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Oct 27, 2009 10:01 pm US/Central
Cops To Be Retrained After Non-English Citations
DALLAS (CBS 11 / TXA 21) ―
Dallas officers, who ticketed drivers for not speaking English, will be going back to class. CBS 11 News has learned of a controversial plan to retrain more than 20 police officers and their supervisors. But the punishment is already drawing criticism.
Sources tell CBS 11 that the officers who wrote tickets to citizens because they didn't speak English will undergo racial sensitivity and traffic law training as part of their punishment.
Some officers say the retraining is unnecessary and will unfairly stigmatize the officers for a simple mistake. "Now they are going to condemn these officers for a life of being branded racially insensitive. It's wrong. It's absolutely wrong," said Glenn White with the Dallas Police Association.
Nearly two dozen Dallas police officers under scrutiny for making a traffic stop and writing tickets to people for not being able to speak English.
In all, 22 officers face an internal investigation for more than 30 citations improperly issued to people like Ernestina Mondragon.
CBS 11 has learned that Dallas Police Chief David Kunkle is likely to order the officers involved to go through the retraining. Sources say the officer's supervisors, who approved the tickets, could also be forced to attend.
White says the officers are scapegoats for a faulty computer system that suggested the citations were appropriate and feels the commanders who approved the system should be punished more than the officers. "Where is the responsibility to the people that created the system that listed these charges on the computer?" White asked. "Why are we putting this off on the officers at the bottom? Where is the culpability to the people at the top?"
White believes the training could be used against the officers in future court cases involving minorities.
A high ranking officer told CBS 11 that there's so much outrage about the way these officers are being treated, that others will be discouraged from writing traffic tickets if the officers are harshly punished.
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