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Reuters General/ - Article, Ter, 03 de Abril de 2012
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Civil Rights)
Government plans to sue Arizona sheriff
for targeting Latinos
By Jeremy Pelofsky
WASHINGTON | Tue Apr 3, 2012 6:20pm EDT
(Reuters) - The Obama administration on Tuesday
said it was preparing to sue Arizona county sheriff Joe
Arpaio and his department for violating civil rights laws
by improperly targeting Latinos in a bid to crack down
on illegal immigrants.
The sheriff's high-profile crackdown on illegal
immigrants has helped thrust the issue onto the
national political stage with some states passing tough
new laws aimed at pushing out those in the country
illegally.
The administration's Justice Department and the
Maricopa County Sheriff's Office have been in
settlement talks for months over allegations that
officers regularly made unlawful stops and arrests of
Latinos, used excessive force against them and failed
to adequately protect the Hispanic community.
Those negotiations have broken down because of a
fight over the Justice Department's demand that an
independent monitor be appointed by a federal court to
oversee compliance with the settlement, which has
now reached 128 pages in draft form, according to the
Obama administration.
"We believe that you are wasting time and not
negotiating in good faith," Roy Austin, deputy assistant
attorney general in the Justice Department's civil rights
division, said in a letter to the lawyer for Maricopa
County Sheriff's Office (MCSO).
Austin said in the letter that Arpaio's team demanded
that a meeting slated for Wednesday include for the
first time negotiations over the monitor and previously
had demanded that the Justice Department provide
more details about its findings.
"MCSO's refusal to engage in good faith negotiations
requires us to prepare for civil (court) action," Austin
said. He added that the Justice Department has
recently discovered more information about the "failure
to reasonably investigate sex crimes" by Arpaio's
office.
The Justice Department in a December report outlined
numerous alleged civil rights violations, including that
Latino drivers were four to nine times more likely to be
stopped than non-Latinos by Arpaio's force.
The sheriff has steadfastly denied any wrongdoing and
lashed out at the Obama administration for targeting
his department and failing to deal with the problem of
illegal immigration with some 11.5 million believed to
be in the United States.
In a strongly worded statement on Tuesday, Arpaio
said the appointment of a monitor would force him to
abdicate responsibility for his police force, including
decisions about policies, operations, jail programs and
enforcement.
"To the Obama administration, who is attempting to
strong arm me into submission only for its political
gain, I say: This will not happen, not on my watch!"
Arpaio said in the statement.
Arpaio's force has been under investigation by federal
authorities since 2008 during the Bush administration.
Obama's Justice Department spent months fighting for
access to documents and to some of his deputies.
Arpaio was interviewed twice during the probe.
(Additional reporting by David Schwartz in Phoenix;
Editing by Anthony Boadle)
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