All I need is more officers, guns and tanks,
and I promise not to racially profile
Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio has cost the citizens of his county
tens of millions of dollars in lawsuits—a lot of the cash paid out to victims who were illegally investigated or arrested by the old blowhard. Other piles of loot went to the families of victims who
were killed by his goons while they were incarcerated. One thing these victims often share is skin color: a brownish hue.
Last year Federal Judge Murray Snow ruled in the Melendres case that the plaintiff, Manuel de Jesus Ortega Melendres, a Mexican tourist traveling in the U.S. in 2007, was illegally detained by the sheriff's officers. Judge Snow issued a federal court order that Arpaio's office must obey the friggin' Constitution and stop racially profiling—which supposedly put an end to the sheriff's infamous "sweeps," where his officers goose-step through a neighborhood, rounding up anyone who looks suspicious (i.e. brown).
Judge Snow hasn't been too keen on Arpaio's compliance so far (sweeps continue, for instance), and last week he threatened the sheriff with prosecution if he didn't quit dragging his heels on the profiling order:
U.S. District Judge G. Murray Snow was telling [Arpaio] Thursday that there was "a very real possibility" he would refer the popular sheriff to the U.S. Attorney's Office for criminal prosecution on contempt-of-court charges, later noting, "I fully intend to."
So today the sheriff acted,
requesting an additional $14 million be added to his $350 million annual budget so he and his officers
won't racially profile. See, it costs money to be fair and just in Maricopa County.
Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his staff outlined the agency's budget for the next year and asked the county Board of Supervisors to continue giving an extra $14 million to bring the Sheriff's Office into compliance with a federal court's racial-profiling order.
About $4 million of the total is for body cameras, which won't solve everything, as we know from NYC, but might go a ways toward ending the sweeps, unjustifiable traffic stops, and other clearly racial roundups and arrests (and cameras
were part of the court order). But a big chunk of the $14 million is for 20 more officers. I'm not sure how this conforms to Judge Snow's order, unless they're all sensitivity trainers, which doesn't appear to be the case.
So here's Arpaio again, flippin' the bird at court orders, and using those very orders to expand his dominion. And the more he defies the Feds the more the wingers love it, even if it costs them more and more and more. Man, that's some mighty strong prejudice, when it trumps the pocketbook of "fiscal conservatives."