Thread: Communication Gap in Law Enforcement

Communication Gap in Law Enforcement

Monday, Sep 10, 2007 - 06:31 PM Updated: 07:55 PM

The number of illegal immigrants is increasing in Mississippi, creating a communication gap for law enforcement officials.

Since 2005, the number of Mississippi's illegal immigrants has grown to 122,000. Meanwhile there are fewer than half-a-dozen bilingual officers in Mississippi's police departments. Two of those officers are in Flowood.

Officer Profirio Grimaldo is always on call--and not just with the Flowood Police Department. As a bilingual officer he responds to calls around the state.

"Surrounding agencies will call us since we are the only agency that has Spanish-speaking officers," Grimaldo said.

Like many other officersin Flowood, Officer Grimaldo's title is "patrolman," but his duties go beyond his title. He also takes 911 calls from Spanish speakers and works across the state as a translator for crime investigations.

With the number of immigrants in Mississippi on the rise, Grimaldo says there is a huge demand for additional officers who can speak at least some Spanish.

"It's going to be up to police departments to hire Spanish speakers or for officers to learn Spanish," Grimaldo said.

Officers who cannot speak Spanish may have major problems communicating in emergency situations.

"If you can't communicate and find out what kind of crime has been committed, a lot of time officers will just leave and in many cases crime will go unsolved," Grimaldo said.

Despite the extra responsibilities, Grimaldo says he does not receive extra pay. Meanwhile, some cities in other states pay two to three times what Mississippi's bilingual officers make.

http://www.wjtv.com/gulfcoastwest/jtv/n ... -0015.html

Why should THEY HAVE to learn spanish. Do police have to learn Japanese, chinese, french, german, russian. We need to strengthen our country by uniting not separating. When we cater to each group of individuals is separates us and makes us weak. Why can't our government see that. Why do we have to make it easy on them and hard for us. When are we going to wake up and save our country from a foreign invader?