America's Most Anti-Immigrant Cop Convicted of Contempt for Refusing to Curb Racism

Joe Arpaio, the former sheriff of Maricopa County, AZ (though he is very much a current bigot), has been found guilty of criminal contempt for violating an order to stop racially profiling immigrants.

As CNN reports, a federal judge temporarily barred Arpaio from detaining people based on their immigration status in 2011. The ban that was made permanent two years later. But Arpaio continued ordering his officers to target Latinx members of the Maricopa County community, demanding that they conduct traffic stops so they might catch undocumented immigrants.

Arpaio, who was voted out of office by Arizona voters last year, alleged that the judge’s injunction wasn’t clear and that he hadn’t intended to violate it. But federal judge Susan Bolton sided with the prosecution today, finding Arpaio guilty of deliberately disobeying the injunction.

We know it’s shocking to hear that the man who, until last year, still insisted that Barack Obama wasn’t born in the country and required his inmates to live in a “tent city” would defy an order that requires him to act less racist, but you know, strange things happen.

The former “toughest sheriff in America” is now facing up to six months in jail.