Theater of the absurdDallas cops cite drivers for "not speaking English"
Is it a crime not to speak English? It is — in Dallas, Texas: half a dozen Dallas cops have given tickets to thirty-eight drivers for having an inadequate command of the English language
As if the Dallas police has nothing else to do. Red-faced Dallas police chief David Kunkle has apologized to the local Hispanic community after it was revealed that his officers had fined thirty-eight drivers for the novel offense of having an inadequate command of the English language.
Lester Haines writes that among those who fell foul of the language police was 48-year-old Ernestina Valdez Mondragón, pulled on 2 October for making an illegal U-turn. Rookie cop Gary Bromley slapped her with a fine for the maneuver and not carrying her driving license, and then topped it off by handing her a ticket for “not speaking English.” Mondragón, originally from Mexico but resident in the United States for thirty years, told the Houston Chronicle (in Spanish): “He asked me if I knew English. I told him I only speak a little, and he understood.” She added: “I felt humiliated, sad.”
It was later revealed that around a half-dozen officers had fined mainly Hispanics for the same deficiency. Kunkle said: “We don’t have abilities to determine proficiency in any language, and we shouldn’t be doing it in the first place. I apologize to the Spanish-speaking Hispanic community.” He concluded: “Any citations that were paid, we’re going to reimburse the people who paid the citation.”
The Houston Chronicle notes that “latinos” make up 44 percent of Dallas’s million-plus inhabitants, of which 45 percent speak a language other than English.
