Language barrier plagues Mesa police

East Valley Tribune ^ | 4 NOV 2007 | Katie McDevitt,

[radar101]

"Policía! Policía!” Gunshots blast through a west Mesa neighborhood on a Friday night and witnesses yell in Spanish for police help.

There’s just been a shooting and officers flood the busy scene to find a man lying in a driveway pressing a shirt to his left thigh. Blood spills onto the driveway, forming a trail up to the door of a modest home.

Dozens of people mill about the area in the 600 block of South Sycamore which is just behind a trailer park near Broadway and Dobson roads . Women scream and neighbors pour out of their homes to check out the commotion.

But who committed the crime?

No one can say.

The officers can’t speak Spanish, and the victims and witnesses can’t speak English. Police call for a Spanish translator. He arrives in about 11 minutes , but the gunman is long gone. Meanwhile, a helicopter hovers overhead ready to search, but the pilot doesn’t know who to look for — nor do the officers responding to the scene.

It’s not until later that translators gather descriptions. But it is too late to look for the gunman .

Scenes like this shooting are becoming more frequent in Mesa as the city’s Spanish-speaking population booms and the number of Spanish-speaking officers remains at about 17 percent of the force.

The language barrier threatens public safety by allowing criminals to escape before translators arrive on scene and by slowing down the time it takes to bring charges against lawbreakers.

“Being able to provide good services to the citizens is the bottom line,” said Mesa Police Association president Fabian Cota. “The fact that officers can’t communicate with victims ... kind of means they are receiving inferior service.”

And it’s not just the public that’s in danger.

The inability to communicate puts officers’ lives at risk, too.

Mesa police Chief George Gascón said he is exploring ways to increase the number of Spanish-speaking officers in the city, but budget constraints leave him with few options.

“We recognize it’s an urgent public safety need. Quite frankly we don’t have the luxury of saying, 'Learn English,’” Gascón said.

“Sometimes communication is a two-way street. You need to have a mutual understanding and a mutual sensitivity.”

Nueve Uno Uno

Last year Mesa spent nearly $118,000 to translate 911 calls that were not in English . More than 99 percent of the time, the calls were in Spanish.

In Mesa’s large 120-employee communication center, only five people speak Spanish. Since those people aren’t always available to take the calls, and emergencies require fast action, 911 operators must rely on a private service called Language Line.

“The first thing operators do is identify the language and look around the room and transfer a call to a (translator),” said Cari Zanella, Mesa communications administrator. “The second line of defense is the Language Line.”

The Language Line works by linking a caller and dispatcher with a translator for instant help.

The line takes only about half a second to use for Spanish speakers, and slightly longer for other languages.

From Sept. 1, 2006, to Aug. 31, Mesa’s dispatchers handled 16,500 calls involving 23 different languages. Nearly all of the foreign language calls were in Spanish with just a few in other languages, mostly Vietnamese and Farsi.

Of the 6,809 languages spoken in the world, Language Line gives Mesa dispatchers access to 98.6 percent of them, according to department figures.

“One of the hardest things when I was an operator was when you couldn’t distinguish the language,” Zanella said.

But in such cases, if the calls are 911 emergencies, operators will dispatch officers to the scene.

“A lot of people are hysterical and freaking out, so the most job satisfaction a 911 operator can have is (knowing) help is on the way,” she said.

Lost in translation

But even though dispatchers can be assured that police are en route, it can still be scary for officers.

During some Spanish-speaking 911 calls, police are dispatched to a location with little or no information on the incident, while 911 operators work to translate the call.

“It is a dynamic situation and we need to get the information out now,” Cota said. “Time is of the essence ... or these people are going to get away.”

In some cases, the officer arrives to find hysterical people, blood and witnesses trying desperately to communicate — with no success if the officer doesn’t speak Spanish.

Gascón is trying to solve the problem by exploring an Internet language program that could help officers become proficient in basic Spanish for a reasonable cost. He also is trying to diversify the police force at the request of City Manager Chris Brady.

But officers say the extra pay to become Spanish certified isn’t always worth the effort.

Mesa’s Spanish Rover program, which deploys Spanish-speaking officers to incidents and crime scenes, is especially busy. In the past two years, two to four Spanish-certified officers have participated in the program, which pays an additional 5 percent of an officer’s salary.

The program is good for the community because it allows officers to call out a translator at a moment’s notice, but tough on the officers, who must work long, difficult hours for a tiny bit of extra pay.

“It’s difficult for us to get them and keep them because they get burned out,” said Sgt. Tony Abalos, who runs the program. “They are usually gone in two years.”

And some officers who speak Spanish even keep it a secret so they aren’t called upon for extra duties.

Phoenix police spokeswoman Stacie Derge said her department offers a hefty paycheck for bilingual officers: $10 extra per hour for all the time they’re speaking another language on duty.

Gascón said the Los Angeles Police Department has assembled a force that has 40 percent Spanish speakers.

But in the immediate future, Mesa officials said there’s no quick solution to combat their language barrier.

“The whole city is really behind the times in terms of serving the Latino community,” said Carmen Guerrera, a 30-year Mesa resident, who sits on the board for the Mesa Association of Hispanic Citizens.

“(But) I think the police have done a lot of good work in the past year. We have a new chief who is very sensitive and is doing his best.”

Spanish charades

Mesa officer Aaron Raine says about 75 percent of the calls he responds to in west Mesa come from Spanish speakers.

“I speak enough Spanish to greet and introduce myself and I kind of have an idea what’s going on from the call comments,” Raine says while cruising the streets of Mesa.

Family members and neighbors often help officers communicate on simple calls, but if the incident is criminal or a real emergency, Raine says he’ll call for help.

“A lot of them get frustrated when officers don’t speak Spanish,” Raine says. “I’ve been on calls where people are yelling at me because I don’t speak enough Spanish.”

Raine says he’d eventually like to take the time to learn the language, to be able to help people and perform his job better.

But on a quiet October evening, Raine must go through the usual strained sentences and charades to make a basic traffic stop.

“Hello, can I please see your license?” the officer politely asks the driver of a truck. “No English” the man replies.

“El luz on placa es no,” the officer says in broken Spanish as he attempts to explain the license plate light is not working.

The man responds with only a blank stare.

Raine gestures for the man to get out of his truck and the two walk around behind the vehicle. The officer points to the darkened license plate light and says “No.”

The man’s eyes widen as he shakes his head. The man is given a warning to replace his license plate light.

Though the traffic stop was OK that night, Raine and other officers know that getting someone out of a car is not always a good idea because it compromises officer safety.

“The little Spanish I can fumble through, the little English they can fumble through and gestures,” Raine says as he gets back into his cruiser. “That’s how it gets done.”

[ARE SOLE]

“A lot of them get frustrated when officers don’t speak Spanish,” Raine says. “I’ve been on calls where people are yelling at me because I don’t speak enough Spanish.”

Why should our Police have to speak the language of people that conquered the Mexicans?

Regards

[radar101]

THE PROBLEM:
Gutless pandering politicians who blame police officers for not learning Spanish, and newspeople with the agenda of ruining America so we can be a Third World Country like where the “Victims” came from.

[pnh102]

Every illegal knows what the word “INS” means. Perhaps if we started saying it more, and following through on it, we would have fewer of these problems.

[Dahoser]

“Being able to provide good services to the citizens is the bottom line,” said Mesa Police Association president Fabian Cota. “The fact that officers can’t communicate with victims ... kind of means they are receiving inferior service.”

No, it really means that the victims are paying the price for not assimilating which is exactly as it should be and was until the bilingualism disgrace took the penalties out of staying separate.

[montag813]

We are told that we “can’t afford” to deport the illegals. Well if a single municipality is forced to spend $118,000 per year translating 911 calls, then it is obvious that we can.

[Flintlock]

It’s gonna be them, or us.
Whooooo’s it going to be, boys and girls?

[Truth29]

Broken Spanish translation: Habla Ingles o muerte.

[ought-six]

Hispanic illegals refuse to learn English. They expect — no, they DEMAND — that WE learn Spanish.

Teddy Roosevelt said the following:

“The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities, an intricate knot of (foreigners), each preserving (their) separate nationality, each at heart feeling more sympathy with (citizens) of that nationality, than with the other citizens of the American Republic. The (people) who do not become Americans and nothing else are hyphenated Americans; and there ought to be no room for them in this country. The man who calls himself an American citizen and who yet shows by his actions that he is primarily the citizen of a foreign land, plays a thoroughly mischievous part in the life of our body politic. He has no place here; and the sooner he returns to the land to which he feels his real heart-allegiance, the better it will be for every good American. There is no such thing as a hyphenated American who is a good American. The only man who is a good American is the man who is an American and nothing else.”

Our political leadership since the 1960s, growing ever more leftist, have sold America down the river.

[ought-six]

“It’s gonna be them, or us.”

Yup.

[fella]

Oklahoma has a n answer.

[UCFRoadWarrior]

If people are not smart enough to learn the language of this country, maybe its time to send them home

Its not the fault of a police force that citizens refuse to learn the language.

[Vigilanteman]

Here is a hint for the Mesa Police and the illegal alien apologists:

If you are ever in Salt Lake City, arrange for a tour of the American Express call center.

It is staffed by mainly young people fluent not only in Spanish, but scores of other world languages. From what I observed, it took them an average of about 5 seconds to connect a caller with a staff member who spoke their language and could address their concern.

And they do it without one dime of taxpayer money. Why does this work so well? I'm not sure, but I suspect it is because the people who call in are legitimate card holders who either pay a membership fee or have gone through legitimate channels to obtain a card.

Unlike, I suspect, most of the special status victims in Mesa.

[Kolokotronis]

Oh, thank-you, thank-you, thank-you, George Bush! :)

Since it appears our Mohammedan/Mexican loving POTUS won’t be impeached for failure to protect the border, the election can’t come soon enough!

[YellowRoseofTx]

More and more these kind of big problems are going to happen, which means either only mexicans will be hired for all jobs and we just hand our country over to Mexico, or people began waking up and taking some major action to take our country back. Too many of the authority want to take the easy way and pander to the illegals who refuse to assimilate, creating these problems.

[txdoda]

a single municipality is forced to spend $118,000 per year translating 911 calls

and just think.... *if* they catch the bad guys, taxpayers are then forced to provide them with court translators.

In Dallas the 'court translators' (making 25 bucks per hour) are now asking for a raise to 50 BUCKS per hour.

this *cheap* labor continues to get very 'spensive'.

[kabar]

Perhaps equally important, business groups seeking to corner the Hispanic market support bilingualism as well. Indeed, the orientation of U.S. businesses to Hispanic customers means they increasingly need bilingual employees; therefore, bilingualism is affecting earnings. Bilingual police officers and firefighters in southwestern cities such as Phoenix and Las Vegas are paid more than those who only speak English. In Miami, one study found, families that spoke only Spanish had average incomes of $18,000; English-only families had average incomes of $32,000; and bilingual families averaged more than $50,000. For the first time in U.S. history, increasing numbers of Americans (particularly black Americans) will not be able to receive the jobs or the pay they would otherwise receive because they can speak to their fellow citizens only in English.

If the spread of Spanish as the United States' second language continues, it could, in due course, have significant consequences in politics and government. In many states, those aspiring to political office might have to be fluent in both languages. Bilingual candidates for president and elected federal positions would have an advantage over English-only speakers. If dual-language education becomes prevalent in elementary and secondary schools, teachers will increasingly be expected to be bilingual. Government documents and forms could routinely be published in both languages. The use of both languages could become acceptable in congressional hearings and debates and in the general conduct of government business. Because most of those whose first language is Spanish will also probably have some fluency in English, English speakers lacking fluency in Spanish are likely to be and feel at a disadvantage in the competition for jobs, promotions, and contracts.

Samuel Huntington

[Squat]

If they can’t speak english just deport them and ask questions they can’t understand anyway, later.

[abovethefray]

The answer is obvious. Require the police to speak every third world language, so as to better serve all the newest ‘citizens’ that are flooding our once great country. If they can’t speak every dialect from around the globe fluently, fire them.

[Condor51]

I'm a tad corn fused????

According to a 'certain person' who resides at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, these are all "hard working, good people", sooooo why is there crime in these neighborhoods the first place???? I thought they all worked from dawn 'til dusk - at jobs lazy Americans refused to do - then sat around in a family circle singing songs from home and playing the guitar. Then there's that whole 'family values' thing we've been beat over the head with. So I just don't see why they'd even NEED the police - ever.

Boy, I hope that 'certain person' wasn't pulling our leg. I'd be extremely disappointed.