In one talk radio appearance after another, Sheriff Jerry Sheridan has declared that his department had eliminated the racial bias that plagued it under his former boss Joe Arpaio. As a result, he’s quick to add, a landmark racial profiling court case dictating much of what the Maricopa County, Arizona, sheriff’s department does should be dismissed.

“I believe we are in compliance with the court order. We’re not a racist organization, and we don’t racial profile,” he said on Phoenix-area talk radio in March 2025.

In May, he told the same radio host: “Is the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office racially profiling or are they racially biased? We have documentation for well over 10 years that that is not the case.”

His evidence for ending oversight stemming from Melendres v. Arpaio, the federal case whose 2013 settlement imposed parameters the department has operated under ever since, was a monthly sampling of a few dozen traffic stops. The settlement requires deputies to document each stop in exacting detail. The report, analyzed by a court-appointed monitor, showed individual deputies had not used race to initiate that limited sample of traffic stops.

But annual reviews of every traffic stop or arrest of a Latino driver have repeatedly contradicted Sheridan’s claim. With the exception of one year, each of the past 10 reports showed disparities affecting Latino drivers. The latest, covering 2024, found, “Stops involving Hispanic drivers were more likely to result in an arrest than stops involving White drivers.”

Under Sheriff Arpaio, deputies began in 2007 to use traffic stops to arrest people on immigration charges, illegally racially profiling Latinos in the process. When the constitutional violations spurred the Melendres lawsuit, a judge found they were so widespread that he included the county’s more than 1 million Latino residents as plaintiffs in the case. Fallout from it ended Arpaio’s political career.

Sheridan, a Republican, was Arpaio’s second-in-command. During his campaign for sheriff in 2024, Sheridan pledged to cooperate with the court-appointed monitor. He predicted that the judge overseeing the case, U.S. District Judge G. Murray Snow, would be pleased to see him back in the courtroom given his understanding of the settlement. He could hit the ground running and bring the case to a close, Sheridan said.

In June 2025, the latest report finding bias against Latino drivers was released. Months later, in October, Sheridan was back on the radio repeating his argument: “There has been no racial profiling or bias in well over 10 years, and that’s the gist of this lawsuit. The judge didn’t want MCSO to racially profile or be biased, and we have proven time and time again that the deputies are not.”

Latino activists and residents who endured the racial profiling and anti-immigrant policing of the Arpaio era tracked Sheridan’s first year as sheriff with growing alarm.

They remembered that as chief deputy, Sheridan was caught on camera telling deputies that court-mandated reforms were “ludicrous” and “crap.” (He later apologized to the judge.) They also pointed out that Sheridan staffed his administration with key figures from Arpaio’s time.

The activists and residents said their concerns were also rooted in the reality of the second Trump administration.

As Sheridan took office, President Donald Trump was initiating plans for mass deportations. Trump tasked Immigration and Customs Enforcement with expanding local law enforcement’s involvement in street and workplace operations. If the case ended now, Sheridan would be free to join forces with ICE, critics said. Without the court to keep it in check, the Sheriff’s Office could backslide.

The anxiety and anger were evident in the town of Guadalupe in February 2025, as Sheridan arrived for his first court-mandated public meeting as sheriff. Guadalupe was among the communities most affected by Arpaio’s immigration patrols and workplace raids. Residents, who were there to receive an update on the court case, greeted the new sheriff with signs saying, “Deport Jerry Sheridan,” and “We belong together not separated.”

The court-appointed monitor, Robert Warshaw, told the crowd inside an elementary school cafeteria that Sheridan had requested that the meeting be canceled, citing safety concerns related to ongoing anti-ICE protests around metro Phoenix. (The request was denied.) This angered the residents.

Their frustration grew as Warshaw noted that although the Sheriff’s Office was complying with more than 90% of the settlement, it fell short in two critical areas: continued racial disparities in traffic stops and failure to quickly investigate misconduct claims against deputies. Long delays in such investigations discouraged the public from reporting wrongdoing by deputies, attorneys and advocates said.

When it was Sheridan’s time to speak, he addressed the doubters, citing the sample of traffic stops that showed deputies didn’t use race to initiate traffic stops. He has also noted that the department is prioritizing the investigation of deputy misconduct complaints from Latino residents.

“The judge wants bias-free policing, and I want bias-free policing,” Sheridan said. “All I can ask from all of you in this room, the people that live in this community, and the 4.6 million people in Maricopa County, is to let me show you by actions the things that I have said and the fact that we all want bias-free police.”

Joel Cornejo, a community activist from south Phoenix who had protested Sheridan’s arrival, told the sheriff that he’d come of age during Arpaio’s raids. He said he was skeptical that Sheridan would fully comply with the lawsuit.

“We learned to fight your department,” Cornejo said. “We destroyed Joe Arpaio’s career. And if you target our community, we will do the same to your career.”

Sheridan repeated his pledge to show them the department had truly changed.

“I need that opportunity from you, to give me that chance,” he said.

Sheridan’s victory in the sheriff’s race capped a comeback that began after Arpaio lost reelection in 2016.

Under Arpaio, Sheridan rose through the ranks to chief........

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