As activists began packing up and dismantling their encampment this week at the border-wall construction site in Lochiel, Santa Cruz County Sheriff David Hathaway issued two statements Monday rebuking Arizona Sheriff’s Association for its criticism of him and the sheriff’s office for failure to protect federal agents and border-wall contractors.
The brouhaha surfaced after Hathaway was quoted by the Patagonia Regional Times as instructing sheriff’s department officers not to respond to calls regarding disputes involving border-wall protests. He said his stance was influenced by the massive number of federal agents already in the area and the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which prevents county law enforcement from intervening in matters involving federal authorities.
The months-long standoff between contractors and protesters — who called themselves “land defenders” — escalated last week when armed Border Patrol officers entered the protesters encampment on private land and held them at bay while contractors knocked down the symbolic “grandmother” cottonwood that activists were occupying to prevent wall construction. The confrontation, at times violent, was captured on video and shared on social media. Two days later, an activist locked herself onto a construction truck, sparking another heated confrontation. It was during the latter confrontation that an audio recording captured the sheriff’s office dispatch operator saying the department would not be responding to the incident, as it was a federal matter. The PRT then reached out to Hathaway regarding the department’s response.
“Ninety percent (of the calls) are very disingenuous calls from Border Patrol and Fisher Sand and Gravel,” he said. “They will invent things that have buzzwords attached to them that they think will get us to respond and do something. They will say their people have been kidnapped, that their vehicles have been stolen, that the protesters are trespassing. And it’s all very disingenuous because the protesters are on private land. So I have instructed the sheriff’s office to not respond. … They just kind of want us to take on the responsibility of going against the protesters, which we’re not going to do.”
The Arizona Sheriff’s Association responded with a widely distributed release chiding Hathaway for failing to uphold his responsibilities “relating to preserving the peace, addressing public offenses, and preventing and suppressing disturbances.” The release said ASA member sheriffs, representing 13 of Arizona’s 15 counties, were prepared to intervene if requested to do so by the Arizona Department of Public Safety.
“ASA member sheriffs stand ready to provide available personnel and resources should the Arizona Department of Public Safety (DPS) request additional assistance in Santa Cruz County. Any assistance would be coordinated through DPS and appropriate law enforcement partners.”
In response, Hathaway criticized the statement as politically motivated.
“The Arizona Sheriffs Association (A.S.A.) is a private 501(c)(4) organization with no governmental authority. During my entire tenure as Sheriff, it has been presided over by activist Republicans that continually put out papers directly from the A.S.A. condemning Democratic politicians and policies, purporting to speak on behalf of all Sheriffs including Democratic Sheriffs. I stopped paying dues and let my membership lapse when my efforts to convince the A.S.A. for years to adopt a neutral political stance failed. I am not the only Sheriff to notice this. The current Democratic Sheriff of Pima County refuses to join the A.S.A. for the same reasons. The previous Democratic Sheriff of Maricopa County left the A.S.A. briefly for the same reasons. This is a troubling problem that must be addressed if the A.S.A. is to regain and hold onto its integrity. I would consider rejoining the organization if it committed itself to becoming an impartial resource with no political stance supporting all Sheriffs in Arizona regarding training, equipment, procurement, comradery, etc. The rules for a 501(c)(4) do allow an organization to be politically biased, but a Sheriffs Association for all the Sheriffs of a state should be unbiased.”
Hathaway’s second statement reiterated his stance against intervention in the border-wall protest activity, referencing his family’s ties to the Lochiel area dating back six generations when his family moved there from Dodge City, Kan.
“CBP, which employs thousands of federal officers on this stretch of border, has called the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office multiple times asking us to remove peaceful protestors. The Sheriff’s Office has responded multiple times to investigate these calls from federal officers and the federal wall contractor. These calls have been very disingenuous and have involved no threat to federal employees or contractors. The very small Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office employs 45 sworn officers to cover 1,238 square miles. We are outnumbered 20 to 1 by the federal officers assigned to the county to work the border; not to mention the active duty military members assigned to the border.”
The statement continued:
“Once we realized that the large contingent of federal officers and contractors in Lochiel were not in danger and that the federal government wanted to avoid their responsibilities regarding this clearly federal issue, we adopted the posture that the thousands of federal officers armed with machine guns, helicopters, drones, and chemical weapons should not pawn off their own border security job on the very small Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office by pretending that they are afraid of gentle unarmed folk that are a throwback to the flower children of the Vietnam anti-war movement. The only violent physical encounters in the area involved large numbers of mask-clad federal officers gassing and dragging protestors away. Protestors also called my office asking for help to protect themselves from the large contingent of federal officers attacking them. I was not about to start a war with CBP by having my armed officers confront the armed federal officers in response to calls from protestors facing an onslaught from an overwhelming army of masked federal officers. This was clearly a federal issue requiring federal decisions regarding appropriate action.”