Community members and activists gathered outside the Arizona Capitol to call for the continuation of independent oversight of the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office connected to a nearly 20-year-old racial profiling case against the department.
The group gathered to counter a field hearing held in the Arizona Senate by Republican Congressman Andy Biggs, who characterized that oversight as a “grift” that has cost taxpayers too much money.
But Sylvia Herrera, who sits on a community advisory board created by a federal judge, said Biggs and other Republicans opposed to the oversight are misrepresenting the true costs of complying with reforms ordered by the court, which stem from findings in the Melendres case that office engaged in racial profiling under former Sheriff Joe Arpaio.
“If you look at the cost, we have to look at the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office, MCSO, who's spending the money,” Herrera said.
Herrera and other speakers pointed to an independent audit that found the Sheriff's Office had overinflated the costs of compliance, finding it had misattributed around 75% of the $330 million in costs it claimed stemmed from the case.
“We have to look at the facts,” Herrera said. “The fact is … they've misappropriated funds. They've misappropriated funds that were supposed to come to Melendres.”
County officials have criticized that audit as inaccurate but have not yet released their own findings to counter it.
Erika Andiola, an organizer with the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, accused Biggs and other Republicans of using the cost of compliance as an excuse to get rid of the federal monitor.
“They're taking away health care for Americans. They're taking away food for children that actually need it to give the money to ICE,” Andiola said, referring to President Donald Trump’s tax cut and spending plan that added $75 billion to ICE’s budget while cutting Medicaid and food assistance spending.
Progress toward compliance
In hearings last year, U.S. District Court Judge Murray Snow acknowledged that MCSO under Sheriff Jerry Sheridan had made progress toward compliance but that the office still had not completed full implementation of the reforms.
Outside the Capitol on Friday, activists said they don’t trust Sheridan to complete those reforms if the federal monitor is no longer in place to hold his feet to the fire, pointing out that Sheridan was a top deputy under former Arpaio and was himself implicated in the Melendres case.
“The community does not support Sheriff Sheridan,” community organizer Salvador Reza said. “The community is afraid of Sheriff Sheridan, especially now that the Trump administration is unleashing ICE all over the country.”
Andiola said she believes what played out in Maricopa County over a decade ago served as a blueprint for the current federal immigration crackdown taking place across the country in places like Minnesota and Chicago.
“What's happening right now in America is just a mirror of what happened in Maricopa County in 2008, 2007; those years where all of us were so afraid,” she said.
The speakers outside the Capitol said they gathered to deliver a message to officials who were speaking in the Senate against continuing oversight. But they said they remained confident that the increased pressure from Biggs and others would not affect Snow, the judge overseeing the case.
DOJ backs ends to oversight
A key point in the congressional field hearing is that the U.S. Justice Department no longer supports federal oversight of the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office.
Officials used the House Judiciary subcommittee hearing to complain about the cost of a monitor overseeing the Sheriff’s Office in a long running racial profiling case. Maricopa County has asked the judge to end oversight, and the Justice Department recently backed the bid.
“The (Justice) Department indicated that continued federal supervision is no longer necessary to ensure constitutional policing,” Biggs said.
The Justice Department under Trump also retreated from putting Phoenix and its Police Department under oversight despite sweeping civil rights violations.
Voters elected former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio six times. He left office in 2017 with the agency under judicial oversight in connection with the racial profiling of Latino motorists.
Biggs said ongoing supervision of the agency burdens taxpayers and creates operational challenges.
“The increased administrative workload and ongoing scrutiny have led to a decline in staff retention, have discouraged potential recruits from pursuing careers with the department, which has ultimately impacted the office’s ability to serve and protect the community,” Biggs said
Only Republican House Judiciary subcommittee members took park in the hearing.
Biggs said Democrats were invited, but declined. KJZZ could not independently confirm the invitations on Friday.
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