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Plaintiffs Rest in Arpaio Discrimination Suit

Lawyers for Sheriff Joe Arpaio are making their case in Federal court today that the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office does not discriminate against Latinos.  

After more than four days of testimony, attorneys for the plaintiffs accusing Sheriff Arpaio of racial profiling rested their case Tuesday. Cecilia Wang of the ACLU said even though Sheriff officers testified they did not engage in the practice, their other statements revealed problems at the department. 

"They also testified when they looked at numbers like 43 out of 44 people arrested in one of these immigration sweeps are Latino, that did not bother them in the least," Wang said. "They did not look to see if racial profiling going on, simply because they know their guys and they trust them." 

But attorneys for the Sheriff's office maintain the plaintiffs have not proven their case that there is systematic racial profiling going on. Attorney Tom Liddy.

"And we have had how many days of trial?" Liddy asked. "And not one piece of evidence that a single deputy used race to make a single stop."

The defense began to lay out its case Tuesday afternoon. Attorneys say they expect to finish calling  witnesses today. Opponents of Sheriff Arpaio  announced they will be at the courthouse to kick off a voter registration drive in order to oust Arpaio from office in the November election.

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