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At last count, more than 10,000 people in New Orleans spoke little or no English. There are many more in Jefferson Parish, whose Spanish-speaking population has grown greatly in the last two decades. Many report negative experiences trying to get help from police. However, law enforcement agencies throughout the area say they have made major improvements in their policies for handling calls involving non-English speakers over the past decade.
It is both a practical need and a legal one. Since they get federal funding, the New Orleans Police Department, Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office, and Kenner Police Department are all required by law to “take reasonable steps to provide meaningful access to persons with limited English proficiency.”
WWL Louisiana spoke with many Spanish speakers who live in Orleans and Jefferson Parishes. Almost all of them could share negative experiences with law enforcement in the past, and many feared retaliation were they to come forward.
Only a woman named Mayra was willing to go on the record, on the condition that her last name be withheld to protect her identity. She said she was abused by her ex-partner and, despite a restraining order, has repeatedly had to call the NOPD to report him stalking her. “He passes in front of the house, he follows us, he goes to the kids’ school,” she said in Spanish.
She said she called the police more frequently when the behavior began about ten years ago. But over time, she became discouraged by what she described as hours-long waits for officers who could understand her.
Once, about five years ago, she said her attacker followed her to her daughter’s daycare. She said it took police three hours to arrive with someone who could talk to her. Another time, she described waiting hours at a police station for a Spanish-speaking officer, only to be told, once he arrived, that he could not help her because his shift was over. “You feel like you have no support, no help, no protection,” she said.
According to the OPCD, last year an average of 476 non-English speakers called 911 per month in New Orleans. An OPCD spokesperson said dispatchers are equipped with a “live audio translation feature” that “will recognize the language spoken and translate it to English in real-time, visible on the screen of the call operator. The call operator will additionally conference in a certified interpreter.” From there, the call is flagged for the NOPD as involving a non-English speaker.
In response to WWL Louisiana’s interview with Mayra, The NOPD gave us a closer look at its protocols for handling those calls. Dep. Supt. Nicholas Gernon, who heads the department’s Professional Standards and Accountability Bureau, explained that the policy has undergone many changes since the federal government put the NOPD under a consent decree in 2013 and has steadily improved how it handles calls like Mayra’s.
The decree gave a federal monitor increased oversight on the department. Among other changes, the NOPD was pushed to examine its policies related to bias and fairness in its policing, which Gernon said included those related to non-English speakers. “It made us measure it and see how big of a need there was,” he said.
Under current policy, officers are first required to call for an interpreter. The department has 33 of them, 4 of whom are civilians, said NOPD Language Access Coordinator Officer Leslie Guzman. The department gives a 5% pay bump to interpreters and requires that they become certified. 31 of the department’s current interpreters speak Spanish and 2 speak Vietnamese.
If a department interpreter is not available, officers are then supposed to call for a smartphone equipped with the app Voiance. It connects the officer virtually to someone who can interpret over speakerphone. They can also use video call if the subject communicates using sign language. Guzman said when the department began using Voiance in 2021, it had 20 phones available for officers to use. Now there are more than 200.
“When we provided the cell phones, a lot of officers were a little hesitant,” she said, “with training that we provided over the years, they feel more comfortable.”
Guzman has led much of that training, as well as the content of the policies themselves, since she joined the department in 2019. The formation of the Language Access Coordinator position was, itself, part of the consent decree reforms. She explained that one of her key duties is to review body-worn camera video from all calls involving non-English speakers.
Officers failing to follow policy “happens, but it’s rare,” she said, and when “something is inaccurate, inappropriate, or not based on a policy or the training that [she] provided to them, then an email is sent right away.”
Gernon said, now, the response time for the most serious emergency calls was 10 minutes on average and 14 minutes for calls involving non-English speakers. That data will be presented as part of a consent decree hearing next week.
Jefferson Parish has an even greater need for Spanish-speaking officers, especially in Kenner, where a quarter of households told the latest census they speak a language other than English at home. That is more than New Orleans or Metairie.
Kenner Police Chief Keith Conley said out of 137 officers, about 10 speak Spanish. “We have these officers spread throughout the four squads,” he said, “we try to always have a Spanish speaking officer in the field to assist with those calls.”
Spanish-speaking officers who are not on duty are kept on a standby list. When an officer in the field needs to communicate with someone who only speaks Spanish, they first see whether a Spanish-speaking officer is on duty. If one is not available, rather than use electronic translation, they call an officer on the standby list.
The process is similar when someone being accused of a crime only speaks Spanish. “We have our waiver rights forms written in Spanish and English,” he said.
He described the growing need for Spanish-speaking staff as a “strain,” not just on Kenner PD but on law enforcement around the country. “I'm not going to sit here and tell you it's not a challenge,” said Chief Conley, “but it's one that we can overtake over time.”
Like the NOPD, the Kenner Police Department is trying to recruit more staff members among the local Spanish-speaking population. “We're recruiting through their social media, through their news platforms,” he said. “It would be a blessing if we had more Spanish-speaking officers.”
A spokesman for the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office said it does have Spanish-speaking deputies, though he could not say how many.
Mayra works as a domestic violence advocate and says she has met many women like herself– survivors who do not speak fluent English and do not feel they will get the help they need if they call law enforcement. “Being in a country that you think will look out for you, that will protect you,” she said, “and then I have to run after work to the bus stop because the attacker could be there waiting for the kids.”
For their part, both Gernon and Guzman emphasized that the NOPD has made great strides in how it handles calls involving non-English speakers in the past decade, and they hope people believe that if they call 911 they will get the language help they need. “We do provide those services,” said Guzman.
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