Top sheriff’s deputy lectures residents, storms out of tense meeting

Inside Mount of Olives Lutheran Church in Phoenix, tensions were already high.

For two hours Thursday night, Valley residents had filled the sanctuary and given an earful to Maricopa County Sheriff Russ Skinner, blasting his agency for being slow to make court-mandated reforms and perpetuating fear in the community. Before that, they’d been outside protesting along Thomas Road, warning passersby to vote against Proposition 314, which would task local authorities with enforcing immigration law.

Then Chief Deputy Stephanie Molina stood up, walked over to a microphone and lectured the audience.

“Me and my staff have worked tirelessly on reform processes and efforts within MCSO,” she told them before leaving the meeting in a huff. “I have sacrificed my career and have sacrificed my family for members of the Hispanic community.”

Molina may have had enough, but hearing the concerns of community members was the meeting’s explicit purpose. Since 2014, when former Sheriff Joe Arpaio led the department, the sheriff’s office has been subject to federal oversight as a result of the civil rights lawsuit Melendres v. Arpaio. And once a quarter in the decade since then, court-appointed monitor Robert Warshaw and lawyers from the U.S. Department of Justice have met with Valley residents to give updates and listen to feedback.

On Thursday, there was a lot of feedback.

Resident after resident, scarred by Arpaio’s rampant racial profiling, expressed their continued dissatisfaction with the sheriff’s office. Some worried about unsubstantiated rumors that federal oversight of the agency would end soon, though Warshaw said no such decision had been made as far as he was aware.

Other community members spoke about the distrust they still harbor for the sheriff’s office. Skinner — who was appointed to the office after Arpaio’s successor, Paul Penzone, resigned in January — responded to many complaints directly.

Proposition 314

On the minds of many was Proposition 314, a proposed law referred to the ballot by Republican lawmakers that makes it a state crime to enter the country illegally. Under the law, dubbed the “Secure the Border Act,” state and local authorities would be empowered to arrest and deport undocumented immigrants.

The law was modeled after a Texas law that currently is the subject of a federal lawsuit and strikes many in the Latino community as a worse version of Arizona’s infamous Senate Bill 1070, which the U.S. Supreme Court partially struck down in 2012. For more than an hour before the meeting with Skinner and Warshaw, activists from Barrio Defense Committees lined the street, urging drivers to vote against Proposition 314.

“Prop. 314 is one of the biggest threats to our community in the history of Arizona. It’s the most racist bill, the most racist proposition to have ever been drafted in the state,” 28-year-old activist Joel Cornejo said. “It’s worse than SB 1070 by a lot.”

The significance of the past was clear. As protesters waved signs and chanted slogans such as, “Three-one-four is racist to the core!” and, “Hey hey, ho ho, these racist cops have got to go,” they could see Pruitt’s Furniture Store across the street. Nearly two decades ago, that’s where Salvador Reza and day laborers protested against Arpaio’s unconstitutional policing.

Several county sheriffs oppose Proposition 314, and Skinner is one of them. At the meeting, he said the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office would not enforce the new law if passed, especially since the agency remains under a federal court order to not enforce immigration law. “Nor do I have the resources” to enforce it even if he wanted to, he added. One estimate predicted that the proposed law, which does not include funding for increased enforcement, would cost the state $314 million a year.

Skinner’s audience Thursday was unconvinced. For one, the sheriff’s office has struggled to enact the reforms ordered by federal Judge Murray Snow. Last month, Snow ordered the sheriff’s office to clear its backlog of internal investigations, which sat at 1,300 open cases in July. Though the department has instituted some reforms, last year claiming it was in 90% compliance with Snow’s order, community members at the meeting weren’t buying it.

One mother shared a recent story about sheriff’s deputies pointing guns at her family, including her son with Down syndrome, and arresting her husband, only to chalk it up to a misunderstanding. “They have not changed their culture; they continue to racially profile,” Cornejo said before the meeting. “This is a weapon that people like Jerry Sheridan are going to use against Black and brown communities.”

Though Skinner was the target of the residents' frustration, Sheridan scares them more. He’s the Republican candidate for sheriff and is facing off against Democrat Tyler Kamp. (Skinner, who switched his party affiliation to Democrat so he could be appointed to fill Penzone’s position, lost to Kamp in the primary.) Sheridan was found in contempt of court for lying to Snow during the Melendres proceedings, is on the Brady List of untrustworthy cops and has ties to the anti-government extremist group Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officer Movement.

Skinner or Kamp might not enforce Proposition 314 if it passes, but Sheridan very well could.

“If Sheridan wins, if 314 passes and the judge takes away that damper, it’s gonna get out of hand. It’s gonna get really crazy,” said 72-year-old activist Reza. “If he wins, we are in trouble.”

‘Have a good night’

But Sheridan’s not in charge yet, and so Thursday night, concerned citizens unloaded their frustrations on Skinner. Near the end of the meeting, after activist Percy Christian criticized Skinner and his office for perpetuating harm “over and over, systematically,” Skinner once again stood up to respond, asking, “What’s your solution?”

This time, though, Molina stood with him, immediately raising the temperature of the room. That tension was cut briefly when an interpreter interrupted to relay Christian’s words in Spanish, but it soon returned after another speaker questioned Skinner, prompting Molina to launch into a five-minute-long speech about the sheriff’s office.

“Since 2014,” she began, “I've been a part of the compliance efforts in various capacities.” She and her staff “have worked tirelessly on reform processes.”

Complaints from the Hispanic community about the sheriff’s office are investigated first, she said. She then offered some statistics: Since 2016, there have been 591 complaints from that community about the agency. Of those complaints, 112 involved allegations of bias, 10 of which were sustained upon investigation. As a result, two deputies were fired, and five others were suspended following discriminatory remarks.

“I would not be part of this process after Penzone left, working for (Skinner), if I didn't believe that what he was doing was honest and fair and working for the best efforts for this community,” Molina continued. “I have to sacrifice a lot, and I know that doesn't mean anything to the people that have had to endure what we endured under prior sheriffs. But what I can say about Sheriff Skinner is that he's had everybody's interest in mind as we move forward over these last 10 months.

“And I cannot stand here and allow you to berate him like you did,” she concluded. “That's all I have to say, you guys have a good night.”

Molina then left, saluting and high-fiving another law enforcement officer on the way out. Her exit was met with jeers from some in attendance — “You have zero dignity,” Christian called out — suggesting her speech did little to assuage any community concerns.

What’s clear is that, as Arizona voters weigh another possibly unconstitutional law that could target the Latino community, activists and organizers worry not much has changed from the days of Arpaio and SB 1070.

“We know what to expect every time we come, but it’s ridiculous how many lies they say,” Cornejo said after the meeting. “They just pat each other on the back.”