An Ol' Broad's Ramblings
Ticketed
Dallas police ticketed 39 drivers in 3 years for not speaking English
Dallas police wrongly ticketed at least 39 drivers for not speaking English over the last three years, Police Chief David Kunkle announced Friday while promising to investigate all officers involved in the cases for dereliction of duty.
Pending cases will be dismissed, and those who paid the $204 fine for the charge, which does not exist in the city, will be reimbursed, Kunkle said.
“I was surprised and stunned that that would happen, particularly in the city of Dallas,” Kunkle said. “In my world, you would never tell someone not to speak Spanish.”
I’m surprised and stunned that the police chief would even say something so stupid! That’s all fine and dandy if he lived in …….. MEXICO! But he doesn’t! He’s the chief of police in Dallas, Texas, USA! We speak English in this country, and it’s high time to make sure anyone living and working here does the same.
The case that led to the discovery of all the others occurred Oct. 2, when Ernestina Mondragon was stopped for making an illegal U-turn in the White Rock area. Rookie Officer Gary Bromley cited Mondragon for three violations: disregarding a traffic control device, failure to present a driver’s license and “non-English speaking driver.”
Let’s see here…. a looped arrow, red circle with slash, means no U-turn in ANY language. Most signs I’ve seen do have the words printed underneath for further clarification. If I remember my Spanish correctly “no” is translated as ‘NO”. Not too difficult. Here’s the kicker:
In that case and perhaps the others, officials said, the officer was confused by a pull-down menu on his in-car computer that listed the charge as an option. But the law the computer referred to is a federal statute regarding commercial drivers that Kunkle said his department does not enforce. (emphasis mine)
So, the officers made a mistake when using this LAW….a federal law no less, but the top cop seems to have decided this doesn’t doesn’t have to be enforced? I beg your pardon? You mean we get to pick and choose which laws are enforced? I did not know this. Very good to know! Cuz there are a few I’m sure all of us can think of that we do not want to follow.
Mondragon, a native Spanish speaker, challenged the charge in court and it was dropped, her daughter said. Dallas police said they will drop all charges against Mondragon, who speaks limited English and does have a Texas driver’s license.
Now, since the law is designed for commercial drivers, I can understand dropping that particular charge, but what about the others? Does this mean the woman didn’t really make an illegal U-turn? Doesn’t appear so. If she has a Texas driver’s license, why didn’t she give it to the officer? Perhaps she didn’t understand the request to present her license?
The citations amount to a small percentage of the roughly 400,000 tickets issued by Dallas police each year. But the total is large enough to have possible legal ramifications, said George A. Martinez, a professor at the Southern Methodist University Dedman School of Law.
“It sounds like a policy,” Martinez said. “Discrimination on the basis of language ability, and that’s targeting Latinos, and so that sounds pretty serious to me.”
Do I think ‘Latino’ drivers should be ‘targeted’? Oh hell no. If you ask most officers, they’ll tell you they can’t see the color of a person’s skin when making a stop. They seen the infraction, so they make the stop. It’s that simple. (I wonder why I see big pay days in the future for those ticketed under this FEDERAL law?)
Attorney Domingo Garcia said he has been hired to represent the Mondragon family.
“The issue has nothing to do with whether people should learn English or not. I believe they should,” Garcia said. “It’s about not following the law and issuing citations against a law that doesn’t exist, against a fairly voiceless and helpless population.”
No, the officers made a mistake, taking an infraction from the pull down menu, using a law that DOES exist, and applying it to the general public. Those should be dropped, and the fine for that particular infraction dropped….unless, of course, it was a commercial driver. I’m not even going to address that absurd ‘voiceless and helpless’ crap.
Kunkle, who apologized repeatedly, said he recognized the incidents probably would damage the department’s relationship with the Hispanic community.
One apology for the mistake, and leave it at that. If the police are so concerned with their relationship with the Hispanic community, perhaps they should enforce the laws on the books, deport illegals, and help the LEGAL immigrants to learn the language. It’s a matter of safety to learn the language of the country you want to live. If Kunkle wants to apologize to someone, perhaps he should consider apologizing to the citizens of Dallas for allowing a once beautiful city to turn into crime riddled garbage dump.
39 mistakes in 3 years, average 13 a year? I’d say that was a pretty good record for a city of over a million people.
David Kunkle is a piece of LIBBER SHIT, a PC, touchy-feely asshat that has no business being in Law Enforcement anywhere… Don’t chase em, don’t hit em, don’t shoot em, don’t Taser em, don’t talk down to em.. Asshole…
Makes a perfect fit for all the libbers, fags and wetbacks in Dallas…
I wonder who he had to felatiate to get the job?
If you cant read english roadsigns, then you will be violating many traffic laws and putting people at risk. Good for the cops. We ned top declare ENGLISH our national language, so people dont come here expecting US to learn THEIR language.
What do you think would happen if you moved to Japan or China and demanded they learn english for YOU? >.<
The only reason they learn english in Mexico is so they can bug tourists for money.