Maricopa County sheriff says his deputies don't racially profile. Data paints a different picture

Maricopa County Sheriff Jerry Sheridan and Republican allies have been pushing for an end to court oversight of his department for months now.

Sheridan argues that the department is not the same one it was under former Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his officers do not racially profile.

But, this reporter found the data paints a different picture.

Rafael Carranza is a reporter for Arizona Luminaria and reported the story for Pro Publica’s Local Reporting Network. He joined The Show to talk more about what he found.

Full conversation

LAUREN GILGER: Jerry Sheridan was Joe Arpaio's No. 2 for some time when he was sheriff decades ago. And he saw this kind of original case that led to this court-appointed monitor play out firsthand.

But as he ran for sheriff, as he took office, he has said that he does not think this over oversight is necessary anymore. And he's not the only one saying that right now. So tell us why, what's his argument?

RAFAEL CARRANZA: So his argument is that, you know, that the original case stemming from racial profiling allegations all the way back to 2007, this is a very long-running case. There was a settlement in 2013 that pretty much dictates everything that the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office does now. And so Sheriff Sheridan's argument, as well as those of Republican Board of Supervisors, is that the department has done enough, you know, since 2013 when the court first imposed those reforms. That it's now a completely different agency that no longer racially profiles.

And Sheridan actually credits the reforms that the federal judge imposed as one of the reasons why. He believes that the department is ... one of the best departments in the country because of all the requirements that, you know, they must comply with in order to ensure that they're not racially profiling or that there's no racial bias in a lot of these traffic stops.

GILGER: Interesting. You looked at the data though here. There's a lot of data as part of the settlement, right? The MCSO keeps kind of incredibly detailed records of things like traffic stops, investigations into officers. More than that. Tell us what the data says. It paints a different story.

CARRANZA: It is. There's, there's so much. Again, because it is such a big case and there's a lot of reporting requirements. There's, you know, 13 data points that any deputy has to write down after interacting with the public. And then that information then gets parsed out into multiple reports. And there are, you know, quarterly reviews. There are also monthly reviews of individual deputies. So if they found to have disparities, then, you know, the department can act on what's behind those disparities.

And so the sheriff has said that, you know, many of these monthly reviews have not shown that any deputies have been involved and racial profiling.

But I think the point of contention here is this annual traffic report that the department itself is paying and funding, contracting with a nonprofit to analyze all the data. And what this annual report has found is that there are some disparities in the interactions with drivers. And the main focus of this lawsuit is with Latino drivers because they're considered the plaintiff class. The lawsuit stemmed from racial profiling against Latinos. And so they're the ones that are covered with this settlement.

But this last report from 2024 also found that there were longer — that traffic stops involving Black drivers, who are not covered in the settlement, were also taking longer than compared to white drivers. And so these yearly reports are the ones that identify the disparities that the sheriff's department must then kind of, you know, address.

But that's also, you know, that's one of the key components that the Sheriff's Office must comply with in order to get out of the court oversight is ensuring that there are no more, no more of these racial disparities in these annual reports. And that's one of the big holdups that has kept the judge from releasing the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office from court oversight.

GILGER: Right. And it's one of the few. They are mostly there otherwise, which is always interesting to point out.

I want to ask, Rafael, about the activists, right in the Latino community and what they have to about all of this — and what they've thought as they've watched this kind of push from Sheridan, from some Republicans on the Board of Supervisors, like you mentioned, to get rid of the monitor to end this case.

They were the ones that pushed to get Arpaio out of office to force change at this department. What do they think about all this?

CARRANZA: Well, I think there's a lot of skepticism. And you know, I think this, this also predates Sheridan. You know, even before he was in office, you had Paul Penzone, who was a Democrat. And he ended up having to step down, partly he cited because of the court-imposed requirements on the department. And so I think because given Sheridan's history, you know, having worked for Sheriff Arpaio, the fact that he was held in contempt of court back in 2016 for undermining some of the court reforms. They kind of viewed that initially right off the block as kind of like as a disadvantage to, a barrier towards building trust.

And so as the year has progressed, you know, the sheriff has moved to end oversight altogether, along with the county Board of Supervisors. And so a lot of the activists, a lot of the Latino community members kind of see this as well, if this is the move now, what's going to happen? What's the end goal for him releasing or trying to get rid of court oversight?

And their concern, of course, is that in the moment that we're in, that it could lead to, you know, greater participation or collaboration between the Sheriff's Office and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Even though Sheridan has told me multiple times over the course of this reporting that he has no interest in, in pursuing any more immigration agreements with ICE.

GILGER: Right. He says, "We are not going to do that. We cannot do that right now anyway." But, but hanging over all of this, of course, is the Trump administration's mass deportation plan. And they have really expanded those local agreements with local law enforcement agencies over the last one-and-a-half, two years here. Are activists concerned about that and what that could lead to?

CARRANZA: That's a question that I think comes time and time again in speaking to activists. And I think that the bulk — the main reason for that is the fact that there are ICE agents already stationed inside the Maricopa County intake facility. So this is the place where all detainees get sent in. And there are two ICE agents that are given physical space so that they screen anybody who is booked into that.

And so they kind of view that already as a base for collaboration and kind of are concerned that it could escalate even further from that point. But it definitely is a big priority for the Trump administration. There are over 1,000 agreements now, though ... I have to note that the majority of departments in Arizona are not signing on. There are just a handful.

You know, less than half-dozen that have signed on in the second Trump administration. And most of those are not for task forces. They're for enforcement of the jails.