There has been a court-appointed monitor overseeing the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office for more than a decade. It’s the result of a lawsuit filed against former Sheriff Joe Arpaio accusing the office of systematically racially profiling Latino drivers for traffic stops. The judge found it was true and appointed a monitor to oversee court-ordered efforts to remedy the problem.
But, it’s 11 years later and that monitor is still at it. And, MCSO is very close to finishing the job. It only needs to sustain compliance on a number of requirements for the next three years.
There have been three sheriffs since Arpaio’s reign. The one who unseated him, Democrat Paul Penzone, left office early citing the monitor and saying it hampered his ability to do his job.
Now, there is a groundswell of conservative leaders calling for an end to the monitor’s work, including several members of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors and Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell. They cite the soaring cost of the monitor — an estimated $350 million by next year. And they showed up in force at a recent community meeting about the case in Maryvale to voice their opinions.
Raul Piña is a member of the Community Advisory Board charged with overseeing MCSO’s compliance with the court order. He says that community meeting got ugly — and racially charged.
Republican Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell says it’s time to move on and that the monitor's requirements hamper her department's work as well. Mitchell held a press conference after that community meeting in Maryvale accusing the monitor of having a financial incentive to keep MCSO under court oversight.
The Show sat down with Piña and Mitchell to talk more about the issue.
Raul Piña: MCSO isn't 'embracing this opportunity to show if in fact they have evolved’
RAUL PIÑA: I was shocked by what happened in Maryvale. It seems like there was a collaborative effort to bring people to the event, which is fine. If they want to talk about fiscal responsibility, that's fine.
The concern and the shock comes from some of the comments from the audience towards the speakers, towards specifically the plaintiff's class members, Hispanic people and Native American people. There was significant backlash with a lot of racial slurs hurled at the speakers, and that was really disturbing.
LAUREN GILGER: So let's talk about what we heard from some of those officials you mentioned who came — from members of the county board of supervisors to the county attorney speaking afterward.
There were lots of leaders there and afterward voicing concern about the price tag here, about the cost. $350 million is projected here. This is a lot of money.
And I wonder what your reaction is to that. Do you think that that's a fair assessment at this point, this many years in?
PIÑA: The Community Advisory Board has asked Maricopa County sheriffs and Maricopa County for an itemized report. If indeed it's $350 million, that's a huge amount of money. So we want to spend the money in a way that brings us closer to reform. We haven't had a report since 2022, so we've asked the monitor, asked the court for a report of that.
We want to know if in fact these funds are being spent on Melendres-related costs. There have been some costs that have been attributed to Melendres that are actually operating expenses. There's been new leased buildings on Central Avenue for PSB. There's been technology, there's been hiring of people, for recruitment purposes, etc. That cannot all be Melendres-related, and so we want to know the details just like everyone else.
GILGER: So it sounds like you're skeptical though that all of that $350 million is going toward the monitor.
PIÑA: We're skeptical because we have not received a report for a few years at this point and we've asked for a detailed accounting of the money.
GILGER: OK. Let me ask you about the timing of this as well, because we're at this moment, this political moment, right, where the tides are turning on a lot of conversations like this. Like we saw the Department of Justice pretty much drop its investigation into the Phoenix Police Department.
We're seeing immigration crackdowns around the country, lots of local law enforcement cooperating with immigration authorities, which has been controversial in the past. Why do you think this push to get rid of the monitor and settle this is happening now?
PIÑA: I think it makes sense politically to attach a political campaign to this effort. It really does make sense to say loudly that we're spending $350 million. I get that, politically. It may gain some votes somewhere down the line.
GILGER: Let me ask you where the sheriff's office stands right now in terms of compliance in this case. The, the, the details of this get very in the weeds, but from your perspective, what else do they need to do this many years in to comply?
PIÑA: They are closer than they have ever been. Now what they need to do is clean up the backlog of complaints. That still is an issue. They're working themselves through that.
There is still some data that indicates that there is bias at traffic stops. That is still the big concern. That's the big one for the Community Advisory Board, so they need to comply with those two big issues.
GILGER: Right. And this was centered around traffic stops and racial profiling of people during traffic stops. You're saying those issues have not been resolved. How is it measured?
PIÑA: I'll give you a couple of examples. Stops involving Hispanic drivers were more likely to result in an arrest than stops involving white drivers. This comes from TSAR 2024. Stops involving all racial or ethnic minority drivers were more likely to result in a search and an arrest than stops involving white drivers.
GILGER: Raul, what do you hear from the community about statistics like that? Are those lived experiences you still hear about as a member of the Community Advisory Board, and how does what happened at the meeting play into that?
PIÑA: We still hear some of the similar concerns. We still hear concerns about racial profiling. We still hear concerns about interactions with law enforcement. We still hear that people are apprehensive about calling law enforcement because of what they see on television, because of the history of the, of the Melendres case.
So the most recent community meeting held in Maryvale really set us back. It was a significant moment. If there was momentum to bring us closer to compliance, if there was momentum to begin to rebuild trust with the agency, that was a huge moment that took us in the other direction.
GILGER: How much does what's happening with ICE right now play into this as well? Are you hearing people be once again like they were when this case was being litigated initially, afraid to call law enforcement?
PIÑA: I believe that's true. I mean, we also hear about investigations and, and raids that are happening at Home Depot, for example, and other job sites. That is happening maybe not at the scale of in California, but these raids are happening all over the country, and that alone brings fear.
And now you have an agency that has a history of participating in those things. The burden of proof is on the agency to show that we are not that agency anymore. We are not that leadership anymore. We are different. We are better. We have evolved into this better place.
And my concern is that they're not embracing this opportunity to show if in fact they have evolved.
GILGER: Let me flip this on its head for a moment and just ask you about the price tag one more time. I mean, $350 million is a lot of money and as you say, the board has requested a breakdown of that to make sure it all is actually going toward the monitor. But do you think you can put a price tag on justice like this?
PIÑA: We have to always go back to why we're here, why this case is even filed, why we're in this reform process. And the issue is racial profiling. My thought is we can't put a price tag on it because ultimately, someone's life is being impacted and potentially changed forever at a traffic stop based on their skin color.
And we have to spend whatever money, utilize whatever resources we need to make sure that doesn't happen. That's malpractice, and it's unconstitutional still, as far as I know.
Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell: 'It's putting a price tag on things that don't exist'
RACHEL MITCHELL: One of the things that we're seeing is they're being diverted into doing so many different PSB, Professional Standards Bureau, investigations into non-detective, non-sworn positions that they're not actually focusing on the sworn, necessarily.
They're not able to focus on those individuals who are being used to do that, on detecting crime, putting cases together, so it slows everything down.
GILGER: I want to ask you about some of the concerns that are still pointed out in the most recent monitor’s reports. So per 2024 numbers, there was still pretty solid evidence that for example, traffic stops. If you are a Latino, if you are a minority, you are more likely to spend more time at a traffic stop with an MCSO officer and also to result in arrest. There are also still backlog concerns about the number of cases that have yet to be investigated.
Some of those real problems, even though the department is — and everyone on board has admitted this — pretty close to compliance, how do you think the department should address those concerns, those documented concerns going forward without a monitor?
MITCHELL: It's interesting that this monitor, Robert Warshaw, has equated extra time spent on a stop to racism. What he doesn't do is he doesn't look at the individual circumstances of a stop and say, “Why was that longer?”
Maybe it could be because they had a conversation. Maybe it could be because somebody didn't have as strong a command of the English language, and maybe they waited for somebody to translate or it just took longer to get through. These are all reasons that are not related to ethnicity or race that could explain that, but he doesn't do that. He looks just at the bare number of time.
GILGER: What about when it comes to the other side of that coin, though? Those stops are also more likely to result in arrest.
MITCHELL: Well, I mean, I don't know if that's a situation where they're being more selective in who they're stopping because of this monitor situation. I mean, the reality is if you have a patrol officer or a deputy who is patrolling an area that is largely white non-Hispanic, they're not going to be as afraid to stop people, and so that might lead to more traffic tickets, etc.
But in heavily Hispanic or minority areas they may do fewer stops, and so those might be more selective, and then you might have a higher arrest rate out of that.
GILGER: It's interesting that, yeah, it's interesting hearing your perspective on this. So do you think that the monitor itself, the oversight that deputies know exists here, is affecting their policing?
MITCHELL: Absolutely, no question that it's affecting their policing.
GILGER: Do you think in good ways or bad?
MITCHELL: I think in bad ways, and I think it's having the reverse that everybody wants it to have. You have to keep in mind you have a federal monitor here who to date has been paid, or at least his firm has been paid, $34 million, and that's just by us. That's not all the other locations he's been at.
For example, he's also been the monitor in Oakland for over 20 years. This guy is making bank to tell people you're not safe and they're not doing it right.
GILGER: Let me ask you a question about that price tag, because we interviewed another member of the Community Advisory Board who agrees that's a lot of money but also said they have been as a Community Advisory Board trying to get a breakdown of the costs for a long time and haven't gotten it.
They're suspicious that all of that $300 million or more is attributable to the monitor. Is that a fair ask?
MITCHELL: Well, it's interesting because we've been trying to get a breakdown of how this money is being spent as well. And some of it has been put under court seal so that we can't actually see the breakdown of where the money is going. I'd love to see where all of the money is going.
GILGER: Is the idea of stopping the monitor at this point — especially given the legacy of Sheriff Joe Arpaio and the conflict with the Latino community here that this case came out of — is this putting a price tag on stopping racial profiling, on justice?
MITCHELL: It's not if it's not going on. I mean, if you're just paying money to tell people you should be scared, but the problem is solved, then it's putting a price tag on things that don't exist and paying somebody to tell the Hispanic community, for example, that there's a reason to be afraid of the sheriff's office.
GILGER: This is happening at an interesting political moment, and there have been accusations that this push to get rid of the monitor right now is happening because of that political context, right?
MITCHELL: I'm still waiting for an uninteresting political moment.
GILGER: That is a fair point. But we're seeing the Department of Justice under the Trump administration drop the investigation into the Phoenix Police Department for similar concerns. Do you think that there's a reason this is happening now?
MITCHELL: Well, I think that there was a movement under previous administrations to have federal overtake of local law enforcement, and I think that's very inappropriate except in the most extreme circumstances.
The reason for that is you have other methods to address it. Arpaio was voted out of office. That was appropriate. It's really serious when you try to nationalize police forces.
I looked at the Phoenix DOJ report, and they were taking selective facts. We even saw examples of that in my own office. They made it sound like the state bar came in and cleaned up the county attorney's office in their report. I cleaned up the county attorney's office.
But that's their bread and butter of the old DOJ was to take selective facts and make it sound scary and worse than it is in order to justify a national takeover of local law enforcement.
GILGER: So while someone on the left right now might look at this and say this is politically motivated to get rid of the monitor right now, you say the monitor was politically motivated to begin with?
MITCHELL: Absolutely.
GILGER: Let me ask you about the fear in immigrant communities right now, which this is directly related to, right? That's where this case came from.
We're at another moment now where you're seeing ICE raids, you're seeing federal law enforcement arresting people for immigration status all over the place, including here, and there is a lot of fear in the immigrant community because of what's happening.
What would you like to say to the community that may be scared?
MITCHELL: I understand the fear, and that's one of the things that concerns me is I was a longtime sex crimes prosecutor before I became county attorney, and it wasn't uncommon for, for example, offenders to target people who were in the immigrant community because they felt like they wouldn't report as much, and I think that's a tragedy.
So what I would say to them is if something does happen to you, if you are a victim of crime, that is not what the Maricopa County Attorney's Office is about. We're about holding offenders accountable and working with you on, keeping you here to testify. And so that part in terms of my job is very, very unfortunate.
GILGER: In terms of what you do. What do you think it would say to this community if that investigation was closed before MCSO had reached full compliance? Do you think they would have the same kind of faith in their law enforcement?
MITCHELL: I think it needs to be done with adequate communication. I don't think people realize how much the goalposts have moved over the years that this monitor has been in place, but as it will be portrayed where it's just like, "Oh, we're stopping looking at this" and with the monitor having spread fear like he has, I think it will create fear.
And I think that's incumbent upon us as elected and appointed officials to really communicate with the community that what was happening under Arpaio is not happening now. And frankly — and I can't say this strongly enough — will not be tolerated by the Maricopa County Attorney's Office.
