Arizona’s Arpaio Testifies Race Not Factor in Arrests

Arizona’s Joe Arpaio, the Maricopa County official who calls himself “America’s toughest sheriff,” said at a civil rights trial that his department doesn’t arrest people “because of the color of their skin.”

Arpaio, 80, testified yesterday in a federal court trial in Phoenix in which he and his deputies are accused of racially profiling Latinos. He was called as a witness by lawyers backed by the American Civil Liberties Union who represent all Latinos who have been stopped, detained, questioned or searched by Arpaio’s deputies since January 2007. They are seeking a court ruling that the sheriff’s so-called saturation patrols violated the group’s constitutional rights.