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Joe Arpaio Faces More Trouble Over Racial Profiling Case


FILE - In this Jan. 9, 2013 file photo, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio speaks with the media in Phoenix. Organizers of the effort to recall Arpaio face long odds in turning in the more than 335,000 valid voter signatures required by the 5 p.m., Thursday, May 30, 2013, deadline. They have struggled to raise funds, have had to rely mainly on volunteers to collect signatures and are mounting a campaign against a politician who has a base of devoted supporters.
(AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin, File)

by JACQUES BILLEAUD
Posted: 03/24/2014 8:24 am EDT

PHOENIX (AP) — Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his top aide are required to appear before a federal judge who believes the two have mischaracterized and trivialized the judge's key findings in a racial-profiling decision issued last year against the police agency.

The sheriff's office will be required to provide answers Monday to U.S. District Judge Murray Snow about an Oct. 18 training session in which the judge said Chief Deputy Jerry Sheridan appears to suggest that rank-and-file deputies weren't obliged to make their best efforts to remedy the agency's constitutional violations. Ten months ago, Snow concluded Arpaio's office has systematically racially profiled Latinos in its immigration and regular traffic patrols and unreasonably prolonged the detentions of people during traffic stops. Arpaio has vigorously denied the racial-profiling allegations and has appealed the ruling.

The judge has required Arpaio's office to install video cameras in hundreds of the agency's patrol vehicles, set up a seven-person team of sheriff's employees to help implement the judge's orders and carry out additional training to ensure officers aren't making unconstitutional arrests.

A video of the October training session shows Sheridan providing a misleading summary of the case to deputies and complaining that the judge was putting the sheriff's office under the same restraints as a judge did to the long-troubled New Orleans Police Department, Snow wrote. "And their police officers were murdering people," Sheridan said. "That tells you how ludicrous this crap is."

Arpaio's top aide also talked to deputies about the judge's requirement that officers document the race, ethnicity and sex of people in vehicles based on the officers' perceptions.

Sheridan said there might be reasons someone might not be able to figure out the racial identity of those inside the car and offered reasons why they might find it impractical, according to the ruling. "In doing so, it appears to the court that he was suggesting to the deputies that they were not obliged to use their best reasonable efforts to comply with the court's order," Snow wrote.

Once Sheridan completed his remarks, Arpaio addressed the deputies, saying Sheridan's thoughts echoed his own. "What the chief deputy said is what I've been saying," Arpaio said.

If the police agency maintains that Sheridan's summary of the findings met Snow's orders, Arpaio's office will be required to explain why it believes it's in compliance, Snow wrote.

"There has got to be a very clear, formal retraction, correction and retraining on all those points," said Cecillia Wang, a lawyer who pressed the profiling case on behalf of a group of Latinos.

At a news conference last week, Arpaio repeatedly declined to comment on the judge's rebuke, suggesting that reporters turn to his appeal of the racial-profiling ruling for answers about whether he and Sheridan were undermining Snow's efforts.

"I am not going to comment until we see what they say in court," Arpaio told reporters. "This is not a court of law."

The brief that Arpaio's lawyers filed before an appeals court makes no mention of the October training session.

In the appeal, the sheriff's lawyers say Snow's injunction in the case was overly broad and that the judge's requirement that Arpaio's office hold community meetings in an effort to rebuild public confidence runs afoul of the sheriff's free-speech rights.

© 2014 Associated Press

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/24/joe-arpaio-racial-profiling_n_5020517.html [with embedded video report, and comments] [the above text of the article the original, non-truncated version published at the indicated time (and which was there until I refreshed the HuffPo page), via http://www.democratschavescounty.com/news/joe-arpaio-faces-more-trouble-over-racial-profiling-case ] [the current truncated text at the HuffPo link:
"PHOENIX (AP) — A judge presiding over a racial profiling case against an Arizona sheriff's office chided the sheriff and his top aide on Monday, telling them he's unimpressed by what he called their apparent "double dealing" for mischaracterizing his findings.
U.S. District Judge Murray Snow says he was disappointed with the inaccurate statements that Chief Deputy Jerry Sheridan, the top aide for Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio (ahr-PEYE'-oh), made during an October training session with sheriff's deputies
Sheridan apologized for the inaccurate statements. He says he made them out of frustration with declining morale among his deputies after Snow concluded last year that the agency has racially profiled Latinos.
Sheridan and Arpaio were called into court Monday to answer questions about the training session.
Arpaio sat beside Sheridan in court, but didn't speak before the judge.
The sheriff has appealed the judge's racial profiling ruling."]

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