Sheriff Joe Arpaio faces federal civil rights lawsuit

Sheriff Joe Arpaio faces federal civil rights lawsuit

PHOENIX â€" Federal authorities said Wednesday that they planned to sue Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his office over allegations of civil rights violations, including racial profiling of Latinos.

The U.S. Justice Department has been seeking an agreement requiring Arpaio's office to train officers in how to make constitutional traffic stops, collect data on people arrested in traffic stops and reach out to Latinos to assure them that the department is also there to protect them.

Arpaio has denied the racial profiling allegations and has contended that allowing a court monitor would mean that every policy decision would have to be cleared through an observer, and would nullify his authority.

Justice Department officials told a lawyer for Arpaio on April 3 that the lawman's refusal of a court-appointed monitor was a deal-breaker that would end settlement negotiations and result in a federal lawsuit.

The "notice of intent to file civil action" came Wednesday from Assistant U.S. Atty. Gen. Thomas E. Perez in a letter to an Arpaio lawyer.

The Justice Department released a scathing report last December accusing Arpaio's office of racially profiling Latinos, basing immigration enforcement on racially charged citizen complaints and punishing Latino jail inmates for speaking Spanish. The department also accused Arpaio of having a culture of disregard for basic constitutional rights.

Perez, who heads the Justice Department's civil rights division, noted that it's been more than 100 days since the sheriff's office received the report, and federal authorities haven't met with the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office counsel since Feb. 6 to discuss the terms of a consent agreement.

Neither Arpaio nor Joseph Popolizio, one of the lawyers representing the sheriff's office, immediately returned calls seeking comment.

The self-proclaimed "toughest sheriff in America" is a national political fixture who built his reputation on jailing inmates in tents and dressing them in pink underwear, selling himself to voters as unceasingly tough on crime and pushing the bounds of how far local police can go to confront illegal immigration.