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For Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, it’s been a tough month . . . er, we mean year . . . er, better make that years. The essence of the problem seems to be that whenever anyone has the temerity to criticize hizoner, immediate action by Joe tends to make things worse. Harassment and frivolous lawsuits appear to be some of the hallmarks of the situation. Here are a few examples:
- Last week, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Arpaio and former County Attorney Andrew Thomas had brought frivolous charges against County Supervisor Mary Rose Wilcox. In the process, the defense of the charges cost the citizens of the county almost $1 million.
- Last year, in a similar case of harassment, former County Supervisor Don Stapley obtained a multi-million dollar settlement.
- It has been estimated that these and other cases of harassment, and frivolous and unnecessary litigation, have cost the county over $40 million.
And then there’s the racial profiling claims. These are issues that the Sheriff has resisted, denied, and pretended not to exist, despite a federal court ruling on the issue, which found that illegal racial profiling did exist in the Department. We won’t go into the details, especially since we’ve covered the basics in our blog, including one from earlier this year (Racial Profiling Charges Termed “Crap” by Law Enforcement). Suffice it to say that Joe hasn’t been happy about it, and has announced that he’s investigation the U.S. Department of Justice and the judge who issued last year’s profiling decision – a “counter-investigation”, we suppose you could call it. Seems to fit the pattern, in any event.
But the recent suicide of a Sheriff’s Deputy has raised even more questions about the operations of the department, including the racial profiling case. Deputy Ramon Charley Armendariz was found hanged last month in his home, after a series of bizarre incidents over a period of weeks. Armendariz was one of the witnesses in the profiling case, as well as a member of the department’s smuggling squad, which was the flagship of the Sheriff’s immigration crackdown. A search of Armendariz’ home after his death uncovered not only drugs, but also evidence bags from old cases, hundreds of fake id’s, as well as thousands of dashcam videos from traffic stops; presumably, those videos should have been turned over to the DOJ during the course of the profiling case. It has also been suggested that this might have been the result of shakedowns of illegal immigrants after traffic stops.
So questions continue to plague the operations of the department. We pass over without further comment the fact that the investigation into Armendariz’ death, including the question of whether his activities involved other deputies, is being run by the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Department?
Law Offices of David A. Black
40 North Central Avenue #1850
Phoenix, AZ 85004
(480) 280-8028
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