The Obama administration planned to sue Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio for targeting Latinos. Now they’re finally following through.

It’s about time:

PHOENIX (AP) — Federal authorities sued America’s self-proclaimed toughest sheriff Thursday after months of negotiations failed to yield an agreement to settle allegations that his department racially profiled Latinos in his trademark immigration patrols. [...]

Arpaio’s office is also accused of punishing Hispanic jail inmates for speaking Spanish and launching some patrols based on complaints about dark-skinned people congregating in a given area or speaking Spanish. A crime was never reported. [...]

One of the examples cited in the lawsuit was a Latino woman who is a U.S. citizen and was 5-months pregnant when she was stopped as she pulled into her driveway.

When the woman refused to sit on the hood of a car as the officer insisted, the officer pulled her arms behind her back, slammed her stomach first into the vehicle three times and dragged her to his patrol car. He shoved her into the back seat and made her wait for about 30 minutes without air conditioning, the lawsuit said.

What a compassionate law enforcer he is.

And let’s not forget these sex crimes:

…more than 400 sex-crimes reported to Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s office during a three-year period ending in 2007 — including dozens of alleged child molestations — that were inadequately investigated and in some instances were not worked at all, according to current and former police officers familiar with the cases.

Remember who else investigated Arpaio? Hint: Pre-2009. Bigger hint: The Bush administration.

Please, DoJ, hand the Sheriff his hind quarters on a silver platter, once and for all:

(Reuters) – The Obama administration on Tuesday said it was preparing to sue Arizona county sheriff Joe Arpaio and his department for violating civil rights laws by improperly targeting Latinos in a bid to crack down on illegal immigrants. [...]

“We believe that you are wasting time and not negotiating in good faith,” Roy Austin, deputy assistant attorney general in the Justice Department’s civil rights division, said in a letter to the lawyer for Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO). [...]

He added that the Justice Department has recently discovered more information about the “failure to reasonably investigate sex crimes” by Arpaio’s office.

He must mean these sex crimes:

…more than 400 sex-crimes reported to Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s office during a three-year period ending in 2007 — including dozens of alleged child molestations — that were inadequately investigated and in some instances were not worked at all, according to current and former police officers familiar with the cases.

So who else investigated Arpaio? Hint: Pre-2009. Bigger hint: The Bush administration:

PHOENIX (AP) — The U.S. Justice Department has been investigating Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s office since June 2008 for alleged discrimination, unconstitutional searches and seizures, and for having an English-only policy in his jails that discriminates against people with limited English skills.

This is a tweet I got today from one of my new Twitter trolls, @mbt1955isBACK:

@GottaLaff America Pray for Sheriff Joe , we need more like Sheriff Joe ! !

How about, instead, I pray that both @mbt1955isBACK and Arpaio get the mental health care they so badly need? Will that suffice?