Thread: TX Woman ticketed for not speaking English says she felt hum

Woman ticketed for not speaking English says she felt humiliated

12:00 AM CDT on Monday, October 26, 2009

By RICHARD ABSHIRE / The Dallas Morning News
rabshire@dallasnews.com

Ernestina Mondragon blinked in the glare of TV lights, seated for her news conference among family and friends at a table in the back of Tejano Mexican Restaurant at Davis and Beckley in north Oak Cliff on Sunday afternoon.

Speaking Spanish translated by her daughter, Brenda, and her lawyer, Domingo Garcia, she said she was humiliated Oct. 2 when a Dallas police officer pulled her over for an illegal U-turn and then wrote her a ticket for driving without being able to speak English.

"I felt I'd been looked down on and discriminated against," she said.

Garcia said Mondragon, 48, has been a legal U.S. resident since 1980.

He and representatives of the League of United Latin American Citizens – including former LULAC national president Hector Flores – called on police to look back 10 years or more to see how many similar tickets have been issued.

Garcia and Mondragon did not threaten to sue the city. But they want an investigation into Dallas police training and supervision generally and specifically to uncover any evidence of racial profiling.

"And I want the Dallas Police Review Board to monitor the investigation as an impartial third party," Garcia said.

Garcia said he will file a claim asking the city to refund fines that Mondragon paid. She also incurred about $7,000 in medical expenses when she appeared to get ill after the traffic stop and her family took her to Baylor Medical Center at Garland. Her daughter said her mom was found to have stress-related symptoms and was admitted and kept overnight.

Garcia said he also will file a claim seeking reimbursement of medical expenses.

Police Chief David Kunkle apologized last week, promised an investigation, and said that 39 cases have been found over the last three years and that those charges will be dismissed and any fines paid will be refunded.

On Sunday, Dallas City Council member Steve Salazar thanked the Mondragons for coming forward and also apologized.

"Dallas is a diverse city with many languages," Salazar said. "This was a charge that should not have been in the system."

Dallas police said Friday that the charge was on a menu in the department's in-car computers, but it applies only to commercial operators, which means bus, truck and limo drivers. The officer also ticketed her for the U-turn and no driver's license.

Brenda Mondragon said her mom has a valid Texas license but she forgot it that day because she was in a hurry to take another daughter, Vanessa, to school.

Vanessa, 11, a sixth-grader at Hill Middle School, said she was running late because she missed her school bus.

None of the officers on the traffic stop spoke Spanish. Vanessa was in the car with her mother but wasn't asked to translate for her.

"I was so scared I didn't know what was going to happen," said Vanessa, who wants to be a doctor or maybe find a career in criminal justice. She said she is afraid of police officers now because they might stop her mom again.

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent ... d4cdb.html

Yes the "immigration system is broken" if she's been here having children and can't speak English.

Ernestina Mondragon is the poster child for the problems with our liberal immigration system.




For a little history on Domingo Garcia

He's the attorney and washed up politician who yelled that it's the "Emancipation Proclamation" of illegal aliens at the Dallas pro-illegal alien rally.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WppS1SnYhsM

She has been in this country for 29 years and doesn't speak English? I suppose there is no need to learn it as apparently non-English speakers have had everything handed to them for years.

Originally Posted by vortex

She has been in this country for 29 years and doesn't speak English? I suppose there is no need to learn it as apparently non-English speakers have had everything handed to them for years.

thats a damn shame, isnt it

They didn't mention that she didn't have a drivers license in this sob story. It was mentioned in previous ones.

It sounds like Miami. If you need English to get your driver's license then you should be penalized if you can't communicate with the police in a traffic stop. One thing I have seen alot of is the I don't speak English when when people have to deal with the police. They either think the police officer will get frustrated during a traffic stop and let them go. In the case of the Spanish speakers they will side with them at times especially if they came from the same country and even favor them sometimes. I saw it happening in a case where I called police about threats made by the Colombian to a Haitian securitry guard. The guy culd threat and speak perfect English to the security guard and so could his realtive but when police arrived they claim no speaky English and one officer started talking to them in Spanish and actually started siding with them. She was also born in Colombia. I took her aside and told her that if she continued I would put a complaint in against her actions to the department's internal affairs department.

If people who can't speak English weren't allowed to drive the traffic problems in some big cities would disappear!

This woman is the poster child of what's wrong with our immigration system! This woman has been in this country for almost 30 years AND STILL DOES NOT SPEAK A WORD OF ENGLISH! How in the hell does that happen! So much for assimilation!

And yet she has the audacity to lawyer up and claim how humiliated she was because of this ordeal! She should be humiliated that she has been in this country for 30 years and still cannot speak English! Bet that never occured to her!

How many millions is she going to ask for through her scum bag, ambulance-chasing attorney!! What a friggin disgrace this woman is.