The Maricopa County Sheriff has 40,000 outstanding felony warrants sitting on his desk. And rounding up those people should be a priority. Instead, he has created a 'Sanctuary County for Felons' with his reckless priorities -- that target brown skin and cracked tail lights -- instead of killers and drug dealers.
To each of you in this room, particularly members of this Chamber, I invite you to join the chorus and let your voices be heard. Because this is not the image that Phoenix, or your businesses, has earned or deserves.
Will you pay a price for speaking out? Yeah, you might. We only need to look toward the deputies who have been fired, the publishers who have been jailed, or the Mesa, Phoenix and West Valley Chiefs who - along with elected officials like Rick Romley and Terry Goddard - have been targeted by his Selective Political Enforcement Unit.
An important point. The Governor has finally weighed in, albeit cautiously. When asked about the Sheriff's "crime suppression efforts" on Horizon tonight, she expressed concerns about racial profiling, prioritizing immigration sweeps over targeting violent criminals, and the lack of coordination with local officials. Those are exactly the talking points that Mesa Police Chief Geroge Gascon and Mayor Gordon have been using since Joe started his stepped-up sweeps a month ago. Kudos to the Mayor!
