Pattern of civil rights abuses alleged in Sheriff Joe Arpaio's Maricopa County

The Justice Department charges that Latinos were illegally arrested and abused in jail repeatedly in the Arizona county and that hundreds of sexual assaults weren't investigated.

by Richard A. Serrano and Ashley Powers, Washington Bureau

December 15, 2011

Reporting from Washington and Las Vegas

Sheriff Joe Arpaio's Phoenix-based department repeatedly arrested Latinos illegally, abused them in the county jails and failed to investigate hundreds of sexual assaults, the Justice Department charged after a three-year civil rights investigation.

Justice officials are expected to file suit in U.S. District Court in Arizona asking a federal judge to order changes in the department run by Arpaio, 79, who bills himself as "America's toughest sheriff" for his stance on illegal immigration.

The Department of Homeland Security, reacting to the Justice Department report released Thursday, revoked Maricopa County jail officers' authority to detain people on immigration charges, meaning they can't continue to hold immigration violators who are not charged with local crimes.

Arpaio said at a televised news conference in Arizona that he would try to cooperate, but that "if they are not happy, I guess they can carry out their threat and go to federal court."

He criticized the Justice Department findings as "a sad day for America as a whole," and said that federal government intervention into his sheriff's office would only lead to the release of jail inmates being held on immigration charges after committing previous offenses. Inmates could be transferred to federally controlled facilities instead, however.

"Don't come here and use me as a whipping boy for a national and international problem," he said. "We are proud of the work we have done to fight illegal immigration."

The Arizona probe is one of 20 federal investigations into possible abuse by police agencies nationwide being conducted by the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division — "more than any time in the division's history," said Assistant Atty. Gen. Thomas E. Perez.

Many of the investigations began with requests from local police departments, such as in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and others are underway in Seattle and Portland, Ore. Federal prosecutors in New Orleans have obtained criminal convictions and prison sentences against several police officials for brutality in the days after the hurricane.

Perez, in a letter of warning Thursday to Maricopa County officials, said "deputies, detention officers, supervisory staff and command staff, including Sheriff Arpaio, have engaged in a widespread pattern or practice of law enforcement and jail activities that discriminate against Latinos."

He described Latinos arrested on unreasonable traffic stops, businesses raided when Latinos gather out front, inmates mocked with racial epithets, and 432 cases of sexual assault and child molestation, often involving Latinos, that "were not properly investigated over a three-year period."

One Latino was intentionally hit by a patrol car and dragged, with instructions for other deputies to "leave him there," prosecutors said. A Latino motorist was incarcerated for 13 days for not using his turn signal. Emails written by deputies caricatured Mexicans as being from "Mexifornia," and deputies derided Latino inmates as "wetbacks," "Mexican bitches," "stupid Mexicans" and other epithets.

Prosecutors say the abuse begins with deputies targeting Latino drivers, who it said were four to nine times more likely to be stopped than whites, and asserted that officers "treat Latinos as if they are all undocumented, regardless of whether a legitimate factual basis exists to suspect that a person is undocumented."

The findings set the stage for a faceoff with the often abrasive sheriff.

Perez warned that if Arpaio was not interested in making drastic changes, "we are prepared to file a civil action to compel compliance." That lawsuit would ask a federal judge to force Maricopa County "to address the violations of the Constitution and federal law." A federal criminal investigation of the department's public corruption unit is continuing.

Arguing that Arpaio's leadership has long fostered a bias against "dark skin" people, Perez told reporters, "We have peeled the onion to the core," adding, "we have to do cultural change, and cultural change starts with people at the top."

Arpaio was first elected sheriff in 1992 and has remained a popular figure, particularly among conservative illegal immigration hawks. Voters in Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix, reelected him in 2008 with about 55% of the vote. A former Drug Enforcement Administration agent, Arpaio has provided something of a Rorschach test for Arizonans, representing either a refreshingly tough approach to policing or an example of law enforcement gone wild.

Maricopa County, which has nearly 4 million residents, has been particularly troubled by illegal immigration. The area has become a hotbed of gun running, kidnappings and drug smuggling. The Justice Department warning letter noted that violent crime rose by 69% between 2004 and 2007, including a 166% increase in homicides.

Arpaio has responded by housing inmates in tents, clothing them in pink underwear and serving green and blue meat.

Rep. Raul M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.) said the sheriff's department could not be reformed unless Arpaio stepped down. "He's the one who made himself a national figure by violating people's rights," Grijalva said.

Paul Charlton, a former U.S. attorney in Arizona who represented two local government officials who butted heads with Arpaio, only to be retaliated against, said of the sheriff: "If not for the federal government, this county would be run like a fiefdom."

In recent months, there have been some signs that Arizonans are weary of Arpaio's get-tough approach on illegal immigration. Earlier this year, Arpaio ally Russell Pearce, president of the state Senate and author of SB 1070, the state's controversial law targeting illegal immigrants for deportation, failed to push through a raft of anti-illegal-immigration bills. In November, Pearce was booted from office in a recall election.

The same group that targeted Pearce, Citizens for a Better Arizona, has recently turned its attention to Arpaio.

Prosecutors said Arpaio often was personally involved in abuses. In 2008 he received a letter expressing dismay that none of the employees of a local Sun City McDonald's restaurant spoke English. The sheriff wrote a note thanking the writer "for the info" and promising to "look into it." Two weeks later, at Arpaio's request, his deputies conducted an immigration operation in Sun City.

That same year, after receiving a letter about day laborers in Mesa, Arpaio responded, "I will be going into Mesa." Soon afterward his deputies conducted several crackdowns on crime in that community. When another letter arrived complaining of "dark skin" people in Phoenix, Arpaio passed it to his command staff with orders to "have someone handle this."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-justice-sheriff-20111216,0,2949242,print.story

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Mexico admits responsibility in rape, torture of indigenous woman

She stared at the paper with her prepared remarks, pausing long before she could get out the words. Afterward, she hugged her 10-year-old daughter, and the two wiped away tears.

For the second time in a month, the Mexican government has formally taken responsibility for military abuses committed years ago, a step demanded by a series of international human rights court rulings. The gestures come at a time of heated debate over how to investigate and punish murders, torture and other violence committed by military personnel against civilians, abuses that are on the rise amid a raging war against drug cartels. The military has enjoyed relative impunity where such crimes are concerned, activists maintain.

The Rosendo case is especially compelling because indigenous women are among the most vulnerable and disenfranchised groups in the country as a result of poverty and language and social exclusion.

A member of the indigenous Me'phaa community in Mexico's southern Guerrero state, Rosendo, then 17, and another woman, Ines Fernandez, were raped by soldiers patrolling the region in 2002. Backed by human rights groups, including Mexico's Tlachinollan organization and the U.S.-based Robert F. Kennedy Center , both women pressed the case for years, turning to often-dismissive officials and government agencies until the case finally reached the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.

The court ruled in favor of the women, and, in two sentences late last year, ordered the government, among other steps, to publicly recognize the atrocities committed. The ruling cited the particularly insidious discrimination and violence faced by indigenous women and their lack of access to healthcare and justice, and it called for more civilian control over military accountability.

In Thursday's ceremony at the downtown Museum of Memory and Tolerance , Interior Minister Alejandro Poire said the government accepted its responsibility and said justice would be served only by strengthening the institutions that protect citizens' rights.

"To you, your daughter," Poire said , turning to Rosendo, "I extend the most sincere apology for what happened nearly a decade ago, when your rights were gravely damaged."

Atty. Gen. Marisela Morales also spoke at the ceremony, pledging a full investigation of the crimes against Rosendo. The investigation will be handled by a multidisciplinary task force including anthropological, psychological and criminology experts, Morales said.

A separate ceremony will be held for Fernandez, officials say.

Rosendo noted that the soldiers who attacked her are still at large. She said she hoped her crusade would encourage other women to come forward, adding that she had suffered rejection from her community, abandonment by her husband and ridicule and insults from government officials.

"I continue fighting," she said. "I continue with my head held high, with the dignity of an indigenous woman. I am proud of who I am."

The audience gave her a standing ovation.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/world_now/2011/12/landmark-case-mexico-admits-responsibility-rape-torture-indigenous-woman.html

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Britain to add troops to Summer Olympic Games security plan

As many as 13,500 British troops will help secure the 2012 Summer Olympic Games in London, a military presence larger than Britain's deployment in Afghanistan.

by Henry Chu, Los Angeles Times

December 15, 2011

Reporting from London

Britain will assign as many as 13,500 troops to help secure next year's Summer Olympics on home soil, a military presence larger than the country's deployment in Afghanistan.

The troops are to provide backup for police and to help protect venues before and during the two-week global sporting event in July in London, which Defense Secretary Philip Hammond on Thursday called "the biggest security challenge this country has faced for decades."

The military contingent will be part of a massive security detail that has ballooned in cost from about $440 million to nearly $863 million. That has led to warnings that taxpayers could shell out more than the $14.5 billion budgeted as the government's contribution to hosting the Summer Games, at a time when residents are steeling themselves for drastic cuts in social spending.

But there may be little choice with the Olympics just seven months away.

Word leaked out last month that an official review of security arrangements had scoffed at the Olympic organizing committee's original plan to hire 10,000 private guards as wildly inadequate. At least twice that many would be necessary to supplement police in patrolling the athletes' village, conducting bag checks and implementing other security measures at competition venues spread across London.

Moreover, U.S. officials were said by the Guardian newspaper to be so unhappy about the British arrangements that they were preparing to send 1,000 security personnel, including 500 FBI agents, to London to help keep American athletes and diplomats safe during the Games.

Britain's Ministry of Defense said Thursday that as many as 7,500 troops will be assigned to sporting venues to assist in establishing "airport-style" security. An additional 5,000 service personnel will back up London's Metropolitan Police Service, also known as Scotland Yard, particularly in the event of a civil emergency. The remaining 1,000 troops will provide logistical support.

Bomb-disposal units, military dogs, helicopters and fighter jets are to be made available, and the British battleship Ocean, the biggest in the Royal Navy's fleet, will be moored in the Thames at Greenwich, in South London.

"It's a significant commitment," Hammond told reporters. The troops "will add resilience and robustness to what will be a civilian-led operation."

In addition, it emerged last month that the military will deploy surface-to-air missiles to maintain an "air exclusion zone" over the Olympic venues.

The anticipated cost of the 2012 Summer Games has been a subject of controversy since London won the hosting rights in 2005. Critics said the Olympics would increase local taxes for residents and saddle the city with a number of abandoned stadiums, but supporters call it a good investment that will help revitalize neglected parts of East London.

No one foresaw the global recession that hit a few years later or the sweeping austerity plan approved last year by the new Conservative-led government. Olympic organizers say they are now pinching their pennies as best they can.

"We will be living hand-to-mouth between now and the Olympic Games," Sebastian Coe, the gold medal-winning runner who heads the organizing committee, said this month. "These are the hard months that everybody was predicting six years ago.

"We've raised record sums of money in the most toxic of environments that any Games [have] actually been delivered in. We continue to do that. But this will be tough."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-britain-olympics-troops-20111216,0,5584337,print.story

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Hunger and homelessness on the rise in U.S cities, mayors report

A survey of 29 cities by the organization of municipal chiefs found that 25 of the cities, or 86%, had seen an increase in requests for emergency food aid in the past year. Overall, the number of requests for such assistance increased an average of 15.5%, the report said.

Of the people seeking food assistance, 51% were families. Unemployment led the list of factors cited for the growing need for aid, but 26% of those requesting aid were employed.

Homelessness in the cities surveyed rose 6% overall, the survey found, with 42% of the cities reporting an increase in homelessness and 38% reporting a decrease.

Thursday's grim report by the mayors' group confirms findings released by the Census Bureau in its September report on poverty in America.

The Census Bureau found that the proportion of the population officially considered to be in poverty rose to 15.1% in 2010, up from 14.3% in 2009, marking the third consecutive annual increase. Those whose earnings put them above the official poverty line but earned less than double that threshold increased to about one in three Americans. Combining the poor and the almost-poor, the number of low- income Americans approaches half of the country's population, according to the Census.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/nationnow/

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A wrong turn in terror fight

The new defense bill leans too heavily on the military in handling suspected terrorists.

December 16, 2011

The White House said this week that President Obama will sign a controversial $662-billion defense authorization that permits indefinite detention without trial for some terrorism suspects and broadens the authorization for the use of force against people and groups "associated" with Al Qaeda anywhere in the world. It's the wrong choice.

The bill, which passed the House Wednesday and the Senate Thursday, is being advertised as a compromise with the administration, and indeed it includes provisions designed to avoid a veto. But several are vague or confusing. For example, although it requires that foreign suspected Al Qaeda terrorists be placed in military custody, it seems to allow FBI agents to interrogate them. On Wednesday, FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III said that the compromise left "uncertainty as to who has the role and who's going to do what."

The FBI has proved effective in detaining and questioning terrorist suspects, just as the civilian court system has acquitted itself admirably in trying them. Congress' preference for military custody and trial by military commission disregards this proven record of success.

Two other provisions would prevent civilian trials in other ways. One would bar any use of Defense Department funds to transfer inmates at Guantanamo Bay to the United States, even for trial. Another would prohibit spending on the construction of facilities on U.S. soil to house Guantanamo inmates. As a practical matter, this means the remaining prisoners at Guantanamo will be tried by military commissions, which offer more protections than in the past but still fall short of the standards of due process observed by civilian courts.

In the process of reaffirming the post-9/11 Authorization for Use of Military Force, the legislation expands the category of targeted persons to include anyone who "was a part of or substantially supported Al Qaeda, the Taliban or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners." Both "substantially supported" and "associated forces" are vague terms that invite abuse. The expiring authorization merely allowed the use of force against those who planned or carried out the Sept. 11 attacks, or harbored such people.

The bill also asserts the right to hold detainees without trial "until the end of the hostilities authorized by the Authorization for Use of Military Force." Given the open-ended nature of the war on terrorism, that can amount to detention without end. Obama has asserted the right to imprison dangerous detainees indefinitely, subject to periodic review. This bill bolsters that claim.

Beginning with his announcement at the start of his term that he intended to close Guantanamo, the president in most cases has recognized that fighting terrorism is compatible with traditional protections for the accused. He should have had the courage of his convictions.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/opinionla/la-ed-defense-20111216,0,2949311,print.story

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Michigan

Saginaw community police announce volunteer patrol initiative

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