10/05/2012 - Myclipp

USA Today/ - News, Dom, 13 de Maio de 2012
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Civil Rights)
Will Arpaio's popularity continue amid
lawsuit?
PHOENIX (AP) – The careers of most politicians would
crumble under the heavy scrutiny that the
self-proclaimed toughest sheriff in America now faces.
But despite a mountain of legal troubles, Maricopa
County Sheriff Joe Arpaio remains popular with voters
and has more than $3.4 million in the bank for his
November re-election campaign.
The Justice Department sued the five-term sheriff on
Thursday on allegations that his officers racially profile
Latinos — a move that has his critics saying that voters
will finally be turned off and his supporters saying the
development will only make him more beloved among
voters who want a tough sheriff who doesn't back
down from anyone.
\"He's the new Wyatt Earp,\" said Tom Morrissey,
chairman of the Arizona Republican Party in a
reference to the Arizona lawman made famous by the
gun fight at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone. \"The guy's
legendary.
\"What he stands for resonates across the country,\"
said Morrissey, also a retired chief U.S. Marshal.
\"Hundreds sometimes thousands of people cheer this
man, give him standing ovations everywhere he
speaks. That speaks volumes.\"
He said Arpaio's hardline stance on illegal immigration
and his tough talk have driven his popularity.
\"He tells it like it is. He's not polished, and a lot of
times you never know what's going to come out of his
mouth,\" Morrissey said. \"The truth has a certain ring
and Joe Arpaio speaks in that realm.\"
Even as the Justice Department brought the lawsuit
down against Arpaio, saying that he abused his power
and violated the Constitution, the sheriff himself held
a news conference and showed no signs of backing
down.
\"I will fight this to the bitter end,\" a visibly angry
Arpaio said, adding that the case will give him a
chance to finally see what evidence authorities have to
back up claims. \"I'm very happy that we are being
sued because now we can make them put up.\"
He said nothing is going to affect his chances of
winning in November.
\"They know that I'm going to get elected. It's a
national issue,\" he said. \"I'm the poster boy. The
national press is picking this up again … I can get
elected on pink underwear.\"
Arpaio has built his reputation in part by making
inmates wear pink underwear, work in chain gangs
and jailing them in tents.
His profile got even bigger when pushed for a stronger
role for local police to enforce immigration law,
launching 20 patrols looking for illegal immigrants
since January 2008.
Thursday's lawsuit comes as part of efforts to enforce
a federal law that bans police from systematically
violating constitutional rights.
Justice Department officials first leveled the allegations
against Arpaio in December, saying a culture of
disregard for basic constitutional rights prevailed at his
office.
Arpaio denies wrongdoing and dismisses the case as
a politically motivated attack by the Obama
administration.
Arpaio's office is accused of punishing Hispanic jail
inmates for speaking Spanish and launching some
patrols based on complaints that never reported a
crime but conveyed concerns about dark-skinned
people congregating or speaking Spanish.
The lawsuit also says that Arpaio's office has virtually
no policies or procedures designed to prevent or
address discriminatory policing, and has no system in
place to track any alleged misconduct by deputies
during traffic stops, arrests or complaints.
State Sen. Steve Gallardo, a Phoenix Democrat, said
the lawsuit eventually will shed light on corruption
within the sheriff's office.
\"It forces Arpaio to go into a courtroom and explain a
lot of these accusations,\" Gallardo said. \"You're going
to see the true Sheriff Joe Arpaio.\"
Gallardo said that it may take a few years, but \"at the
end of the day, once the public sees the truth … I think
the public will give a big thumbs down to Sheriff Joe.\"
Antonio Bustamante, a Phoenix civil rights attorney
and critic of the sheriff's immigration enforcement, said
that \"there's a big swath of voters that this will not
sway at all,\" calling much of the voting public in
Arpaio's jurisdiction racist and ignorant.
\"People come (to Arizona) from other places and want
to make it like Kansas or Nebraska,\" said Bustamante,
who said he's a fourth-generation Arizonan whose
ancestors came from Mexico. \"A lot of those folks look
upon us as the outsiders, and we've been here for
generations. And we settled the state and were the
pioneers of this state.\"
The most recent reliable poll asking voters how they
feel about Arpaio — conducted by the nonpartisan
Behavior Research Center — showed that 41% of the
700 people asked thought he was doing an excellent
or good job. Thirty-three percent thought he was doing
a poor job and 19% said he was doing a fair job,
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