By Rafael Carranza, ProPublica
This story was originally published by ProPublica. Co-published with Arizona Luminaria.
Arizona’s largest sheriff’s department is losing ground in its effort to comply with court-mandated reforms tied to a long-running racial profiling lawsuit and settlement, a monitor has found.
An investigation launched last year by the monitor’s team and published this month alleges a “disturbing pattern” of violations of department policy and court orders that undermined efforts to investigate misconduct and root out racial profiling in the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office. The findings echo allegations from a decade ago that led to contempt charges against sheriff’s office leaders.
The monitor’s investigation follows an analysis by Arizona Luminaria and ProPublica that found ongoing racial disparities in traffic stops by the sheriff’s office, which continue to hold back its compliance with court orders. The accusations this time center on the department’s Professional Standards Bureau, which investigates reports of misconduct.
U.S. District Judge G. Murray Snow, who is overseeing the settlement, appointed Robert Warshaw as the monitor in 2014 to track compliance with mandated reforms. Among other things, Warshaw said the sheriff’s office leadership tried to pressure the bureau’s commander to reopen closed investigations into two deputies who had been disciplined and placed on the Brady list, a public database of officer misconduct. The monitor also claimed that top leadership attempted to interfere in the disciplinary process to protect employees accused of wrongdoing. When the commander resisted, he was placed on leave, investigated by an outside agency and temporarily transferred out of the bureau, the report alleges.
“What the Monitoring Team has found here is an attempt to create an internal culture where favor and reprisal are tools of control: to impact outcomes; to instill fear in changemakers; and to grant favors and position to those who bend to misguided directions,” the report stated.
As a result, the monitor determined that the sheriff’s office has regressed in its compliance with the reforms mandated in a settlement of the Melendres v. Arpaio class-action lawsuit. The suit accused the law enforcement agency of using traffic stops to arrest people on immigration charges, racially profiling Latinos in the process.
The sheriff’s office filed a 78-page response to the inquiry with the court, denying any violations of court orders or department policy and labeling the investigation as “speculative” and “improper.”
The costs to taxpayers of implementing the reforms has reached $350 million, according to the county. But the court has questioned these costs. The monitor published an audit last October that determined the sheriff’s office misattributed or inflated about 72% of its settlement-related expenses.
The American Civil Liberties Union, which represents all Latino drivers in Maricopa County as part of the settlement, said the monitor’s latest inquiry proves that the department cannot be trusted to police itself without court oversight.
“A public law enforcement agency like the MCSO cannot be allowed to operate with impunity if it is to have any legitimacy with the communities it serves,” the ACLU said in its response to the monitor’s inquiry.
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