Protect, Serve, Translate

It started with a lost man.

But what should have been a simple missing person’s case deteriorated into an LAPD debacle and a wrongful death lawsuit.

The December 1995 incident involved an elderly Korean immigrant who went for a walk and couldn’t find his way back home. Dong-Sik Chong, 81, who spoke no English and was hard of hearing, was eventually picked up by Los Angeles police officers.

He ended up being released alone to the streets, where he was beaten and robbed. Chong died of an asthma attack in his sleep a few months later. His family, which filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the city, said he never recovered from his traumatic experience.

Although the lawsuit was settled for a minimal amount, the incident proved to be a landmark case for the Los Angeles Police Department. Immigrant and civil rights advocates questioned why police never attempted to communicate with Chong in a language he could understand, though they apparently had the resources to do so.

Critics called for a comprehensive department language policy in a city where about half a million people speak little or no English.

After three years of discussion, the civilian Police Commission, which oversees the department, adopted its language policy in May. Its 20 recommendations outlined protocols for the department’s 12,000-plus force of sworn and civilian personnel in dealing with non-English-speakers. They also set guidelines for expanding the recruitment and compensation of bilingual employees.

Nearly a year later, LAPD officials say they have made significant strides in addressing a problem that is common to most Los Angeles County law enforcement agencies. Other police departments offer bonuses to bilingual officers and subscribe to a telephone translation service, but lack a formal policy.

The LAPD shift is fundamental, making officers responsible for serving all residents, regardless of whether they speak English.

“The word has gotten out: There’s no excuse,” said Edith Perez, president of the Police Commission. Officers are now held accountable, she said, and have the tools to communicate with those who do not speak English.

Perez, head of the language task force that formulated the policy, points to the near doubling in a year of bilingual officers and civilian employees, as well as new incentives for officers to learn a second language.

Outsiders are more measured in their assessments.

“This is cutting edge if it’s implemented properly,” said Bonnie Tang, a community representative on the language task force. She characterized progress so far as gradual but steady.

Task force member Robin Toma, an attorney with the Los Angeles County Human Relations Commission, said he is hopeful about the new policy but that it will be up to “the vigilance of the people in the community to ensure changes actually happen.”

‘We’re Dealing With Traumatized Victims’

Cmdr. Betty Kelepecz believes that having a comprehensive LAPD policy comes out of sheer necessity.

“We’re dealing with traumatized victims, we’re dealing with suspects whom we have to get to comply with our orders, we’re dealing with children who are lost or hurt,” she said. “Quite frankly, in order to solve crimes, we have to be able to communicate, to investigate and get the job done.”

One of the more concrete changes in the last year is the sharp increase in paid bilingual personnel. The extent of the change even took community representatives of the language task force by surprise, admitted Tang, an attorney for the Asian Pacific American Legal Center.

The department now boasts 2,086 certified paid bilingual personnel, or 16% of its 12,556 employees, according to LAPD records. About 1,800 of those employees are sworn officers. Collectively, they represent 24 languages.

That’s up from 1,357 bilingual personnel, including 1,100 sworn officers, a year ago.

The department’s bilingual coordinator, Cristy McCaleb, said that with the policy change, officers no longer lose their bilingual bonus when they transfer to a new division as in the past.

Officers and civilian employees who can speak a second language receive a 2.75% salary bonus, while those who can both converse and write receive a 5.5% premium.

About 78% of all paid bilingual personnel in the department are Spanish-speaking. This is in line with the percentage of Spanish speakers in the area’s foreign-language population.

But Tang said there is a growing need for Korean-speaking officers. About 40% of 468 calls referred to AT&T; Language Line--a 24-hour telephone service providing interpreters--were for Korean interpreters, a recent audit showed. Out of more than 2,000 paid bilingual personnel in the LAPD, 42 (about 2%) are Korean speakers.

Some gains are being made. The number of bilingual Korean speakers at the Wilshire Division, which serves a large Korean immigrant population, rose substantially--from 5 to 14--in the last seven months, McCaleb said.

Officer applicants who also speak an Asian language can pretest to be a certified bilingual employee and “get hired ahead of other officers,” Kelepecz said. The pre-certification existed before the language policy.

One change still pending calls for indicating in performance evaluations whether an employee is bilingual or is taking steps to acquire language skills. Perez said the department has agreed to make this change.

Another recommendation calls for officers of all ranks to be eligible for bilingual pay, which is currently closed to high-ranking officers.

The department also has started providing scholarships to officers for language courses at community colleges for up to four semesters.

Det. James Blocker, of the department’s Pacific Division, was one of the first to receive a scholarship. He had already paid to take Spanish courses.

“I thought this was long overdue,” the 31-year-old said of the department’s program. He is currently completing a Spanish II class at Long Beach City College.

Raising Awareness to Use Resources

Even with the gains in the LAPD language program, some community observers say that it is difficult to measure actual progress among the rank and file.

After all, they say, even before the Chong incident, officers had translation services available. They could request that an employee fluent in a certain language be contacted, or call the AT&T; Language Line.

Whether the officers who handled Chong’s case knew of the resources is unclear. According to new guidelines, all LAPD sworn and civilian employees must sign a training bulletin holding them accountable for knowing procedures they are to follow when encountering limited-English-speakers.

One sign of increased awareness is a dramatic rise in calls to the AT&T; Language Line, task force officials said.

Still, Meela Chon, an attorney with Korean Immigrant Workers Advocates, said, “It’s my gut feeling and my guess that [some] officers are not using the language services.”

After the Chong incident, the group started to assist Korean-speaking immigrants who wished to report any police-related complaints. She has heard of only a handful of complaints in the past year, but she believes many immigrants tend not to report cases.

Tom Saenz, an attorney for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and task force member, also doubts that there is universal acquiescence to the language policy, though he could not point to any examples of noncompliance.

“What’s hard is we don’t hear about most of the cases when there is a breakdown in communication,” said Tang. “It’s only when something tragic like Mr. Chong’s case comes about that it becomes an issue.”

Part of the problem task force members face in meeting the language policy is they have no models from which to seek guidance on this issue.

Some smaller police departments in Los Angeles County contending with large immigrant populations say they rely on an informal language policy, counting on officers to make the right call when encountering limited-English-speaking people.

“It’s a common-sense policy,” said David Mirander, a public information officer for the Long Beach Police Department, which serves a sizable Cambodian refugee community.

He said officers can request bilingual employees if they need them, but often depend on family members of crime victims or witnesses. The department does pay bilingual bonuses, but does not subscribe to any language line service, he said.

Other agencies serving large immigrant populations, like the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and the Monterey Park and Glendale police departments, do subscribe to the AT&T; Language Line and also offer bilingual bonuses to officers and civilian personnel.

But, like Long Beach, the departments do not have a formal language policy.

In Glendale, Chahe Keuroghelian, a civilian public information officer for the Police Department, initiated a voluntary, city-sponsored Armenian-language class for police officers and other city employees. He said it was important for them to learn at least some basic conversational tools to communicate with the Armenian community, which makes up more than 30% of the city’s population.

Jorja Prover, a UCLA professor who has studied public organizations for 20 years, said the LAPD’s language policy is not so exceptional when compared to other human service agencies. But she added, “if you’re looking at other law enforcement agencies, they are on the cutting edge.”

Bridging Language, Cultural Barriers

Capt. Paul Kim said he has been waiting his entire career for the Police Department to formalize a language policy and to recognize the value of bilingual officers.

Although the Chong case illustrated how tragedy could result when language barriers are not bridged, he recalled another missing person’s case that produced a different outcome.

The officer called everyone he knew in Koreatown, looking for a lost, developmentally disabled Korean man. The man was eventually found safe.

“For somebody who is not bilingual, who doesn’t know Koreatown, it would have been very difficult to find this person,” said Kim, the highest-ranking Asian American with the LAPD.

Kim cautioned that even a bilingual-bicultural officer may not necessarily deliver quality police service.

“If you’re an insensitive, malicious, mean person, what good are you?” he asked.

On the other hand, Kim points to officers who, before the language policy and scholarship program, would spend their own time and money on learning Spanish or Korean.

Edward Broussard, a West Division traffic officer, just completed a basic Korean-language course offered free at the Korean Cultural Center on Wilshire Boulevard.

“The simple fact is I like to do a good job,” he said. “Spanish is kind of stressed for everybody in the LAPD, but there’s not too many Korean speakers who work out in patrol and they are a large part of our community. It just would be helpful to learn a few things in Korean and break the ice.”

Kim stressed that, ultimately, the philosophy behind this language policy is what’s key.

“I know it’s called ‘language policy,’ but that doesn’t capture the essence of the issue,” he said. “The essence is employees’ ability and willingness to be sensitive to people’s needs, regardless of whether they speak English. Everybody’s entitled to police service.”

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Police Interpreter

When a Los Angeles police officer is unable to communicate with a non-English-speaking person, he or she can use an AT&T; language identification card. In those cases, the person is shown the pamphlet, asked “to point to your language,” and an AT&T; interpreter is contacted.

AFRICA

Amharic

Arabic

Bambara

French

Hausa

Italian

Portuguese

Portuguese

Creole

Somali

Swahili

Tigrinya

Wolof

Yoruba

MIDDLE EAST

Arabic

Armenian

Assyrian

Dari

Farsi

Hebrew

Kurdish

Pashto

Turkish

ASIA

Cantonese

Chaochow

Fukienese

Mandarin

Shanghai

Taiwanese

Toishanese

Burmese

Cambodian

Hmong

Indonesian

Japanese

Korean

Laotian

Malay

Mien

Thai

Vietnamese

NORTH AMERICA, SOUTH AMERICA, AND CARIBBEAN

French

Haitian Creole

Navajo

Portuguese

Spanish

EUROPE

Albanian

Armenian

Basque

Bulgarian

Catalan

Croatian

Czech

Danish

Dutch

Estonian

Finnish

French

German

Greek

Hungarian

Icelandic

Italian

Lithuanian

Macedonian

Norwegian

Polish

Portuguese

Romanian

Russian

Serbian

Slovak

Spanish

Swedish

Ukrainian

Yiddish

PACIFIC ISLANDS

Akan

Fijian

Ilocano

Indonesian

Malay

Samoan

Tagalog

Tongan

INDIA, PAKISTAN, AND SOUTHWEST ASIA

Bengali

Bhojpuri

Gujarati

Hindi

Malayalam

Nepali

Punjabi

Sinhalese

Tamil

Urdu

*

About 78% of all paid bilingual personnel in the department are Spanish-speaking. This is in line with the percentage of Spanish speakers in the area’s foreign language population.

About 40% of 468 calls referred to the AT&T; Language Line were for Korean interpreters, a recent audit showed. Out of more than 2,000 paid bilingual personnel in the LAPD, 42 (about 2%) are Korean speakers.