The Justice Department has given up on settling with Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio and is planning to sue the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office for systematic civil rights abuses of Hispanic residents, a DOJ official indicated in a terse letter to Arpaio’s lawyer on Wednesday.
“It is clear that DOJ’s concerted effort to attain voluntary compliance by your client has failed,” Deputy Assistant Attorney General Roy Austin of DOJ’s Civil Rights Division wrote in a letter to Arpaio lawyer Joseph Popolizio obtained by TPM.
“It is also clear that we should not discuss anything else by telephone because you will not accurately portray those conversations,” Austin wrote. “At this point, it is best to let a court determine the appropriateness of appointing an independent monitor as well as imposing other relief in order to address MCSO’s constitutional and federal statutory violations.”
TPM
As regular readers will recall, just two days ago Arpaio's right hand man, the former DA for Maricopa County, was disbarredfor actions taken in concert with Arpaio involving gross malfeasance of office.
The noose tightens. His long reign of terror is drawing inevitably to an end. I wonder if the children whose abuse was simply ignored will ever achieve retribution.