Loyd leads anti-Arpaio action

Independent congressional candidate Annie Loyd: Politicker PhotoPHOENIX - Today, as the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors voted to give nearly $1 million to the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office specifically to crack down on illegal immigrants, independent CD3 congressional candidate Annie Loyd called for an investigation into the tactics of Sheriff Joe Arpaio before the money was allocated.

"As a community," said Loyd, "we must find these actions by the Maricopa County Sheriff as unacceptable in a civilized society." Loyd called for Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas to look into the arrest record in order to ascertain whether racial profiling was indeed occuring, as Loyd and her allies claimed.

Loyd was joined by a resentative of the Arizona ACLU, the executive director of the Arizona Small Business Association and the executive director of the Muslim American Society of Arizona, all of whom described negative consequences arising from Arpaio's neighborhood sweeps. The sweeps, aimed at identifying and arresting illegal immigrants, have been taking place around Maricopa County over the past weeks with the blessing of the U.S. Department of Justice and leading Republican lawmakers from the East Valley region. However, those who appeared before the Board noted results they said negated the good done by the effort.

Joan Koerber-Walker, who heads the Arizona Small Business Association, said small businesses "embrace the sheriff for keeping us safe," but objects to the current anti-illegal immigrant operations for other reasons.

"When you have a situation where you publicly announce that you're going into a community to single out a group of citizens, or non-citizens, you scare people away," she said. "When you do that, businesses lose revenue, businesses lose customers."

Mary Lunetta, a community organizer with the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona, described Arpaio's actions as "abusive and unconstitutional," and praised District 5 Supervisor Mary Rose Wilcox for casting the only "no" vote on the additional funding in today's Board of Supervisors meeting.

Wilcox has been an outspoken critic of Arpaio. Yesterday she appeared at a rally at Phoenix City Hall to defend Mayor Phil Gordon, who has an ongoing feud with Arpaio and is currently the target of a drive to recall him as mayor.

Loyd summed up by emphasizing that she and the others there wanted a "reasonable" solution and would welcome a sitdown with Arpaio, despite also saying that legal action was in the works against his office, which would likely see arrest records subpoenaed to look for evidence of racial profiling.

She too noted the value of the Sheriff's office, but, contrary to Arpaio's view, drew a line between criminals worth of pursuit and run-of-the-mill illegal immigrants.

"We want our law enforcement officials to be able to apprehend these very dangerous criminals in our community," Loyd said. "We want them to go after the crooks, not the cooks."