In addition, after Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg signed Executive Order 120 in July 2008, the department created a language access plan to guarantee immigrants a meaningful ability to take advantage of police services.
But some advocates are preparing to present to the government a range of experiences that they say portray a large, sprawling police force that at times seems impenetrable to those who, for instance, speak only Spanish.
Lawyers and advocates representing non-English speaking victims of domestic violence, for example, tell of responding officers who have no access to an interpreter relying on a neighbor to translate, or sometimes speaking only to the perpetrator, who may be the only English speaker in the house. Or sometimes, advocates say, officers simply write “uncooperative” or “refused” in the section that would include the victim’s statement.
“These are people who are being characterized as uncooperative witnesses, which can have a devastating effect on these cases,” said Amy Taylor, language access project coordinator for Legal Services NYC."
