# DoJ sues Sheriff Arpaio for civil-rights abuses **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [May 11, 2012, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doj-sues-sheriff-arpaio-for-civil-rights-abuses/621586 "2012-05-11T04:14:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2012, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doj-sues-sheriff-arpaio-for-civil-rights-abuses/621586/1 "2012-05-11T04:14:09Z")
I appreciate the sad import of [their failure to bring Wall Street to justice,](http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/05/06/why-can-t-obama-bring-wall-street-to-justice.html) indeed I do, but at least the DoJ under this Admin can do [**something**](http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-justice-sheriff-20120511,0,158798.story) right! 🙂 > [@](#): > > WASHINGTON — The Justice Department has sued Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Arizona, asking a federal court to prevent the brazen and outspoken lawman from racially profiling Latinos, abusing them in his jails and retaliating against his critics. > > “The police are supposed to protect and support our community, not divide them,” said Assistant Atty. Gen. Thomas E. Perez, head of the Justice Department’s civil rights division. “This is an abuse of power case involving a sheriff and a sheriff’s office that has ignored the Constitution.” > > The lawsuit, filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Phoenix, alleges that Arpaio’s Maricopa County department engages in a “pattern of unconstitutional conduct” against Latinos, especially immigrants. > > Justice Department officials in Washington are asking the court to name an independent monitor to oversee the sheriff’s office, develop reform policies to better staff the jails and patrol the county, and possibly find Arpaio and other top sheriff’s officials in contempt of court if they do not make changes in a community whose Latino population has grown by 47% over the last decade. ‘Bout fuckin’ time! Suck it, Joe! I just wish they could find some way to make it a criminal prosecution and put you in with all those people you hate! ---
**Author:** ![user\_hostile](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/user_hostile/32/474_2.png) [@user\_hostile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/user_hostile)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2012, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doj-sues-sheriff-arpaio-for-civil-rights-abuses/621586/2 "2012-05-11T04:41:35Z")
I, for one, would like to see Arizona move into the early 20th Century. But I’m not holding my breath for Alabama’s evil twin brother. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2012, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doj-sues-sheriff-arpaio-for-civil-rights-abuses/621586/3 "2012-05-11T05:34:37Z")
Meanwhile, the [Freeptards](http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2882164/posts) are screaming about “states’ rights” and saying it’s just to take the spotlight off Holder and shit . . . _Schadenfreude_ is the best kind of _freude!_😃 ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2012, 7:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doj-sues-sheriff-arpaio-for-civil-rights-abuses/621586/4 "2012-05-11T07:06:04Z")
[More details.](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/10/justice-department-joe-arpaio-lawsuit_n_1507098.html?ref=politics) Arpaio’s record is a whole lot more disturbing than I realized. ---
**Author:** ![user\_hostile](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/user_hostile/32/474_2.png) [@user\_hostile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/user_hostile)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2012, 8:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doj-sues-sheriff-arpaio-for-civil-rights-abuses/621586/5 "2012-05-11T08:06:17Z")
**BrainGlutton** –I’m not exaggerating when I argue that Arizona’s state government still operates on the 19th Century model of state government–"What’s in it for me? As for the public good, who the hell are you, a goddamn socialist? I predict that once Arpaio is found to be a liability, the elites will turn on him like a pack of starving dogs in a sausage factory. Watch and learn…this is a state that overlooked land fraud, and looked the other way when reporter Don Bolles was assassinated by a car bomb for digging into the state’s collusion with the Mob. And the state’s pursuit of the culprits was about on par with Bush 43’s hunt for Osama Bin Laden. If God Almighty ever comes back to judge Heaven and Earth, Arizona’s state government will be relegated to Bolgia Eight of the Maleboge. ---
**Author:** ![florez](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b9e5f3/32.png) [@florez](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/florez)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2012, 9:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doj-sues-sheriff-arpaio-for-civil-rights-abuses/621586/6 "2012-05-11T09:31:41Z")
I am glad to know that the Justice Dept. is moving forward in this case, because I have heard stories about how the fear in communities has become intense. Latinos feel under siege, and not just the new arrivals, but Chicanos whose families have been here for generations. People have been afraid to leave their homes or send their children to school, and anti immigration bullies, aka anti Latinos are becoming very unrestrained, and consider their racism to be patriotism, on top of law enforcement run amok. This is the hell Latinos have been living in; yet many just idolize that sheriff, and would allow this abuse to go on…That is what I cannot wrap my mind around. And those FReepers, do they believe that Arizona is a sovereign nation? “Arizona will be the first state to tell the feds if the case is upheld you enter our state you will be arrested.” Yikes! These guys need a royal smackdown. ---
**Author:** ![grude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2012, 11:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doj-sues-sheriff-arpaio-for-civil-rights-abuses/621586/7 "2012-05-11T11:07:23Z")
I would just like to say that Texas uses similar tactics apparently, the article mentions cases of US citizens arrested for not carrying ID. Can the motherfucking supreme court just spell this out finally please?! I used to not carry ID if I was on foot in Texas for political reasons(I believed it was my constitutional right not to carry ID) and while I was never arrested for it(probably because I have a US accent despite always being identified as hispanic) two police officers told me point blank that they believed it was ILLEGAL not to have government ID and they could arrest for it. I was once walking at night when a police car pulled and asked for ID, when I answered no there was back and forth and the officer backed off. Others weren’t so lucky in Houston and Dallas, it was a hot topic on a biking forum for the area. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2012, 11:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doj-sues-sheriff-arpaio-for-civil-rights-abuses/621586/8 "2012-05-11T11:43:11Z")
> [@florez](#): > > And those FReepers, do they believe that Arizona is a sovereign nation? “Arizona will be the first state to tell the feds if the case is upheld you enter our state you will be arrested.” Arizona is working on it: > [@](#): > > …the Tea Party contingent that runs the show managed to resurrect a measure that puts on the ballot a proposal to declare Arizona’s sovereignty over the air, water and other natural resources within its boundaries. > > \ > > We already have a group in Arizona trying to get a referendum on the ballot called the “Checks & Balances in Government Act,” which would allow the “people of Arizona” either by way of a referendum or a majority vote in the legislature with the governor’s signature to “reject any federal action that they determine violates the United States Constitution.” > > SOURCE: [http://www.azcentral.com/members/Blog/EJMontini/161143](http://www.azcentral.com/members/Blog/EJMontini/161143) ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2012, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doj-sues-sheriff-arpaio-for-civil-rights-abuses/621586/9 "2012-05-11T14:01:26Z")
Who the hell do they think they are, [South Carolina](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nullification_Crisis)? Of course, if it comes to war again, maybe California can grab all their water rights to the Colorado River and we can let the bastards dry up and blow away. ---
**Author:** ![Jack\_Batty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jack_batty/32/3201_2.png) [@Jack\_Batty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jack_Batty)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2012, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doj-sues-sheriff-arpaio-for-civil-rights-abuses/621586/10 "2012-05-11T14:06:11Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > [More details.](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/10/justice-department-joe-arpaio-lawsuit_n_1507098.html?ref=politics) Arpaio’s record is a whole lot more disturbing than I realized. This was my favorite one: > [@](#): > > A Latina born in the United States was taken into custody for four hours in a raid to determine her immigration status. Arpaio was quoted in response, “That’s just normal police work. You sometimes take people in for probable cause for questioning and they’re released.” The suit notes that the reason for her detainment – being Latina and present during a raid – were insufficient. Probable cause for being swept up in a raid of suspected illegal immigrants is to be present at that raid. It’s just bad timing, really. ---
**Author:** ![Morgenstern](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Morgenstern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgenstern)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2012, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doj-sues-sheriff-arpaio-for-civil-rights-abuses/621586/11 "2012-05-11T14:10:00Z")
I’d love to see Arizona and Joe saddled with a large fine when this is over. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2012, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doj-sues-sheriff-arpaio-for-civil-rights-abuses/621586/12 "2012-05-11T14:24:27Z")
I’m wondering how did this get assigned to a Perez. Did he volunteer, get picked or his name just happened to be next in the roster? It’s just oh-so-appropriate. ---
**Author:** ![Uzi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/91b2a8/32.png) [@Uzi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uzi)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2012, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doj-sues-sheriff-arpaio-for-civil-rights-abuses/621586/13 "2012-05-11T14:44:06Z")
> [@Jack\_Batty](#): > > Probable cause for being swept up in a raid of suspected illegal immigrants is to be present at that raid. It’s just bad timing, really. Okay, I’ll bite on what you quoted. If the purpose of the raid (assuming the raid was legal) was to find people who were in the country illegally, then doesn’t it make sense that anyone found within the scope of the raid who can’t identify themselves would be taken in until their identity can be proven? ---
**Author:** ![Jack\_Batty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jack_batty/32/3201_2.png) [@Jack\_Batty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jack_Batty)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2012, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doj-sues-sheriff-arpaio-for-civil-rights-abuses/621586/14 "2012-05-11T14:47:28Z")
How many white people where swept up and held for four hours until they could get someone to believe that they were American. Being brown isn’t probably cause of anything. However, I grant you it would have been more clever of me to state it this way: “Probable cause for being arrested is to be present when you’re arrested.” ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2012, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doj-sues-sheriff-arpaio-for-civil-rights-abuses/621586/15 "2012-05-11T15:00:09Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > Who the hell do they think they are, [South Carolina](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nullification_Crisis)? > > Of course, if it comes to war again, maybe California can grab all their water rights to the Colorado River and we can let the bastards dry up and blow away. _snicker_ That would be funny. And any hispanic owned commodity company refusing to ship to Arizona. ---
**Author:** ![Uzi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/91b2a8/32.png) [@Uzi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uzi)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2012, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doj-sues-sheriff-arpaio-for-civil-rights-abuses/621586/16 "2012-05-11T15:03:15Z")
> [@Jack\_Batty](#): > > How many white people where swept up and held for four hours until they could get someone to believe that they were American. Well, I don’t know. You didn’t mention if there was anyone not brown arrested, or even present during the raid. I would think that anyone present during a raid would have to identify themselves before being released. That should be normal police work. Now, if you’re saying that they actually put down on a piece of paper that she was latina and that is one of the reasons she was detained, then the person doing so is an idiot. > [@](#): > > However, I grant you it would have been more clever of me to state it this way: “Probable cause for being arrested is to be present when you’re arrested.” I should have read a bit better as well as I assumed the raid was for immigration violations. It didn’t state that. It’s a bloody awful sentence: “A Latina born in the United States was taken into custody for four hours in a raid to determine her immigration status.” Was the raid to determine her immigration status? Awful. Better to be written as, “A Latina, born in the United States, after being picked up in a raid was held in custody for 4 hours to determine her immigration status.” It’s late. I’m tired. And I’m quibbling…:rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2012, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doj-sues-sheriff-arpaio-for-civil-rights-abuses/621586/17 "2012-05-11T16:41:24Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > Who the hell do they think they are, [South Carolina](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nullification_Crisis)? > > Of course, if it comes to war again, maybe California can grab all their water rights to the Colorado River and we can let the bastards dry up and blow away. 😕 Didn’t you do that ninety years ago?! From [url=]_The City in Mind,_ by James Howard Kunstler, chapter on Las Vegas: > [@](#): > > Another questionable factor in Las Vegas’s future is the water supply. Las Vegas occupies the driest region in North America with the greatest extremes of temperature. Las Vegas gets four inches of natural rain a year. Tucson, Arizona, in the Sonoran Desert, gets twelve inches. The springs that watered the ancient meadows Las Vegas was named after served as the city’s water supply until the 1950s. Since then, the city has had to make do with the state of Nevada’s allotment from the Colorado River. Since 1922, the Law of the Colorado River, a compact among seven western states, has ruled western water allocation, under formulae drawn up by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. The law was fashioned years before the bloated hallucination of contemporary Las Vegas was even conceived, and the allocations can only be revised on the basis of an absolute consensus by all seven states, with ratification by each state’s legislature – an extremely cumbersome procedure. > > Under the compact, California has long received the lion’s share of the water from the Colorado River (since 1935 impounded behind Hoover Dam in Lake Mead, with a little dribble released to its destination, the ancient delta at the top of the Bay of California in Mexico). California’s annual allocation is 4.4 million acre-feet. An acre-foot is the amount of water needed to fill an acre 12 inches deep, or 325,851 gallons, or enough to theoretically supply two American families for a year. A clause in the federal act stipulates that California has absolute priority over the Colorado River’s water and is entitled to 4.4 million acre-feet before other states can receive their first drop. This was the price that California politicians exacted for their support of the enormous federal projects the compact entailed – including the Glen Canyon Dam as well as the Hoover Dam, and various pipelines, canals, and aqueducts associated with the Central Arizona Project. Nevada’s annual allocation is a measly three thousand acre-feet. (In 1922, Nevada had only eighty-one thousand inhabitants.) California is usually characterized as the bad guy in the picture. The head of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, Pat Mulroy, told me, “They’ve developed an attitude. They believe that they were there first. The Colorado River belongs to them. They try to con their way rather than entering into partnerships. Six states could solve those problems, but California makes it difficult.” ---
**Author:** ![Gangster\_Octopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a8b319/32.png) [@Gangster\_Octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gangster_Octopus)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2012, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doj-sues-sheriff-arpaio-for-civil-rights-abuses/621586/18 "2012-05-11T16:45:21Z")
Arizona 100 years of statehood down the drain. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2012, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doj-sues-sheriff-arpaio-for-civil-rights-abuses/621586/19 "2012-05-11T17:22:45Z")
> [@Morgenstern](#): > > I’d love to see Arizona and Joe saddled with a large fine when this is over. The really sad part is that many over here do not care how much money gets down the lawyer’s drain of the fines that had to be paid by the shenanigans of Arpaio, not even if there is a deficit, talk about cutting your own nose… ---
**Author:** ![Crazyhorse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crazyhorse/32/31_2.png) [@Crazyhorse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crazyhorse)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2012, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doj-sues-sheriff-arpaio-for-civil-rights-abuses/621586/20 "2012-05-11T18:06:57Z")
We should just give Arizona back to Mexico. Being the brave upholder of law against Mexican criminals that he is, I bet old Joe would be proud to help the Mexican army as they risk life and limb daily trying to recover all the guns that originate in Arizona gun shops from drug cartels and crime scenes all over Mexico. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doj-sues-sheriff-arpaio-for-civil-rights-abuses/621586.md?page=2)