My sister is a police officer in AZ.
She has memorized several spanglish phrases(because Mexicans really don’t speak Spanish):
You will go to jail until we can find a translator.
Your child will go to foster care - it will take several weeks for the child to come home.
and so on.
I do find it intersting how good their English skills become as the cuffs go on.
My favorite:
Look Chika, just because I’m Anglo doesn’t mean I no habla. I speak Espagnol just fine - I choose to speak English because this is America. So should you. And yes, on the rare times when I visit Mexico, I use my spanglish.
I’ve spoken with several officers locally (one from our church) who basically say the same thing. This particular officer doesn’t always let on right away that he can speak some Spanish. He finds that often times he can learn some things that give him the upper hand (and the look on their faces when he does address them in Spanish and they realize they may have said something they didn’t want him to know is priceless).