Trump Threatens to Pardon
Fascist Pig Joe Arpaio

Updated August 25, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

On Tuesday in Phoenix, Donald Trump did not pardon his friend and supporter, Joe Arpaio, the fascist former sheriff of Maricopa County in Arizona, who had been convicted of contempt of court after defying a court order to stop the sheriffs' racial profiling practices.  But as the crowd screamed to pardon Arpaio, Trump told them, “Was Sheriff Joe convicted for doing his job?… I’ll make a prediction.  He will be doing just fine. But I won’t do it tonight because I don’t want to cause any controversy. Sheriff Joe can feel good.”

Joe Arpaio Is the Definition of a Fascist Pig

“Sheriff Joe” brutally arrested and deported Latino immigrants. After arresting them he housed them in a draconian “tent city,” where temperatures inside reached into the high 100s in the summer and down to the low 40s in the winter with holes in the tents that let the wind and the rain in.  People died due to the extremely harsh conditions they faced while being incarcerated.

He served as sheriff from 1993 to 2016, where he conducted vicious sweeps and raids in the Latino community, stopping and arresting anyone who looked Latino.

Arpaio’s brutal treatment of immigrants was reminiscent of Bull Connor, the KKK pig, who brutalized Black people and civil rights demonstrators in the 1960s in Alabama.

A tremendous struggle opposing Arpaio and his gang of thugs broke out.  Thousands of people marched against Arpaio. Celebrities came out in opposition to him.  Bumper stickers with “Fuck Arpaio” could be seen in the Phoenix area.  “No Deportation Zone” signs appeared on the streets and houses in the immigrant communities.

In the context of tenacious struggle of the people, in June 2008 the Department of Justice initiated an investigation of Arpaio for racial profiling. Arpaio responded by saying he would not cooperate with the investigation. In 2011, the Justice Department issued a report concluding there was pervasive racial profiling, and the Department of Homeland Security revoked federal authority for the Sheriffs to detain immigrants. In 2012 the DOJ filed suit against the Sheriffs, which led to a court order that Arpaio cease racial profiling.

Arpaio defied the court order, including by arresting 500 people on the basis of racial profiling, which he bragged was “just for spite.” As a result, he was convicted of criminal and civil contempt in late July of this year.  He is scheduled to be sentenced on October 5 and could face up to six months in jail. That maximum sentence is obscene in itself for the horrific crimes against humanity perpetrated by this Nazi, but now Trump is hinting very, very strongly he’s about to pardon him.  

Trump previously lauded Arpaio as a “great American patriot” who had “done a lot in the fight against illegal immigration” and indicated that he was going to pardon him.  Pardoning “Sheriff Joe” will be another kick in the face to the immigrants and other people in this country, who are brutalized and murdered by the cops who walk free, even when they are convicted!!

A Torturer and a Murderer

Revolution reported on this in 2010:

“Sheriff Joe” Arpaio likes to call himself “America’s Toughest Sheriff.” He has a long record of human rights abuses documented by Amnesty International. Just one example: In June 1997, an Amnesty International delegation visited Maricopa County, Arizona, where Arpaio became sheriff in 1993, to collect information on the treatment of inmates because of concern following allegations of ill-treatment of prisoners and the death of inmate Scott Norberg in Madison Street Jail on June 1, 1996, after he was placed in a restraint chair. (Read the AI report, “Ill-Treatment of Inmates in Maricopa County Jails—Arizona” at amnestyusa.org.)

In the 1990s Arizona’s prison system was seriously overcrowded. Arpaio’s solution was to use old army tents to build a tent city complex in the desert where, in the summer, temperatures sometimes reach 150 degrees. He brags that he saves money by feeding inmates only twice a day—and then giving them “green baloney.” He is especially fond of putting his “volunteer” chain gangs on public display for “educational purposes.” Example: prisoners shoveling dirt and breaking rocks under the hot sun in striped prison uniforms and chains—in downtown Phoenix. He also created the first women’s chain gang in the history of the country.

And Revolution identified:

In the early ’90s, Arizona was the site of vigilante activities by ranchers whose land was a crossing point for immigrants. The ranchers, with the cooperation of the police, would capture and detain groups of immigrants and turn them over to the Border Patrol. They also advertised vacation hunting parties where KKK and Nazi types would gather on the ranch of Roger Barnett and go out terrorizing immigrants at night. These activities devolved into the Minuteman movement who were then legitimized and promoted by “moderate” Democrat governors like Janet Napolitano, then-governor of Arizona and Bill Richardson, governor of New Mexico, along with open reactionaries like Lou Dobbs.

It was in this climate that Arpaio became point man for the forces bent on whipping up hatred toward immigrants and hunting them down. In 2006, Arpaio began devoting most of his department’s resources to this effort.

Arpaio’s anti-immigrant sweeps are brutal. A 160-man deputized force and a volunteer “posse” whose members often wear black ski-masks patrol the roadways looking for suspected “illegals” and then arrest them for “traffic violations.” In 2007, Arpaio marched 200 Latino men dressed in striped prison uniforms with “unsentenced prisoner” prominently written on their chests. They had chains around their ankles and carried their belongings in bags. They were being moved from the Durango jail complex to a separate tent city for the undocumented, surrounded by electric wire. Arpaio “joked” in his daily press release page, “This is a population of criminals more adept perhaps at escape…” “But this is a fence they won’t want to scale because they risk receiving quite a shock—literally.”

This is the fascist pig that Trump wants to pardon. And, by itself, the promotion of this fascist thug as a role model for police, sheriffs, and other pigs is a reason for people to demand that the Trump/Pence regime MUST GO!

 

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