This week, the Department of Justice announced it was rescinding its investigation into the Phoenix Police Department.
The chairman of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors welcomed the news and says it’s time to end federal oversight of the Sheriff’s Office.
In a written statement, Chairman Thomas Galvin said the move was a step toward restoring local control and ending the federal government’s moving goalposts.
Galvin has been an outspoken critic of the Biden-era investigation of Phoenix police, which found constitutional violations by the department.
He wrote a letter to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi urging her to end the investigation into Phoenix PD.
Galvin now says he hopes to end federal oversight of the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office rooted back to former Sheriff Joe Arpaio.
“There's been four different orders and now the new orders are nowhere near related to the original facts of the lawsuit. And I think we owe it to the county taxpayers to see what we can do to save them money. And that's what my goal here is to save them money," he said.
Galvin says the Board of Supervisors has hired a constitutional attorney to study how it can challenge a federal judge’s orders in that case.
"The resources in the Sheriff's Office are really stretched thin. So now if you have to have Sheriff's Office employees now looking back and producing receipts, going back to 2014, well guess what, they're not doing the job of public safety," He said.
Galvin says the county expects it will have spent over $350 million in compliance costs by mid next year.
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