DOJ moves on Arpaio

I'd like to see this sadist in pink panties and living in a tent, right alongside those he has done similarly. But that would be as cruel and unusual as he is, so I'll settle for arrested, charged, held without bail, and quickly tried, convicted, and incarcerated. For a long, long time. Hopefully the remainder of his miserable life.

A few days after the “Toughest Sheriff in America” oversaw his 60th Latino-harassing raid in the Phoenix area, the Obama administration’s top civil-rights lawyer flew to Phoenix and slapped Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his office with a monumental civil-rights tort alleging rampant constitutional abuses, including widespread racial profiling of Latinos. The suit also claims the sheriff violated the civil rights of his critics by “illegal retaliation” that included baseless lawsuits and meritless administrative actions.

Abuses? What abuses?

In one case, the suit says, a five-months’ pregnant American citizen was stopped as she pulled into her driveway. Officers ordered her to sit on the hood of her car. She refused. They slammed her into the car three times—fetus-side first. Next, they placed the woman in a patrol car without air conditioning for half an hour. She was released and cited with failure to provide identification. Later, the charge was changed to “failure to provide proof of insurance.”

In another case, deputies trailed a U.S. citizen to her home, then knocked her to the ground, kneed her in the back and handcuffed her when she tried to run into her house, the suit alleges. They charged her with disturbing the peace. (A judge dismissed the charge.)

In the jails, some Latinos were placed in solitary confinement because they didn’t speak English, the lawsuit says. On some streets, Latinos were nine times more likely to be stopped than non-Latinos. And sheriff’s officials detained dozens of Latinos because “probable cause” included smelling of “strong body odor” or appearing nervous and avoiding eye contact, the lawsuit says.

What do you mean only the first two above make the top ten?

1. Forcing Women To Sleep In Their Own Menstrual Blood: In Arpaio’s jails, “female Latina LEP prisoners have been denied basic sanitary items. In some instances, female Latina LEP prisoners have been forced to remain with sheets or pants soiled from menstruation because of MCSO’s failure to ensure that detention officers provide language assistance in such circumstances.” [...]

5. Criminalizing Living Next To The Wrong People: “[D]uring a raid of a house suspected of containing human smugglers and their victims . . . officers went to an adjacent house, which was occupied by a Latino family. The officers entered the adjacent house and searched it, without a warrant and without the residents’ knowing consent. Although they found no evidence of criminal activity, after the search was over, the officers zip-tied the residents, a Latino man, a legal permanent resident of the United States, and his 12-year-old Latino son, a citizen of the United States, and required them to sit on the sidewalk for more than one hour, along with approximately 10 persons who had been seized from the target house, before being released.” 

These atrocities have been going on for quite some time. In 2009, Arpaio's deputies detained (too mild a word to use to describe what happened) a 9-month-pregnant Latina, refused to remove her shackles even as she gave birth, and then refused to let her hold the baby and threatened to put the child into state custody.

Think this is still America, land of the free and home of the brave? Think again. Did you miss the words 'American citizen' in those excerpts?

Arizona is, amazingly, worse than Texas and Alabama when it comes to this shit.

See what happens when you vote for Republicans? Or when you don't bother to get out and vote against them?

Stace is kinder and gentler, but the time for that has long passed. When they're going after American citizens who look like him, it's time for people who look like me to stand up, speak out, and fight back. Else they come for people who look like me next.