Arizona’s Criminals with Badges

By Raoul Lowery Contreras

What does Patrick Lanzo of the State of Georgia and Joe Arpaio, Sheriff of Maricopa County (Phoenix, AZ) have in common?

Lanzo has a sign in his yard that states “I do not support the n**gger in the White House.”  Lanzo owns a bar in which he caters to racist whites by calling his bar, a “Klan bar.” That should appeal to Joe Arpaio, the Bush League Sheriff in the middle of the desert. What makes him the Arizona equivalent of Georgia’s Lanzo is a parsing of this statement that Arpaio put out to raise money for his reelection campaign referring to a federal lawsuit by the Department of Justice against Arpaio, his department and his county:

“Even if you do not live in Maricopa County, Arizona please know that we have become the gateway for illegal immigration in this country which affects your community as well. Please…support my campaign.”

This statement is a blatant lie, just like when Arpaio claims his county is the kidnapping capitol of the USA. Another lie is that the Federal Government is trying to stop him from doing his job. Two sentences, three lies.

The Phoenix police chief was fired from his job because he lied to Congress about kidnappings. The number of illegal-border-crossers into Arizona has never really been large. For example, at its peak, hundreds of thousands of men and women crossed the border illegally into San Diego and on its most busy day, week, month or year, Arizona illegal border crossers never came close to the number that used to cross at San Diego, ever. Try half…

Reason: There simply aren’t anywhere near the number of illegal border crossers today than there used to be. In fact, there are zero net illegal border crossers today and for the past couple of years. The numbers have been decreasing every year for ten years.

People who study population movements across the border in both directions know that the number of young Mexican men has been dropping precipitously in the past decade shrinking the Mexican labor surplus drastically resulting in fewer and fewer illegal border crossers. That reduces the illegally present labor market upon which American farmers have depended on for decades to help with the planting and harvest of crops in Southwest America and California that feeds the country.

So much for Arpaio’s “gateway…”

The Federal government’s law suit is based on what the government defines as illegal activities as outlined in the actual complaint:

“This Complaint sets out three categories of unlawful conduct: (1) a pattern or practice of discriminatory and otherwise unconstitutional law enforcement actions against Latinos in Maricopa County; (2) discriminatory jail practices against Latino prisoners with limited English language skills; and (3) a pattern or practice of retaliatory actions against perceived critics of MCSO activities.”

“This action is brought to enforce the First Amendment, Fourth Amendment, and Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution; the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, 42 U.S.C. § 14141; Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000d to 2000d-7; the Title VI implementing regulations issued by the United States Department of Justice, 28 C.F.R. §§ 42.101 to42.112; and Title VI contractual assurances.”

Years of Arpaio lies and illegal actions by himself, his deputies and legal cronies in the County Attorney’s office have finally surfaced in courtrooms. His legal cronies, the former County attorney and a staff lawyer have been disbarred recently and observers are counting the minutes to criminal indictments.

Now this law suit… Another law suit against Arpaio and his Department goes to trial in July filed by an individual Mexican American – a legal resident — when he was falsely imprisoned and detained by Arpaio’s deputies.

Arpaio, himself, is being sued. His Department is being sued. The County of Maricopa is being sued. Defending these suits will cost the citizenry of Maricopa County, Arizona a fortune. To that end the County has just hired out-of-state lawyers to defend itself from the suit. That will cost up to a million dollars of taxpayer’s money.

Arpaio and his department will be defended by attorneys hired by Arpaio and paid for with taxpayer’s money. That will cost another million dollars.

All these taxpayer dollars will be spent on lawyers for two simple reasons: One, Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his department are provably corrupt and lawless and (2) negotiations with the federal government broke down over placing an independent monitor in the Sheriff’s office to make sure laws were followed by the department and its deputies.

Arpaio walked out of the negotiations because he says: “No one is going to tell me how to run my department!”

Joe, baby, wanna bet!!!

Editors note: As with all postings on this blog which appear with a byline, the posting represents the author’s opinion and not the official position of Cafe Con Leche Republicans.

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Raoul Lowery Contreras (1941) was born in Mexico, raised in the USA. Former U.S. Marine, athlete, Dean’s List at San Diego State. Professional political consultant and California Republican Party official(1963-65)…Television news commentator, radio talk show host…published Op-Ed writer (1988 to present)…author of 12 books (as of 1-05-12). His books are available on Amazon.com.