The federal judge overseeing a racial profiling lawsuit against the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office gave an hourlong summary of the nearly 20-year-old case to a packed community meeting Wednesday night.
The history of the Melendres case has a chapter on Sheriff Jerry Sheridan from about a decade ago, when Sheridan was chief deputy under Sheriff Joe Arpaio.
Judge Murray Snow found then Chief Deputy Sheridan in contempt for ignoring a court order and held Sheridan responsible for internal affairs misconduct.
“Sheriff Sheridan, in his pleadings, on the other hand, has said, ‘That was then. This is now. Judge me as I go forward.’ And I will tell you that I am happy to do both,” Snow told the crowd. “I’m happy to judge Sheriff Sheridan as he goes forward. Nor will I forget what I have already found in this case.”
Snow also acknowledged Sheridan’s work since taking office to reduce an internal affairs backlog that led to a 2022 contempt finding against then Sheriff Paul Penzone.
For Sheridan’s part, he said there are times when court action is needed to make government do the right thing. The sheriff also said he came to believe that change in large organizations sometimes has to come from the outside.
“I feel the same way about this litigation. Because there were things that were being done that should not have been done that the court found,” Sheridan said.
Sheridan called the Sheriff’s Office the best run law enforcement agency in the U.S. and credited Snow’s scrutiny for making it so.
Snow noted that the Sheriff’s Office is making progress on reforms. All policies needed to comply with Snow’s orders have been created, but the Sheriff’s Office still has to finish implementation.
Snow said the quarterly meetings should be used to talk about respecting civil rights while giving police the tools and trust they need.
“This meeting could accomplish that if we could do it civilly. And it certainly is in our best interest to do it civilly,” Snow said.
Overflow space was needed to hold all who attended the meeting. The gatherings moved to the federal court house to bolster security after fury over the cost of oversight dominated the July meeting. An independent auditor recently found that more than $163 million in costs county officials tied to the Melendres case were either inappropriate or incorrectly divided.
ACLU of Arizona attorney John Mitchell said those upset with continued oversight of the Sheriff's Office should read case history.
“Read about the souvenirs, or the trophies, as the court found that MCSO deputies took from undocumented individuals whom they called dogs and worse before they were handed over to federal custody,” Mitchell said.
Mitchell also said case history is why Latinos still struggle to trust the Sheriff’s Office despite consistent and measurable progress on reforms.
