It sounds too ridiculous to be true. If anyone should know what crimes the police can charge you with, it should be the police, right? I mean am I asking too much for the cops to know what the hell they are doing? Really?
Well, apparently not so much with the Dallas Police Department. The DPD decided to give a number of drivers some tickets for not speaking English. Yep, you read that correctly. Not. Speaking. English.
According to a number of stories over the last several days, the DPD has ticketed almost 40 different drivers over the last three years for being a non-English speaking driver. The problem is that's not against the law. Now admittedly, there is a federal law for commercial drivers dealing with this, and there is the infamous 287(g) federal program that deputizes some local law enforcement to enforce federal immigration law. But that's not what this is.
It seems the poor police officers were confused by there pesky in-car computer. According to the officers, the pull-down menu allows them to issue a citation to a driver for not only speeding, illegal U-turn, improper turn, but also "non-English speaking driver."
They were confused. By their computer. Really? Are these cops so out of touch with reality that they thought this was proper?
The bigger problem with this is the response from the cops themselves. According to the CBS 11 story, Glenn White of the Dallas Police Association thinks its unfair to blame the cops for making the mistake. We should really be blaming the computer makers and the officers' superiors. Really?
According to White, it would be unfair to label these officers as being racially insensitive. "It's wrong. It's absolutely wrong." White fears the officers will face future scrutiny in court cases involving minorities. Ya think?
Let's see. I have a client charged and convicted in a drug conspiracy of a relatively small amount of drugs actually found on him. But then witness after witness comes into court for sentencing and talks about all the times they've seen my client possess drugs. No one seems to have a problem with that "relevant conduct." Why shouldn't it cut both ways?
Now, honestly, I don't know if these officers are so naive as to think they can just scroll through their little pull-down menu searching for any and all crimes to cite, or they are just not bright enough to figure things out on their own. And I hate to give them the benefit of the doubt, but I guess I will. I mean the world is full of morons.
But you made a mistake, guys. It's not like you shot a guy who was pulling out a cell phone, or conducted a no-knock on the wrong house causing the elderly owner to have a heart attack, or anything crazy like that. But you screwed up.
To honestly argue that you shouldn't be punished is inane. By the way, that's English for stupid.
But what the hell do I know?
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