The Rev. Al Sharpton plans to open a branch of his National Action Network in Chicago to target what he calls chronic police misconduct and a lack of political accountability. It’s also the home turf of the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, but the New York-based Sharpton says he sees no conflict.

“There’s this outrageous notion that one black with a national profile and another black, (we’re) going to fight if we’re in the same town,” Sharpton said at a news conference Wednesday. “Every national civil rights group has a branch in New York — NAACP, Urban League, Rainbow/PUSH, all of them. And I don’t have a problem with anybody in town.

“So what is the controversy about me coming to Chicago?” the 52-year-old asked.

For now, Jackson isn’t commenting on Sharpton’s move, a Rainbow/PUSH Coalition spokeswoman told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

Jackson, 65, a one-time presidential candidate liked Sharpton, marched alongside Martin Luther King Jr. and helped mentor Sharpton in his early career. More recently, the two men worked together to protest radio personality Don Imus, who was fired from CBS after he used racist and sexist language about female college athletes on the air.

Jackson has told the Chicago Sun-Times that he will continue to work with Sharpton, but that Sharpton’s mission replicates what Jackson and other civil rights groups are already doing in Chicago.

The Chicago office would be one of 36 nationwide run by Sharpton’s group. It would be headed by Jeri Wright, whose high-profile father, Dr. Jeremiah Wright, is pastor of Sen. Barack Obama’s church, Sharpton said Wednesday.

Sharpton, who has crusaded against police brutality since the 1990s, said local civil rights leaders have failed to hold Mayor Richard M. Daley accountable for police torture.

The mayor and police department have been under scrutiny after several highly publicized recent incidents involving off-duty officers, including the alleged beating of a female bartender caught on video.

The department has been accused of brutality since the 1970s, when investigators say a group of detectives and their commander tortured dozens of suspects, most of them black, into confessing to crimes. Prosecutors now say those misconduct cases are too old to pursue.

Daley spokeswoman Jacquelyn Heard said the mayor and Sharpton spoke by phone Wednesday and that the men have many of the same aims, including justice and addressing police misconduct.

“I want to say what a lot of people won’t say. The immigration debate is not simply about border security, it is a problem of America dealing with race,” Al Sharpton told the audience of more than 1,000 community, political and business leaders, at the National Council of La Raza’s annual conference.

“No one is calling for English-only tests when it comes to fighting in Iraq,” he added.

Sharpton dismissed the notion that immigrants are taking jobs from black Americans.

“What jobs?” he demanded. “Blacks were doubly unemployed by whites before anyone came across the border.”

President George W. Bush’s plan to legalize as many as 12 million unlawful immigrants while fortifying the border and strengthening enforcement collapsed in the Senate last month. The measure fell 14 votes short of the 60 needed to reach final passage. Three-quarters of the Senate’s Republicans voted to derail the bill.

Civil rights activist the Rev. Al Sharpton and Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott became unlikely allies Tuesday in their call to revive immigration legislation as they spoke before the largest U.S. Hispanic civil rights organization.

“Congress needs to pass a comprehensive immigration reform bill now,” said Scott, who heads the world’s largest retailer.

Scott attributed his views in part to his Mexican-American granddaughter, who has helped him to understand immigration as more than “simply a cerebral exercise.”

But Hispanics also provide a major part of the chain’s business, roughly 14 percent and growing, Scott acknowledged. And their relatives are increasingly shopping at Wal-Mart Stores Inc. in countries such as Argentina and Guatemala.

Sharpton, who has often railed against corporate America, went further in his support for a bill that would provide a path to legalization for many of the nation’s more than 12 million illegal immigrants. He denounced TV and radio shows that foster an “us against them” mentality.

Responding to outcries over Thursday morning’s sudden release of Paris Hilton from jail, the Reverend Al Sharpton plans to meet with LA County Sheriff Lee Baca on Monday.

After learning of Hilton’s early out, Sharpton said it had “all of the appearances of economic and racial favoritism.”

“I think that it’s both another glaring display of how race and money seem to get different treatments. There seems to be a different criminal justice system for some than others,” Sharpton said.

After only three days into a 23-day jail stint, for violating a judge’s orders against driving because of a DUI, Hilton was fitted with an electronic monitoring ankle bracelet and sent home to the comforts of her 2,700-square-foot Hollywood Hills residence.

In any event, if LA City Attorney, Rocky Delgadillo has his way, Hilton may be headed back to jail … and who knows, maybe Sheriff Baca might wind up there as well.

“The City Attorney filed a petition for an order to show cause why the sheriff should not be held in contempt for releasing Ms. Hilton, and demanded that she be held in custody,” Superior Court spokesman Allan Parachini said late Thursday afternoon.

Acting on the petition, Judge Michael Sauer has order Hilton back to court this morning for a hearing that will review Baca’s decision.

A press release sent to EUR from Sharpton’s office says the Civil Rights leader will spend the weekend in Southern California “appealing to Californians that feel that they have been unfairly treated and not given early release or reassignment, to submit their information to Sharpton’s LA headquarters (5003 South La Brea Ave., Unit C, LA, CA 90056).

Also scheduled for Sharpton’s SoCal visit this weekend is a press conference at 11 AM Saturday at his LA headquarters headed by Tony Wafford. Sharpton will call for the same standards for all people regardless of race, class or creed.

Below is Rev. Al Sharpton’s schedule for his weekend visit to Southern California.

Saturday, June 9, 2007
11:00 a.m. Press Conference
Rev. Sharpton’s National Action Network LA office
5003 South La Brea Avenue
Unit C
Los Angeles CA 90056
(323) 753-0159

Sunday, June 10, 2007
8:00 a.m. Preach at Second Baptist Church
2412 Griffith Avenue (corner of Griffith between Adam & Washington
Blvd)

11:00 a.m. Preach at Church of Christian Fellowship
2085 South Hobart Street, LA 90018

4:00 p.m. Preach at Mount Zion Baptist Church
1895 Del Rosa Dr, San Bernardino

Monday, June 11, 2007
1:30 p.m. Meeting with Sheriff Lee Baca
4700 Ramona Blvd
Monterey Park, CA 91754