. As the trial unfolds, public opinion about him and his methods might be changing for the worse.
Summarizing testimony in which Arpaio’s subordinates seek to distance themselves and the operations of the Maricopa County Shjeriff’s Office from the controversial Sheriff, Laurie Roberts penned a column in the Arizona Republic stating that
“Put another way, 80-year-old Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio is really more prop than cop, like those blow-up dolls that drivers used to install in their passenger seat so they could sneak into the carpool lane.” (emphasis added).
Among other things, the evidence so far shows that Sheriff Arpaio passed on to subordinates racially insenitive constituent complaints — with the most offensive words and phrases highlighted, denied that he should be held accountable for statements in his book (Joe’s Law) that Mexican immigrants refuse to assimilate (“my co-author wrote that,” was his response), and that real people felt humiliated and embarrassed by what they believed to be race-based stops.
By the way, the claim that Mexicans fail to assimilate long has been a stock argument in the efforts to curtail immigration to the United States from Mexico. I addressed that argument in an article in the California Law Review (“Melting Pot” or “Ring of Fire”? Assimilation and the Mexican American Experienece) in 1997, and analyzed the history in the United States of claims that different waves of immigrants, including Germans, Irish, Chinese, and Mexicans allegedly “failed to assimilate.”
Even if his relection is in jeopardy, Sheriff Joe will not go without a fight. Americans for Sheriff Joe is attempting to raise more money for the Arpaio relection campaign. Millions of out-of-state dollars reportedly have flowed into the campaign. The list of “Enemies of Sheriff Joe” on the Americans for Sheriff Joe website include most of the people of color in the administration, including Attorney General Eric Holder, Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis, Cecelia Munoz in the White House, and Thomas Perez, head of the Civil Rights Division in the Department of Justice.
Never backing away from controversy — and perhaps looking for it, On the eve of his latest trial, Sheriff Arpaio held a press conference announcing that his volunteer “posse” of “investigators” concluded that President Obama’s Hawaii birth certificate was forged and he thereforre was not eligible to be President. Arpaio had previously announced in March that there was “probable cause” to believe that the President’s birth certificate was a forgery.
KJ