Sheriff Arpaio to Sharpton and ACORN: Stick It

Dawn Teo, writing at the usually execrable PuffHo, offers a reasonably balanced look at an Arizona controversy over supposed racial profiling. Al Sharpton and ACORN have called on Sheriff Joe Arpaio to resign... "or else".

Civil rights activist Reverend Al Sharpton and ACORN CEO Bertha Lewis jumped into the fray Tuesday, threatening to bring their vast national networks to march in the streets of Phoenix if Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who is currently under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), does not resign immediately.

In a national press event held via teleconference, civil rights leaders railed about Arpaio's immigration enforcement tactics, charging that the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office (MCSO) engages in racial profiling, police brutality, and human rights violations. Speakers included Sharpton, Lewis, NAACP leaders, and other well-known civil rights activists.

Sharpton and Lewis vowed to come to Arizona personally if Arpaio does not resign immediately. Arpaio called a press conference in response and told local media that a small group of vocal opponents is trying to intimidate him by publicly calling him and his officers racists.

Arpaio seemed not to know Al Sharpton, saying, "What is his name? Sharpton? He wants me to resign? Have I got news for him. He can stick that in his pipe and smoke it."

Arpaio went on to say that Sharpton is "living in a fantasyland," adding, "I will never resign."

Sharpton, of course, had no comments to offer regarding Texas police officers Rick Salter (critically wounded), Rodney Johnson (KIA) and Stuart Jay Alexander (KIA), recent casualties of illegal aliens and a lawless, porous border region.

And speaking of 'racial profiling', I wonder when news outlets that offer the despicable Sharpton a bully pulpit will ask him about these incidents?

1991: A Hasidic Jewish driver in Brooklyn's Crown Heights section accidentally kills Gavin Cato, a 7-year-old black child, and antisemitic riots erupt. Sharpton races to pour gasoline on the fire. At Gavin's funeral he rails against the "diamond merchants" -- code for Jews -- with "the blood of innocent babies" on their hands. He mobilizes hundreds of demonstrators to march through the Jewish neighborhood, chanting, "No justice, no peace." A rabbinical student, Yankel Rosenbaum, is surrounded by a mob shouting "Kill the Jews!" and stabbed to death.

1995: When the United House of Prayer, a large black landlord in Harlem, raises the rent on Freddy's Fashion Mart, Freddy's white Jewish owner is forced to raise the rent on his subtenant, a black-owned music store. A landlord-tenant dispute ensues; Sharpton uses it to incite racial hatred. "We will not stand by," he warns malignantly, "and allow them to move this brother so that some white interloper can expand his business." Sharpton's National Action Network sets up picket lines; customers going into Freddy's are spat on and cursed as "traitors" and "Uncle Toms." Some protesters shout, "Burn down the Jew store!" and simulate striking a match. "We're going to see that this cracker suffers," says Sharpton's colleague Morris Powell. On Dec. 8, one of the protesters bursts into Freddy's, shoots four employees point-blank, then sets the store on fire. Seven employees die in the inferno.

If Sharpton were a white skinhead, he would be a political leper, spurned everywhere but the fringe. But far from being spurned, he is shown much deference. Democrats embrace him. Politicians court him. And journalists report on his comings and goings while politely sidestepping his career as a hatemongering racial hustler.

Arpaio is a 25-year veteran of the DEA. I'll take his word over that of ACORN and Sharpton any day of the week.