November 5, 2009

Since January 2007 some police officers in Dallas, TX have been handing out $204 tickets to drivers who do not speak English. There were 39 tickets total, written by six officers working in different divisions and all but one of the drivers cited were Hispanic.

This outrage would have continued if not for one driver challenging the a ticket she received on October 2^nd. She showed up in court and won.To make this more unbelievable, the officer who cited her was a trainee and his sergeant approved the ticket.

There is no law that makes it illegal to drive if you cannot speak English so how did the tickets get through the system? Plus, how could anyone believe it is a moving violation to not speak English?

This is simply ignorance and racism. It is inexcusable and un-American.

In response, officers are blaming their car computers for showing a federal statute which requires English proficiency if the driver is a trucker or is otherwise required to have a commercial driver’s license (CDL). But that law is not enforced by Dallas police and they can't prove any of the drivers were required to have a CDL.

An officer must be certain of what law applies to an alleged violation before he writes a citation. Dallas police chief David Kunkle summed it up this way:

"An officer has to know the elements of an offense or what's necessary to constitute a crime," Kunkle said. "In this case it appears that officers did not understand."

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/DN-citations_23met.ART.State.Edition2.4bac015.html

I think they understood alright. Racism is blind to reason.