Given such abuses, why would the federal government want to continue to empower him — thereby aiding and abetting in all the broken arms, busted jaws, and crushed lives?
Even if the feds announce the termination of Arpaio's jails agreement, what will they do if Arpaio, in defiance of federal authority, loads up a bus of suspected aliens and heads to the border, as he's promised?
Photos by Stephen Lemons
Scenes from the struggle: Top left, Celia Alajandra Alvarez Herrera, with her son Miguel; top right, Maria del Carmen Garcia-Martinez (with broken arm); bottom left, Julio Mora with his father Julian; and, bottom right, inmates in Joe Arpaio's infamous "200 Mexican march."
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Not since Governor George Wallace stood in the doorway of the University of Alabama, attempting to block black students from entering, has there been a local official so contemptuous of the federal government and so eager for a confrontation. Back then, President John F. Kennedy had the intestinal fortitude to call up the National Guard, to which, Wallace ultimately ceded.
Does President Barack Obama have the same fortitude, the sort of courage you might expect of a Nobel Peace Prize recipient? It's time to earn that prize, Mr. President. Or the damage done by Arpaio's continued rampage against Hispanics is on your head.
THE HUNTED
During a recent meeting of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, where the Supes agreed 3-2 to sign off on a 287(g) jails agreement as long as the feds sign it first, speakers for and against the new contract rose to address the chairman. One blue-hair on the nativist side of the debate demanded to see "one, just one" example of Sheriff Joe's racial-profiling ways.
Well, we're going to do that lady several better than just one. This column kicks off a sequence of online profiles of the profiled — proof-positive that Arpaio's as guilty of racial profiling as Rush Limbaugh is of having a fat head.
You'll meet some familiar faces, and many unfamiliar ones. Men and women. Upper and lower class. Recent arrivals and longtime residents. The one thing they all have in common is that they were singled out by the MCSO because of the color of their skin.
They will include Julian and Julio Mora, the Avondale father and son, respectively, who were stopped outside H.M.I on the day of the February 11 raid, restrained with zip-ties around their wrists, held for three hours, and humiliated. This, despite Julio Mora's being an American citizen and his father, Julian, a legal, permanent resident. They are now suing Arpaio and the county for damages.
You'll also meet plaintiffs in the big Melendres vs. Arpaio racial-profiling lawsuit in federal court.
But there are many others profiled by the sheriff who had to be cajoled into sharing their stories. Despite the cajoling of our writers, many more refused to talk about their ill-treatment by the sheriff's forces.
In our first individual Web story ("State of Fear"), a legal secretary who did not want her birth name revealed talks about the terror a racial-profiling incident can instill in someone who normally would have nothing to fear from the police.
Later, we will bring you a chilling case of a racially profiled, expectant mother, who gives birth while incarcerated, chained to a hospital bed.
In another story, a seasonal worker with a valid visa was held for 12 days in jail on bogus charges until they were dismissed by a judge.
In others, a 64-year-old Hispanic U.S. citizen was roughed up after getting arrested for speeding and not showing his ID quickly enough, and an 18-year-old citizen was arrested after he was asked for his ID and couldn't produce it.
Collectively, these individual stories put a face on racial profiling by Arpaio's forces, and reveal the sinister reality that Latinos are immediately suspect to the MCSO because of their ethnicity.
It matters not how many generations your family's been here, how much money you make, whether or not you have a green card, or even if you're a U.S. citizen. The prejudice cuts across all these lines, creating a two-tier system of law enforcement.
One for those who are brown (and thereby might be illegal) and one for everybody else.
