Testimony of fear, anger at racial-profiling trial

Two citizens who believe Maricopa County Sheriff's deputies pulled them over because they are Hispanic gave the most emotional testimony so far in the 2-day-old trial involving allegations that Sheriff Joe Arpaio's agency engages in racial profiling.

Daniel Magos, 67, and Velia Meraz were stopped more than 18 months apart by sheriff's deputies, and neither have been pulled over since then. But both believe they remain targets of the Sheriff's Office because of their race

Attorneys for the Sheriff's Office have asked the same question of all the alleged profiling victims as they end their testimony: Have sheriff's deputies pulled you over since the traffic stop that led to the profiling allegation? The answer is universally "no," but Meraz, who was a passenger in an SUV that was pulled over in March 2008, said her fear remains.

Dana: 2008 video contradicts Arpaio testimony

"Sheriff Joe Arpaio keeps saying it on national TV that he's going to continue what he's doing and that means these sweeps, these stops," Meraz told the court. "I believe it could happen again."
The case alleges that the Sheriff's immigration-enforcement priorities have resulted in discrimination against Latinos residents. Over the past six years, Arpaio has made immigration enforcement his trademark, but those efforts have been also met by accusations -- by citizens, activists and the U.S. Justice Department -- that his agency has engaged in racial profiling and discrimination.

Deputy Michael Kikes, the sheriff's deputy who pulled over the SUV Meraz was riding in with her brother, Manuel Nieto, took the witness stand earlier Wednesday. Attorneys for the plaintiffs pointed out contradictions between deposition testimony that Kikes gave earlier and his statements in court on Wednesday.

U.S. District Judge Murray Snow picked up on several of those apparent contradictions, questioning Kikes about his involvement with the Sheriff's saturation patrols and the instructions he might have been given before the operations began.

Kikes initially told the court that he recalled an instruction sheet for the March 2008 operation in the north Valley that included a specific warning against racial profiling.

"In bold letters, I remember," said Kikes, who was serving as a motorcycle officer during the operation.

Snow later had Kikes look at the instruction sheet, on which the deputy could find no such admonition. Kikes also claimed he was in a briefing before the operation began, but his name was not reflected on an attendance sheet that other deputies signed.

The contradictions in Kikes' testimony became more significant as Meraz and Nieto gave accounts of their stop and detention. Their recollections directly conflicted with Kikes' statements. Kikes claimed he never used force with Nieto after stopping the siblings' SUV at the request of another deputy. Kikes also said he never drew his weapon during the stop, but Meraz and Nieto testified that some deputies had their guns drawn.

Nieto and Meraz were stopped after they encountered a sheriff's deputy who had two men detained at a gas station in the north Valley during one of Arpaio's saturation patrols. The siblings claim they were about to enter the gas station when a sheriff's deputy ordered them to leave and threatened them with arrest for disorderly conduct. On their way out of the gas station, Meraz admitted to telling the detained men not to sign anything they did not understand.

Nieto admitted he initially refused to pull over when Kikes pulled behind his SUV, but said he was afraid of the sheriff's deputy and was on the phone with 911 operators expressing his concerns.
Nieto and Meraz were eventually released without receiving a citation.

Tim Casey, an attorney for the Sheriff's Office, asked Nieto if he had ever been pulled over again by Arpaio's deputies after that March 2008 stop.

"I have not," Nieto said. "But I do have fear."

Similar testimony emerged from a maintenance worker who was pulled over in south Phoenix in December 2009. He had been stopped because his work trailer obscured the license plate, according to the deputy who stopped Magos and his wife in a Ford pickup loaded up with landscaping equipment.

Magos, who has been a U.S. citizen for more than 45 years, was not cited for any violations. He believes the sheriff's deputy pulled his truck over for an entirely different reason.

"It made me feel angry ... worthless ... defenseless," Magos said, holding back tears on the witness stand as he described the stop. "After (the deputy's) apology (for the stop) he told me that stop had nothing to do with racial profiling. I told him that was exactly what it was."

Magos said he tried to report the incident to the Sheriff's Office, but never received a return call after family members left several messages. He said the complaint he filed with the American Civil Liberties Union was the first time anyone responded to his concerns. Magos said he has since spoken with investigators from the U.S. Department of Justice, which earlier this year filed a separate civil-rights lawsuit against the Sheriff's Office.

With no jury in the case, Snow will decide whether the Sheriff's Office participated in widespread discrimination against Latino residents, as the plaintiffs claim.

The lawsuit does not seek monetary damages. Instead, the plaintiffs want the kind of injunctive relief that the Sheriff's Office has resisted in the past -- a declaration that spells out what deputies may or may not do when stopping potential suspects, and a court-appointed monitor to make sure the agency lives by those rules.

The trial is scheduled to end on Aug. 2.

Sheriff Joe Arpaio Faces New Lawsuits Over Last Year's Arrest of Demonstrators at Jail; One Protester Claims He was Beaten by Guards

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio is being sued again -- this time by four immigration activists arrested last summer during a protest at the 4th Avenue Jail.

Two of the plaintiffs are lawyers who acted as legal observers during the protest; one demonstrator claims he was beaten by guards.

Their allegations stem from a July 29, 2010 demonstration near the "sally port" driveway entrance to the jail, where some activists chained themselves together to protest the state's hotly contested anti-illegal-immigrant law, SB1070, and the state's "climate of hate." Dozens of protesters were arrested by Phoenix police and sheriff's deputies, including local activists Salvador Reza and Alfredo Gutierrez.

Two of the lawsuits were filed in federal court and two in Superior Court.

Gustavo Ramirez, a California resident, claims he wasn't blocking the sally port entrance before being arrested and thrown headfirst on the concrete of an "isolated" part of the jail's garage. As one deputy pressed his head to the ground, according to Ramirez's lawsuit, others "made sport out of kicking him in the back, legs, abdomen and other parts of his body, including his hands."

Image: Stephen Lemons

The scene was tense on July 29, 2010, as police and anti-SB1070 protesters squared off near the 4th Avenue Jail.

​
Ramirez describes how he was traumatized and bruised by the alleged beating and 20 hours of incarceration, but it's unclear if he required medical treatment.

Audrey Williams, 57, of Santa Barbara, California, claims in her lawsuit that she was among those protesting SB 1070 at the jail when she was arrested. She says she was detained for 26 hours and denied the medication she uses to control the pain from her fibromyalgia and arthritis, resulting in extreme discomfort and humiliation.

The lawyers, Sunita Patel and Roxanna Orrell, claim they were supporting the protesters as clearly identified legal observers, but weren't themselves protesting.

Patel, an immigration activist and staff attorney for the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights, states in her federal complaint she'd been photographing and videotaping the protesters on the sally port entrance before her arrest.

She admits that she walked onto the driveway after jail staff warned that anyone doing so would be arrested, describing how she'd just intended to the names of protesters she felt were about to be hauled off. Though she'd moved back onto the sidewalk, deputies singled her out and arrested her, she states.

During her 15 hours in jail, Patel claims, deputies grilled her about her place of birth. She refused to answer their question, at first. A judge later ordered her to be released on her own recognizance, but jail staff told her she couldn't leave until they determined her immigration status, "at which she point she relented and responded to their questions," the lawsuit says.

In the fourth lawsuit, Roxanna Orrell notes that she's a licensed attorney in Texas and Minnesota, and says she was working as legal observer on July 29, 2010, photographing the demonstrators. Orrell states that she was careful to obey all of the orders given by deputies at the scene, but was arrested anyway as she stood on a public sidewalk near the jail's entrance. Besides abusing her civil rights with the arrest, the jail staff kept her detained too long and kept losing her paperwork, she claims.

All of the criminal charges levied against the four protesters, including failure to obey a police officer and obstructing a governmental operation, were later dismissed in court.

They're seeking punitive damages and other remedies for their troubles.

Taxpayers ought to hope the county's kept its insurance premiums paid.

http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valleyfever/2011/08/sheriff_joe_arpaio_faces_new_l.php#more

Phoenix police union loses members over dissension

PLEA president Mark Spencer

As the Phoenix Police Department endured one of its most turbulent years in recent history, many officers quit the Phoenix Law Enforcement Association over the union's politics and priorities.

Roughly 8 percent of members resigned from PLEA last year, which the labor group mainly attributes to officers who quit paying monthly dues to save money during the tough economy.

But others have left in protest of the union's support of Senate Bill 1070, Arizona's controversial new immigration law, or because of the ongoing, bitter battle between union leaders and Phoenix Public Safety Manager Jack Harris.

Some disenchanted with PLEA say the union's political positions and public attacks against Harris distract from what should be the labor group's main mission: to fight for better pay and working conditions for rank-and-file police officers.

PLEA President Mark Spencer said the union board expected to alienate members.

The attacks on management and passionate support for SB 1070 directly responded to what a majority of members wanted to see from union leaders, he said. SB 1070 makes it a crime to be in the state illegally and requires law-enforcement officers to detain suspected undocumented immigrants when practicable.

"There's a cost involved with doing business like that," Spencer said.

"All of our members are important, but we get our direction from the majority of members."

Spencer expects that the worst of the drops have passed and that fewer officers will leave this week, one of only two times a year city employees can quit a labor group.

PLEA added 31 members this winter and will continue to add members or recruit those who recently backed out, Spencer said.

He also said some officers no longer wanted to pay $60 in basic monthly dues to save cash in the tough economy.

"It comes in cycles," he said. "We're not aware of any mass exodus."

PLEA's membership was about 89 percent of about 2,560 eligible police officers in 2006 and spiked in recent years before dropping to 83 percent of 2,675 patrol officers in July 2010, city records show.

The city's other unions representing firefighters, management, sanitation workers, engineers and other city employees saw their memberships grow or hold steady.

Tired of rhetoric

J.R. Pool, a Phoenix police domestic-violence detective, worked for years as a PLEA representative before dropping out of the union and joining another labor organization in July.

Pool said his friends on the force feel that PLEA "negotiates through news releases" and that blasts against the Police Department alienate officers who've grown tired of the rhetoric.

"The majority is the frustration with PLEA losing focus on the patrol officer in favor of a personal agenda," Pool said. "It's ruining my reputation, and it's ruining patrol officers' reputation."

PLEA has criticized Harris' leadership and backed a lawsuit against Harris for drawing a pension as well as a salary.

Harris and the department faced a turbulent 2010, which brought multiple fraud investigations, an officer facing murder charges in the fatal shooting of an unarmed suspect, and the unsolved shooting death of a sergeant.

Money and benefits

As the bargaining unit for Phoenix police officers and detectives, PLEA is primarily responsible for negotiating salaries and benefits for patrol officers. The union also works on developing better working conditions, such as pushing for changes in how the city handles internal investigations and other policy issues.

PLEA representatives go to officer-involved shootings, represent officers accused of misconduct and help officers accused of crimes get legal assistance.

The Police Department budget is about $419 million, or 43 percent of the city's more than $1 billion general-fund operating budget for the 2010-11 fiscal year.

The union helped play a role in sparing officers from citywide layoffs as Phoenix was facing a more than $277 million budget shortfall last year.

All other city departments faced layoffs except police and firefighters. They did, however, agree to 3.2 percent in wage reductions along with all the other city employees.

Phoenix officials had little to say about the loss of PLEA membership, saying the city is prohibited from influencing how employees choose to be represented and will cooperate with whatever group officers officially support.

Pool paid dues as a PLEA member for 22 years before quitting.

Part of the problem, he said, was the union's bloglike website, run by the PLEA board, which recently characterized the Police Department as corrupt and "doomed to failure and a cycle of destruction that will continually repeat until change is brought about."

"It was the constant negativity coming from PLEA that started wearing on me over time," Pool said.

Nick Wubker, a Phoenix drug-enforcement detective, made his concerns known in direct letters to Spencer about how patrol officers perceive PLEA.

The former member explained that he was leaving the union because "the members of PLEA are deeply concerned about what is happening with PLEA, your alignment with certain political figures, your political stances on non-PLEA-related issues, and your inability to convey the true concerns of the members," he wrote in one letter.

The FOP is growing

As PLEA has been losing members, the Phoenix Fraternal Order of Police has seen its ranks grow from fewer than 300 in 2008 to 503 active members in 2010. The increased membership is encouraging the FOP to consider trying to push PLEA aside.

Leaders at the FOP and other police groups said PLEA's rhetoric unnecessarily portrays the department as dysfunctional.

The Phoenix FOP lodge could challenge PLEA as the bargaining unit for rank-and-file police officers after the city's current contract expires in 2012, according to Jim Mann, executive director for the FOP's Arizona Labor Council.

The FOP is a national law-enforcement organization with more than 325,000 members around the U.S., including at least 2,200 lodges that serve as bargaining units for their police departments.

The FOP has been aggressively poising itself for the fight, posting recruitment videos on YouTube and material on police-station bulletin boards. PLEA and the FOP also have been dueling through surveys and polls.

In December, PLEA leaders posted the results of their latest membership poll, which they said showed "over 80 percent of Phoenix police officers believe Harris should be fired."

Critics of PLEA said the no-confidence vote was merely a small percentage of PLEA membership, not of all sworn officers. Others said they never had a chance to vote.

The FOP countered with a survey of 410 Phoenix voters that indicated 65 percent of those polled supported Harris, while 53 percent of those polled disagreed with how Spencer did his job.

'Let members decide'

Despite the turmoil, it's unclear whether a majority of Phoenix police would switch from PLEA to the FOP.

Brian Livingston, president of the Arizona Police Association, composed of PLEA and dozens of other state law-enforcement unions, said PLEA will be fine.

"Let the members decide," said Livingston, who served as PLEA chairman in 1999 when he was shot in the line of duty and forced to retire.

"I've every confidence they will choose PLEA because of their history and where the organization is going," Livingston added.

Lt. Mark Hafkey, president of the Phoenix Police Sergeants and Lieutenants Association, said his union, the bargaining unit for police supervisors, recently changed its bylaws to accept disgruntled PLEA members as associates. He also said dues are less expensive than PLEA's.

Hafkey said he disagrees with PLEA's political stances, although he questioned whether pushing PLEA out would be the right decision for the city's police.

"I'm not sure people want that," Hafkey said. "PLEA was a respected union for years. It wasn't until a few years ago . . . people started thinking about supporting FOP."

Vice Mayor Thelda Williams said that the struggle between PLEA and the FOP has been going on for decades and that she expects PLEA will come out on top as it has in the past.

In 1988, PLEA emerged victorious from a similar challenge by the FOP, with officers voting 825-323 to keep PLEA in place.

"The Police Department has been through upheaval and has had so many bad things happen this year that I'm sure it has influenced this struggle and (PLEA) membership," Williams said.

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2011/01/07/20110107phoenix-police-union-dispute.html

Sheriff Joe Arpaio protest ends in arrest for man, officer pushing woman

A Phoenix neighborhood protest against Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio on Thursday resulted in one person being arrested and another claiming Phoenix police roughed her up.

Abraham Hernandez, 21, was booked on disorderly conduct charges, said Sgt. Steve Martos, a Phoenix police spokesman.

Another woman, who refused to give her name, said a Phoenix police officer pushed her once into a squad car and another time to the floor. A woman who was with her gave the same account to The Republic.

Martos confirmed that an officer pushed an individual, who fell to the floor, after a group of people rushed the officers.

Arpaio was at Manzanita Elementary School, 8430 N. 39th Ave., to speak at a neighborhood group meeting, Martos said.

"Phoenix police officers were at Manzanita to ensure it was peaceful," Martos said. "(Hernandez) kept pushing the envelope, telling people to ignore commands."

After Arpaio had left, the Phoenix officers arrested Hernandez, who was told not to return to the property.

"(Hernandez) was not allowed in the meeting or on the property," Martos said. "He came back at the end where he was throwing something in the garbage."

That's when officers circled him and arrested him, Martos said.

A number of individuals ran back toward the officers as they were trying to get Hernandez into the police car, Martos said.

"They vast majority of the community understands that when an officer is taking law enforcement action, you can't rush or run toward him, or try to stop him from making an arrest," Martos said.

Opal Tometi, who was at the protest, said another woman started questioning the officers.

"Why are you taking him? On what grounds?" Tometi said. The woman leaned in when Hernandez was being placed in the car and that's when an officer pushed the woman into a squad car.

"She wasn't getting physical with the officer," Tometi said. A few moments later the same woman was pushed to the ground.

Martos defends the officers' right to keep the peace.

"You rush at officers, you may get pushed back or get pushed to the ground. Our hope is be able to protect everyone's right to voice their opinion."

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2010/09/17/20100917sheriff-joe-arpaio-protest-arrest-officer-rough-brk.html

Tucson Group “Polices” the Police on Immigration

TUCSON, Ariz.— A coalition of community groups in Tuscon is using video to show how readily police are cooperating with Border Patrol, despite local law enforcement’s stated opposition to Arizona’s new immigration law before it took effect.

The “Yo Soy Testigo” ("I’m a witness") campaign, launched by Tucson-based Coalición Derechos Humanos, seeks to shine a light on the practice of police cooperation with Border Patrol in the city.

The group, in partnership with PanLeft Productions and Migra Patrol CopWatch, has been using video cameras to document just how often police officers are detaining Latinos—with or without documents—and turning them over to immigration authorities. The group hopes that the videos will increase community awareness of how police are really treating Latinos, despite their supposed opposition to SB1070, and will pressure law enforcement to change its policies.

“We want to expose this reality and for people in the community to take responsibility,” said Isabel Garcia, director of Coalición de Derechos Humanos. She urges people to call the Yo Soy Testigo hotline to report any incidents so they can be videotaped and documented.

Prior to SB 1070, local police departments and other state agencies already had their own policies to detain undocumented immigrants on a discretionary basis. Had a court allowed the new law to take full effect, such detentions would have become mandatory throughout Arizona.

But the mandatory detention provision of SB 1070 provoked a strong outcry from the state's local law officers.

“We are not interested in enforcing federal immigration law,” said Captain Michael Gillooly, the Tucson Police Department's chief of staff. “The problem with SB 1070 is that it mandated we did that.”

In an interview with the Arizona Daily Star in July, Tucson Police Chief Roberto Villasenor said: “Although illegal immigration has undeniable impacts on Arizona, requiring local police already strapped for resources to act as immigration agents is not the answer.”

The Pima County Sheriff's Department and the South Tucson Police Department also opposed SB 1070.

But despite such widespread opposition, videos captured by Jason Aragon of PanLeft and Migra Patrol Copwatch show a different picture.

A recent video posted online, titled “SB 1070 is in full effect,” shows a woman detained by Tucson police and then shortly after taken away by Border Patrol.

Lynda Cruz, a volunteer with Migra Patrol CopWatch, was present that day, and said the woman was pulled over for a minor infraction. The woman, a legal resident, had forgotten her wallet at home and didn’t have any identification, Cruz says.

Volunteers like Cruz advise people who are detained to refuse to speak with their captors and to request the presence of their attorney.

When New America Media asked about this incident, Gillooly said the Tucson Police Department was confident that the officer acted appropriately and was following department policy.

“Our investigation of that revealed that when the Border Patrol arrived, that female refused to answer any questions,” Gillooly said. He said the federal agent was forced to take her to the station to check whether she was an undocumented immigrant.

When asked why the police detained this woman and called the Border Patrol, Gillooly said he wouldn’t provide any more information.

Cruz said similar incidents have occurred in South Tucson, an area that is predominantly Hispanic.

Gillooly said the department has not seen an increase in complaints from community members about possible racial profiling or police abuse.

“People don’t complain? How are they going to complain if they are the ones retaliated against?” responded Garcia of the Coalición de Derechos Humanos.

The situation in Tucson hasn’t attracted nearly as much media attention as the controversial immigration raids in Latino neighborhoods in Phoenix by Maricopa County sheriff’s deputies. But, in many ways, the dynamics at play in Tucson are creating heightened tensions.

About 40 percent of the city’s half-million residents are Latinos. Tucson, located less than two hours from the Mexican border, is also home to a Border Patrol station, which facilitates more direct cooperation between police and U.S. immigration authorities. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has 3,300 Border Patrol agents dedicated to the Tucson sector of the border.

In the past five years, the Border Patrol added 1,000 agents as part of a federal effort to escalate border security.

Unlike Phoenix, it is not uncommon to see Border Patrol cars driving through Tucson. Many of those who work at the Border Patrol station live in the community.

“People are divided over this issue,” said Alex González, a volunteer [or “promotoras”] with Coalición de Derechos Humanos. “Even families are divided on this.”

She said the new “Yo Soy Testigo” hotline has been flooded with calls denouncing police detentions and cooperation with Border Patrol.

One of the calls she took last week came from Gerardo Robles, a heartbroken undocumented immigrant, who sobbed over the phone in desperation. His wife, who was also undocumented, was pulled over by a Tucson police officer in a traffic stop. The officer called the Border Patrol, and now his wife is in a detention center.

Robles and his family have been living in Tucson for six years. He said they considered leaving the state because of SB 1070 but had been hoping for the best— in the past, police had stopped him on several occasions but had never called the Border Patrol. The politics behind SB 1070 might have changed things, he said.

“A criminal that traffics with drugs—those people are in the streets,” he said. “They are the ones that are free. My wife was coming back from work to feed our two children.”

http://newamericamedia.org/2010/09/tucson-group-polices-the-police.php

Glendale police union backs Arizona's immigrant crackdown

by Dustin Gardiner - Apr. 20, 2010 08:27 AM
The Arizona Republic

One of Glendale's police officer unions is endorsing an effort by state lawmakers to give Arizona some of the toughest immigration laws in the nation.

Senate Bill 1070 would make illegal immigration a misdemeanor offense under state law, allowing local law enforcement officers to detain individuals on suspicion of being in the country illegally if they cannot produce a valid government ID or registration card.

The bill is expected to head toward Gov. Jan Brewer's desk for a signature within the coming days.

Officer Justin Harris, president of the Glendale Law Enforcement Association, said the bill gives police, who are only charged with enforcing state laws, the power to detain undocumented immigrants and turn them over to federal Immigration and Custom Enforcement agents.

"It takes the handcuffs off law enforcement," he said. "Our hands are tied without these laws in place."

Harris said the bill's sponsor, Sen. Russell Pearce of Mesa, approached GLEA and other police unions at the start of the legislative session to secure their support.

Opponents of the bill say it would promote racial profiling and prevent potential witnesses from coming forward or cooperating with police out of fear they could be deported.

"I get calls from mothers whose 15-year-old daughters get raped and they're afraid to call police," said Hector Yturralde, a Latino activist and former president of the Arizona Hispanic Community Forum.

"All these laws being passed are nothing but Jim Crow wannabes," he added, referring to laws in the Old South enforcing white supremacy.

Harris said the undocumented community has no reason to fear police will be overzealous to the point of arresting victims or witnesses.

"We're not going to treat the victim as a criminal," he said.

Given the budget cuts facing Glendale and other cities, Yturralde questions why police would use their limited resources to pursue people for "minor" immigration violations when they could be going after hardened criminals.

Harris argues that by taking illegal immigrants off the streets, police will be preventing future crimes they might commit.

He said someone who "sneaks past border agents through the desert and under fences" knows they're doing something illegal and is more likely to commit other crimes.

"If we can focus on stopping the less serious crime, that in itself stops crime," Harris said.

Yturralde said there's no clear evidence to support claims that illegal immigrants commit crimes in higher numbers.

"Not even the FBI has these statistics," he said. "This is absolutely insane."

Glendale's other law enforcement union, the Fraternal Order of Police, has not taken a position on the legislation.

http://www.azcentral.com/community/glendale/articles/2010/04/20/20100420-glendale-az-police-union-backs-immigrant-crackdown.html