Metro short of bilingual help

Thursday, Dec. 6, 2001 | 8:53 a.m.

Two years ago a police officer told the suspect in a shooting to get out of a car. The suspect didn't move. The officer said again, "Get out of the car and put your hands up." Still no response.

Luckily, fellow officer Tirso Dominguez arrived and quickly sized up the situation. He repeated the order in Spanish. This time, the suspect moved.

Now Dominguez, who is a spokesman for Metro Police, says the scenario with the shooting suspect happened because of a shortage of bilingual police officers.

The shortage still exists, and Metro officials are concerned that everyone from officers on the beat to 911 operators are not serving today's Las Vegas as well as they could because of a lack of Spanish-speaking personnel.

"In these last two years we've improved, but we're still way below the level we need to be," Dominguez said.

Hispanics in Clark County are nearly a quarter of the population, but they represent under 10 percent of total Metro personnel.

The need for Hispanic officers has grown on a par with the county's Hispanic population, which increased from 82,904 to 302,000, or 364 percent, during the past decade.

As of Census 2000, Hispanics are 22 percent of the county's population, but they form only 8.11 percent of the police force, with 154 of 1,799 noncivilian employees.

On the corrections side of Metro, Hispanics are nearly 10 percent, with 45 of 460 noncivilian employees.

Capt. Michael Holt, who oversees Clark County's jail population, said the shortage of Hispanic corrections officers creates problems both in helping inmates and with maintaining security.

"Sometimes we'll have a Hispanic inmate who needs to see a nurse in the middle of the night, and the officer isn't able to understand what the inmate is saying. The officer will often ask a bilingual inmate to help translate," Holt said.

"Another problem is when two inmates are plotting something in Spanish, and we don't have any idea of what they're saying," he said.

"Fortunately, we've never had this situation get out of hand, and we always put what bilingual officers we have on whatever dangerous Spanish-speaking inmates we have. But we could use more bilingual officers."

As for 911 operators and dispatchers, supervisor Capt. Mark Medina said less than a dozen of more than 150 civilian employees are bilingual.

Medina said money would be saved in his department if he had more Hispanic personnel, since Metro spends at least $200,000 a year on an outside translating service to meet the needs of the Spanish-speaking public dialing 911.

"When there is no operator on hand that speaks Spanish, the line switches over to this service. But the cost adds up by the end of the year," he said.

"If we could have more people speaking Spanish on my staff, and this would help quell people's fear of crime, then we'd be making a lot of progress."

To start addressing the problem, Sheriff Jerry Keller formed in April an advisory council of Metro personnel and Hispanic business and community leaders. The council met Tuesday for the fifth time this year.

Metro recruiter Luis Tellez, who sits on the council, said that finding qualified Hispanic candidates for jobs with the police continues to be difficult despite Clark County's booming Hispanic population.

Many young Hispanics are lured into relatively high-paying jobs in casinos or construction, and often they don't finish high school before going to work, Tellez said. A high school diploma or GED is a minimum requirement for police.

Another problem police recruiters face is the number of undocumented immigrants in the county's Hispanic community, estimated at anywhere from 30,000 to 100,000. Being a citizen is another requirement for working with Metro.

Still another obstacle is the bad image of the police that many Hispanics bring with them from their home countries, where law enforcement is seen as corrupt and abusive.

"After Sept. 11, we're hoping that some of this might change, since police are now being seen more as heroes," Tellez said.

A plan for attracting area Hispanic high school students to law enforcement came out of Tuesday's advisory council meeting, including a recruiting symposium planned for April 2002.

In the meantime, Tellez finds himself recruiting in cities such as San Antonio and Los Angeles to help meet the need for Hispanic officers.

"These urban areas with long-standing Hispanic populations are turning out to be good sources of qualified candidates," he said.

Felipe Ortiz, federal probation officer and board member for the National Latino Peace Officers Association, said Las Vegas is not the only city seeking more Hispanics.

"Our association is getting calls from areas that never had large Hispanic populations before, like Lexington, Ky., North Carolina, Virginia and Mississippi.

"This is a problem all over America, and after Census 2000, we've woken up and seen it as such."