Thread: Hispanics Carry Lopsided Share Of DWI Arrests

http://www.wral.com/news/9149836/detail.html

RALEIGH, N.C. -- WRAL has learned that 33 percent all drunken drivers arrested in Wake County are Hispanic, although the latest census numbers indicate that Hispanics make up only 7 percent of Wake County's population.

This past weekend in Wake County, 69 people were arrested and charged with DWIs. Twenty-three of those drivers were Hispanic. While DWI is the most common charge, many of those charged with that face additional charges, such as driving without a valid license. People on both sides of this issue say more education is the key to helping solve this problem.

“We've known for some time that the Hispanic population is overrepresented in DWI arrests and DWI collisions,” said Lt. Everett Clendenin with the North Carolina Highway Patrol.

The Highway Patrol says that while Hispanics make up roughly 7 percent of the state's population, they make up more than 17 percent of the patrol's DWI arrests and are involved in 15 percent of their alcohol-related crashes.

“In Mexico and other Latin communities, traffic laws are not taken as seriously as they are here in North Carolina and also in our nation,” said Clendenin.

“I definitely don't want the police targeting me based upon how I look, and I don't want them targeting me because I came out of a certain store or nightclub,” said defense attorney Ricardo Velasquez.

Velasquez said he believes racial profiling has something to do with the high numbers, but the statistics appear to be too high and too consistent to simply be the result of selective enforcement. And Velasquez agrees that his clients do not always understand the laws and their severity.

“I think that there needs to be more education in that area,” he said. “That's why we do emphasize, we talk to them about what happened the first time and what's going to happen next time.”

“We're trying to encourage our district commanders to get out and work with Hispanic communities,” said Clendenin. “We want to do that. We want to share this important message.”

The Highway Patrol recently appointed a Hispanic liaison to work with this community on this issue. Defense attorneys say one roadblock to the process right now is that undocumented immigrants have difficulty acquiring valid licenses, which is the foundation of being a legal driver.

Let's see, education should consist of:

- Teaching the hispanics English
- Teaching the hispanics the laws
- Teaching the hispaincs that if your here illegally, you get deported!

Pretty much sums it up!

“I think that there needs to be more education in that area,” he said. “That's why we do emphasize, we talk to them about what happened the first time and what's going to happen next time.”

The first time? Is he suggesting DWI suspects should get a talking to and nothing else "the first time". I don't think so. DWI - Implied Consent, not too complicated.

Why in the name of God should taxpayers be responsible for teaching illegals ANYTHING? If they cause an accident, they should be immediately arrested and promptly deported. The state of NC has spent thousands and thousands of dollars making information available to illegals in their native language. It is to the point now that a person seeking employment in our state has to be biligual. This is outrageous! The state is now requiring that all school children be taught Spanish beginning in the elementary grades.

Makes my blood boil! Stop this insanity! This is the United States of America, not Mexico. Deport every last one of the illegal aliens. We will survive quite nicely without them!


NCRaised

The state is now requiring that all school children be taught Spanish beginning in the elementary grades.

First I've heard about this! Do you know of a web link to the information?

I agree why put them in jail and continue to pay for them, deport them immediately and let their country deal with them. I am sick of lawmakers saying we cannot afford to deport 12 million plus illegals, if we deported them immediately we could save billions on housing them in our prisons and providing social services.

Here is the link to the NC Dept of Education Curriculum Guide for all public school children for grades K-12.

Sad isn't it?

NCRaised

http://www.dpi.state.nc.us/curriculu.../2004/14elemk2

Here is a email I sent to Amanda Lamb of WRAL in response to this report:


To quote your recent article:

Hispanics Carry Lopsided Share Of DWI Arrests

http://www.wral.com/news/9149836/detail.html

“WRAL has learned that 33 percent all drunken drivers arrested in Wake County are Hispanic, although the latest census numbers indicate that Hispanics make up only 7 percent of Wake County's population.”

* Why did you only quote the NC Highway Patrol? Why didn’t you get numbers from the Wake County Sheriff’s office, or the City of Raleigh Police Dept.? If they weren’t available to give you those numbers for some reason, you should have stated that in the article.
* Also, census numbers are going to be incorrect. Everyone knows you are not going to get an accurate census count on a population that is here illegally, and more likely to rent houses and trailers in groups, or homeless all together. Also a percentage of them live on the property of farmers who illegally employ them.

“Defense attorneys say one roadblock to the process right now is that undocumented immigrants have difficulty acquiring valid licenses, which is the foundation of being a legal driver.”

Why blatantly make such a statement or have a quote from someone who makes such a statement?? The question is ‘Why should (and HOW) undocumented immigrants (illegal aliens), have the ability to obtain a North Carolina driver license when they are in this country illegally to begin with?”

* Why are you doing a report downsizing the negative effect that illegal immigrants have in our community?
* Why did you have to find a defense attorney that is most likely sympathetic to illegal alien rights as ‘Ricardo Velasquez’.
* The timing of this report. Why was the article put out the day AFTER, 3,000 hispanics protested in downtown Raleigh.
* Why is this report on the front page of wral.com and easy to get to, when yesterday I was trying to find information and pictures of the 3,000 hispanics circling the capital and I couldn’t find it?

“In Mexico and other Latin communities, traffic laws are not taken as seriously as they are here in North Carolina and also in our nation,” said Clendenin.

Why publish a quote like this? I know reporters don’t include every question and answer that is discussed during an interview. This quote implies that NC traffic laws are too strict and should be loosened to accommodate the large non-english speaking Hispanic population that illegally live in our community.



This whole report is CLEARLY skewed, biased, and Lopsided toward pro-illegal immigrant rights and to downplay the negative side of having THOUSANDS of people in our community who just don’t have the legal right to be in this country. Please answer me this, Why does anyone, after breaking federal law of crossing into the United States illegally:

1. Have the ability to protest,
2. Obtain a driver’s license,
3. Obtain employment,
4. Obtain a bank loan,
5. Own a vehicle,
6. Draw social services checks,
7. Draw money from WIC,
8. Rent housing,
9. Bypass the paid health care system by just walking into a ER at a hospital to treat a common cold for free while legal Americans have to pay a average of $120 a month, per person for health care.
10. Be able to get free education in our public school system, and lower the quality of education for our children because of larger classroom sizes and more time needed to translate to hispanic children in the same class. While forcing our children to learn Spanish has the primary (and in most cases, the only) foreign language learned at the elementary school grade level.

Amanda, I have given you TEN topics that you or others at WRAL could make reports out of regarding Hispanics in our community. Why should we, LEGAL residents of the great country, have to appease a group of people that ignore our laws



You may not be aware of these topics, so please google them:

Aztlan
La Raza
MEChA
The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo - http://home.sandiego.edu/~villegas/
http://www.daylaborers.org/
Racism IN mexico



Please don’t respond back to me if all you are going to send me is a un-personalized canned message response of some kind.

Thank you for your time.

Fired those stats off to MADD. Maybe they to will join the fight!

I'ts not just DWI and other driving violations. Turn on the TV here in CA, and the first ten minutes of every news broadcast are crime reports with a huge proportion of the names being Hispanic. Here in San Diego, not a single day goes by without a murder, carjacking, kidnapping, drug arrest, smuggling arrest, domestic abuse, sexual assault, Amber alert, etc. with a Hispanic name.