Black “Leaders” Join Mexican “Leaders” In Demanding Arpaio Resignation
Dec 31, 2011 11 Comments ›› Pat Dollard
The calls for Joe Arpaio to resign in the wake of a U.S. Justice Department investigation continued to grow Thursday as a group of the Valley’s Black leaders implored the five-term Maricopa County sheriff to step down.
Arpaio once again rejected the calls for his resignation and continued to depict the effort as a politically motivated ploy brought on by longtime opponents.
More than 20 Black community leaders, including Phoenix Councilman Michael Johnson and local leaders of the National Urban League and the NAACP, stood on the steps of the U.S. Courthouse in downtown Phoenix and said the results of the Justice Department’s civil-rights investigation demonstrated the need for an immediate change in leadership at the Sheriff’s Office.
The Black leaders joined state legislators and other community leaders who have made public calls for Arpaio to resign in recent weeks.
Arpaio said the resignation efforts were fruitless and “all politics.”
“They’re ganging up on me,” Arpaio said. “They know I can win next year. They think they can drive me out. It’s never going to happen.”
The Justice Department’s findings, released two weeks ago, accuse Arpaio of running an office that fosters institutional discrimination against Latino residents through the sheriff’s immigration-enforcement efforts and treatment of Hispanic inmates in Maricopa County jails.
Many of the speakers compared Arpaio with “Bull” Connor, the public-safety commissioner in Birmingham, Ala., whose officers abused civil-rights activists in the 1960s.
“We have become the Alabama of the 21st century,” said Warren Stewart, pastor of the First Institutional Baptist Church.
Arpaio called the comparison disgusting.
“They’re comparing me with Alabama … that’s what (Phoenix Mayor Phil) Gordon did,” Arpaio said. “The same group has been saying that for years. This is nothing new.”
But one of the sheriff’s longtime supporters, the Rev. Oscar Tillman, president of the Phoenix NAACP, was among those on Thursday morning calling for Arpaio to step down.
Tillman said he considered Arpaio a friend and agreed to serve on an advisory council Arpaio started to form following the release of the Justice Department report. But Tillman said the death of Eugene Atencio made him reconsider his support for Arpaio. Atencio was taken off life support last week, days after he was pulled unconscious from a jail cell following an altercation with Phoenix police and sheriff’s detention officers. The investigation into Atencio’s death is ongoing.
“If the sheriff had been serious, he would have stayed here and dealt with this,” Tillman said, noting Arpaio’s departure from the Valley to support Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry by campaigning in Iowa.
Tillman said he would still serve on the advisory council if Arpaio asked, but he hopes the sheriff will resign.
“If you’re that serious, Sheriff, step aside and then run again and see if the people put you back,” Tillman said.
Stewart, who led the group, said the leaders plan to meet next week to consider other options if Arpaio does not step down, including a recall effort.
Arpaio is up for re-election in November, but Stewart said the need for new leadership in the Sheriff’s Office is urgent and cannot wait for voters to act.
A spokesman for Scottsdale police Lt. Mike Stauffer, the lone candidate running against Arpaio in the 2012 sheriff’s race, said none of those calling for Arpaio’s resignation have supported Stauffer’s campaign for sheriff.
