Language Barrier Continues to Thwart Victims of Crimes
Having language access services doesn’t ensure they will be used by NYPD officers to assist limited-English proficient victims of crime, The New York Times reports.
From the article:
In January, a triple homicide thrust the limitations of the department’s language program into the spotlight.
Police found Deisy Garcia, 21, stabbed to death in her Queens apartment. Her daughters lay dead in their beds in a nearby room, and her husband was soon charged with their murder.
The police later said that Ms. Garcia had filled out two reports chronicling her husband’s alleged abuse. But Ms. Garcia, a Guatemalan immigrant, had written them in Spanish, and no one had translated her words.
“I asked him what he was thinking about doing to me and I asked if he was thinking about killing me and he told me yes,” Ms. Garcia wrote in May 2013.
After Ms. Garcia’s death, the department sent out a staff memo, explaining that domestic incident reports “must be transcribed and translated as accurately as possible to ensure the appropriate police services are provided.”
Mayor Bill de Blasio, who took office in January, has inherited a Bloomberg-era lawsuit filed by seven Spanish-speaking women who say the Police Department violated their rights by denying them interpreters when they tried to report abuse.
Attorneys for the city have begun settlement discussions with Legal Services NYC, the group representing the women, said Amy Taylor, an attorney with the group. The two sides are set to meet this week. Mr. de Blasio has spent much of his career pushing to open city services to immigrants, and a spokeswoman said that his immigrant affairs office “is evaluating all city agencies’ language access programs.”
Read the full New York Times piece here.
Legal Services NYC initiated a civil rights action against the NYPD in March 2013 regarding their routine
discrimination against immigrant New Yorkers who seek police assistance
in times of crisis. This lawsuit, currently ongoing, was brought in Federal court on behalf
of five limited English proficient (LEP) survivors of domestic violence
and crime victims who were denied interpretation by the NYPD, and
thus denied access to vital police services, all in violation of federal
and City laws. More information about the action is available here.
Related Coverage:
LSNYC: Tragedy Shines Light on NYPD Failures
NY Daily News: Spanish-speaking mom thrown out of her Bronx home by cops, who she claims did not provide an interpreter
NY Post: NYPD failed to translate mom's warning
NY Post: NYPD routinely fails to translate non-English reports: lawsuit
CNN: A woman's plea in her native language goes untranslated, three lives are lost
WNYC: In a City With Many Languages, NYPD Officers Rarely Use Interpreter Service
Fox News Latino: Controversy Over Untranslated Crime Report Filed With NYPD Shines Light On Similar Cases
Fox News Latino: NYPD accused of discriminating against immigrants
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