MCSO community meeting on the Melendres case ended early. The main topic wasn't compliance cost

A virtual community meeting held Wednesday night in connection with a long-running racial profiling case against the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office ended an hour early.

And the price tag for having the agency watched by a court-appointed monitor, which had drawn angry crowds at the last two meetings, was not discussed. When asked about a cost audit, Sheriff Jerry Sheridan declined to comment.

“I don’t even want to go there. That’s not a good thing to talk about. The court said don’t talk about it, and we’ll be fine. So I’m going to leave it alone so we’ll be fine,” Sheridan said.

The meeting was held over Zoom for the first time. The previous one in October was moved to the federal courthouse for security. Cost of compliance was the dominant topic in a July meeting.

Traffic stops are at the core of the case that started in 2007. Sheridan said the current system for collecting traffic stop data is about 5 years old.

“There have been no sustained complaints from the plaintiff’s class for bias or racism,” Sheridan said.

Plaintiffs are represented by ACLU attorney Christine Wee.

“Plaintiffs have serious concerns over how MCSO gathers, analyzes and interprets its traffic stop data,” Wee said

Federal oversight monitor Robert Warshaw said deputies made about 20,000 traffic stops in 2024 and there were outcome disparities.

“Stops involving all racial ethnic minority drivers were more likely to result in search and arrest than stops involving White drivers,” Warshaw said.

Sheridan said evidence of disparity is not evidence of bias.

“The word disparities, on its face, sounds bad. But a disparity just means a difference,” Sheridan said.

New data on 2025 traffic stops is expected soon.