A federal judge formally ordered changes Friday to community meetings tied to a nearly 20-year-old racial profiling case and ongoing oversight of the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office.
The decision by U.S. District Court Judge G. Murray Snow officially moves all future quarterly meetings to a special proceedings courtroom at the Sandra Day O’Connor Courthouse in downtown Phoenix, beginning Oct. 22 at 6:30 p.m. The meetings will remain open to the public, but attendees will be subject to a security screening and the U.S. Marshals Service will provide additional protection.
The court-appointed Community Advisory Board was also ordered to gather questions in advance from plaintiffs and impacted Latino residents to help guide each meeting. The board met Wednesday to establish a collection process, deciding on a multi-pronged approach: an online survey, a pen and paper option and community outreach, according to longtime board member Raul Piña.
The survey has been drafted and is expected to be made available online with a link that can be forwarded to residents ahead of the upcoming meeting, he told Arizona Luminaria.
As part of the board’s community outreach, some members plan to visit community groups to share the feedback options they’ve created. However, it wasn’t immediately clear exactly how those options would be distributed more broadly apart from these visits.
“I think there was a sense that we want to use whatever means that we have available to gather feedback,” Piña said of the board’s meeting. “I mean, there was one CAB member who said, ‘Hey, what about the non-techie people?’ and so we came up with the paper, pencil option.”
Arizona Luminaria will update this story with the survey link and any additional details related to providing feedback for the community meetings as that information becomes known.
New meeting format raises access concerns
Snow first proposed the changes at a Sept. 12 hearing, citing the need to maintain order, ensure safety and support meaningful dialogue amid growing concerns over political violence. His calls for tighter security came just two days after the fatal shooting of conservative activist Charlie Kirk at a Turning Point USA event in Utah.
The new format marks the first time the community meetings will be held in a federal courthouse and guided by questions submitted in advance by community members. The meetings were previously held at rotating locations throughout metro Phoenix, primarily attended by plaintiffs and Latino residents and allowed for open public comment, according to Roberto Reveles, founding president of Somos America — one of the original plaintiffs in the case against the sheriff’s office.
Latino advocates have raised concerns that the new format could discourage participation by community members who fear immigration arrest or deportation at the federal courthouse. Just recently, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were making arrests inside and conducting traffic stops around the Phoenix immigration court at Seventh Avenue and Van Buren, blocks from the Sandra Day O’Connor Courthouse.
Advocates have also expressed concern about limitations placed on the open format of previous community meetings, which allowed for real-time public input from impacted residents. Still, multiple stakeholders in the case and ongoing litigation have expressed support overall for Snow’s proposal after a tumultuous July meeting that left plaintiffs and Latino residents at the center of the longstanding racial profiling case deeply concerned.
Unlike past meetings, the July meeting at the Desert West Community Center in Maryvale devolved into chaos after it was flooded by sheriff’s office supporters, seemingly encouraged to attend by Republican county officials upset about the costs and duration of federal oversight.
“They expressed horrible racist remarks, according to the press, ‘Go back to Mexico,’ and ‘Why are you not speaking English?’” Reveles previously told Arizona Luminaria about the meeting.
According to financial documents obtained by Arizona Luminaria, county officials have projected that by the end of Fiscal Year 2025, the ongoing litigation and compliance efforts will have cost taxpayers more than $300 million since 2008, around the time the sheriff’s office was first sued on behalf of Latino residents accusing them of racial profiling and unlawful traffic stops.
Snow on Sept. 12 said he’s previously questioned the validity of the county’s figures, adding that he believed they may be “overstated.” He went on to say that while the sheriff’s office has reached the “low 90s” percentile range in compliance, its remaining areas of noncompliance are significant and questioned whether traffic stop metrics alone reflected the needs of the plaintiffs.
Snow, who will preside over future meetings at the federal courthouse, welcomed public officials critical of the ongoing litigation and oversight to attend and participate in future community meetings.
Correction: An earlier version of this story included an incorrect date related to the fatal shooting of Kirk.
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