PHOENIX (AP) — Maricopa County Sheriff Paul Penzone introduced Monday that he’s resigning in January, a full 12 months earlier than his time period ends.
Penzone stated at a information convention that he determined to step down and never search a 3rd time period so he can discover different potentialities in public service. He did not elaborate.
“I feel it might be acceptable to depart from the workplace in January and clear the way in which in order that over the last 12 months of my time period going into the election there aren’t distractions,” Penzone stated.
Penzone is credited with ending a few of the polices of his predecessor Joe Arpaio, which have been extensively criticized as anti-immigrant and racist. The division runs the county jail and oversees enforcement of the unincorporated areas of Arizona’s most populous county.
After roundly defeating Arpaio within the 2016 election, Penzone tore down an out of doors jail, dubbed “Tent Metropolis,” that had been extensively mocked.
Penzone, a Democrat, in 2020 defeated one other Republican challenger who had served within the division below Arpaio, additionally a Republican.
However Penzone stated on the information convention that the division stays below a “darkish cloud” from Arpaio’s tenure.
Throughout his 24 years in workplace, Arpaio styled himself as “America’s Hardest Sheriff” and in 2010 grew to become a lightning rod for resistance to Arizona’s so-called “present me your papers” regulation, which later was struck down partly by the U.S. Supreme Courtroom.
A federal court docket order nonetheless requires the division to be watched by a court-appointed monitor after a 2013 racial profiling verdict over Arpaio’s immigration crackdowns.
A federal decide concluded the sheriff’s workplace had profiled Latinos in patrols that focused immigrants, resulting in huge court-ordered overhauls of each the company’s visitors operations and its inner affairs division.