Arizona Sheriff Arpaio Targets Civil Rights Legal Observers for Arrest

by Alex DiBranco · 2010-08-02 09:14:00 UTC
Topics:

"Apparently, Arpaio thinks that if he arrests the Legal Observers, no one will be there to witness his unlawful actions," commented Carol Sobel, co-chair of the National Lawyers Guild's Mass Defense Committee, in response to the unjust arrest of two legal observers at a protest of Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio's continuing immigration raids.

"We have been arrested, shot with projectiles, hit with batons and pepper-sprayed at protests from Washington, D.C. to Miami to Los Angeles and we are still here to document misconduct." That's right, Arpaio: it'll take a lot more than a couple of arrests to get defenders of human and civil rights off your back.

Legal observers are trained by human or civil rights groups to attend protests and monitor for illegal actions and misconduct by law enforcement. Their role is to look out for any funny business, and they wear distinctive green legal observer hats letting the police know just what they're doing there. So when they get yanked out of a crowd and arrested, it's generally a sign that law enforcement is not acting on the up-and-up and is attempting to intimidate the observers into packing up and leaving them to their harassment.

Keeping that in mind, it's far from surprising that the vehemently anti-immigrant Sheriff Arpaio went after legal observers, with witnesses reporting that police went out of their way to reach through the group of protesters and snatch the green hat-wearing monitors. Arpaio has a bit of trouble understanding the law, has been under investigation for abuses of power, and refused to stop wasting all his time going after undocumented immigrants even when civil rights violations cost him the legal authority to enforce federal immigration law. Thursday protest came in response to his decision to keep launching "immigration sweeps" despite an injunction against SB 1070.

Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) Legal Director Bill Quigley remarked in dismay, "Arresting a young woman of color who is there as an attorney observer demonstrates how irresponsible and un-American the Arizona action is. I fear Arizona is starting to act like Mississippi in the civil rights days." CCR's legal observer, Sunita Patel, was picked up just as she was beginning to take down the names of other protesters being picked up by police; the National Lawyers Guild observer, Roxana Orell, was arrested while videotaping this event.

Arizona's lawmakers and Sheriff Arpaio would like to trample all over the Constitution and civil rights, but fortunately there are people to defend these vital parts of America who will not simply back down in the face of police harassment. The American right to peacefully protest relies on the work of such monitors. If you are interested in volunteering as a legal observer, either in Arizona or elsewhere in the country, visit the National Lawyers Guild website for more information.

Photo credit: codepinkhq

Alex DiBranco is a Change.org Editor who has worked for the Nation, Political Research Associates, and the Center for American Progress. She is now based in New York City.
PREVIOUS STORY:
Recognizing Immigrant Rights as Civil Rights
NEXT STORY:
Community Members Fight Detention of High School Graduate with a Mental Disability

COMMENTS (11)

    Comment Policy

    · All fields are required to comment.

    [X]

    Comments on Change.org are meant for further exploration and evaluation of the campaign on Change.org. To that end, we welcome constructive comments. However, we reserve the right to delete comments which, as determined solely in our discretion: (1) are offensive, abusive, or off-topic; (2) include content solely intended to personally attack the campaign creator, (3) are designed to subvert or hijack comment threads rather than contribute to them; and/or (4) violate our terms of service and/or privacy policy. Repeat offenders may be permanently removed from the site at our discretion. Please also be advised that: (A) we do not actively curate and/or monitor in any manner whatsoever the comments made on the Change.org platform, and (B) the creator of each campaign on Change.org may remove any comment at her/his/its discretion.