The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Like most first-year Spanish students, they started with the basics: Hola! Que pasa? Uno, dos, tres.
Then they needed to know a sentence ordinary classes don’t cover: Soy policia. “I’m a police officer.”
Every Thursday afternoon, a group of southwest Little Rock officers meets at Taqueria Karina Cafe, a Mexican restaurant at 65th Street and Lancaster Road. There, the owner’s bilingual 15-year-old daughter instructs them in Spanish, a language her students say will enable them to do a better job in this increasingly Hispanic part of the city.
“It’s a good opportunity for Hispanic residents to see police officers who are trying to bridge the gap between the two communities,” Sgt. Randal Walker said.
Many Hispanics don’t trust police, in part because of official corruption in their home countries. Illegal immigrants often are afraid that asking anyone with a badge for help will mean deportation.
But police must reach out to the Hispanic community, Walker said, to keep its members from being easy marks for criminals.
BUILDING TRUST
Walker started the lessons at Taqueria Karina several months ago with Eduardo Martinez, the restaurant’s owner.
Martinez was born in Gua- najuato, Mexico, and first set foot on U.S. soil in 1985, after he emerged from the trunk of a car that smuggled him into Dallas.
Martinez, now a U.S. citizen, has lived in Little Rock for about 15 years and acts as a go-between for officials and immigrants who speak little English.
“I say to them, if you don’t make trouble, you’re not going to have problems,” he said.
Little Rock police, Walker said, are “not militant” about immigration.
“To me, it makes better sense to deal with these people as residents instead of worrying about their status,” he said.
In many Spanish-speaking countries, police can be arbitrary and violent. In Mexico, police are poorly paid and make money from fines and bribes. Many immigrants don’t believe police want to help them, Martinez said.
“The point is to tell people not to be afraid because nothing’s going to happen,” Martinez said.
“If no one says anything, how are we going to get help?”
Many recent immigrants are scared of being deported, Juan Gutierrez of Little Rock said.
At his parents’ business, Mercado San Jose Panaderia Mexicana in southwest Little Rock, customers can wire money, buy first-communion dresses or Nativity displays, shop for canned food and order hot Mexican dishes.
Gutierrez said a recruiter visited the business last week, urging him to join a citizens’ police academy starting in January. Gutierrez, who moved to Little Rock about 10 years ago from California, hasn’t had any negative experiences with police and, because he is a citizen, doesn’t have the fears others do. But learning more about police work would help other immigrants trust officers, he said.
“They don’t know what the police are really trying to do,” he said. Officer Tony Martell is fluent in Spanish and often translates for other officers. To him, the language barrier is nothing compared with the cultural one.
“Even being Hispanic and being a cop, it’s hard to get the trust of the people,” he said.
Recent immigrants go to the Neighborhood Alert Center on 65th Street, where Martell works, and ask for help with all sorts of things, he said.
One man told Martell he gave another Hispanic man $ 400 to work on his truck, which the man took without fulfilling his promise.
Even though the disagreement was a civil matter, Martell called the man anyway.
The response: “OK, I know you’re with the police. How much is he paying you?”
RASH OF ROBBERIES
In recent months, Hispanic men seem to have been targeted for robbery in southwest Little Rock, including twice last week. The robbers claim to be police officers and say they need to check the immigrants’ identification and then steal their wallets.
Robbers patted down three Hispanic men on Ardmore Drive in September and stole about $1,200.
In October, a man who refused to show a police badge robbed three Hispanic workers at the Wakefield Elementary School construction site on Westminister Drive.
A week after that robbery, a man with a phony badge stole more than $ 1,400 in payroll checks and cash from two Hispanic men on Breckenridge Drive.
On Thursday, two robbers who carried handcuffs and talked into radios stole money from a pair of Hispanic men at a Motel 6 in west Little Rock. Another man, who spoke little English, reported a similar robbery Friday night.
Hispanics probably were targeted because many do not use banks, police said. Some never used banks in their home countries, and most cannot open accounts in the United States without a Social Security number.
“It’s probably fixing to be the vogue thing, robbing Hispanics,” Sgt. Bruce Maxwell said. “It’s pretty well known that they’re going to have what (money) they made on them or in the home.”
Most law enforcement agencies in Arkansas do not track crime relating specifically to Hispanics. The Arkansas Crime Information Center classifies Hispanics as “white.” Little Rock police, for example, do not compile records of victims by race, and Hispanics are recorded as “other,” spokesman Sgt. Terry Hastings said.
Nationally, Hispanics were victims of robbery at significantly higher rates than non-Hispanics last year and victims of overall violence at somewhat higher rates, according to a survey released in September by the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics.
“These people, just by being residents here, are under our umbrella of services,” Walker said. “We encourage these people to come forward.
“I just wonder how desperate they have to be before they do,” he added. “I guess I’m a typical cynical police officer, but if two come forward, there’s probably 200 who didn’t.”
Officer John Comeau, whose patrol area includes the city’s highest concentration of Hispanics, is trying to stop the phony police robberies. He talked to group leaders at construction sites, asking them to spread the word: Police will have a warrant if they search your house. They will wear uniforms. They will not mind showing their badges. Keep your money in a bank if you can. If you can’t, hide your cash.
“You get with the group leader because their trust of us is still not there,” Comeau said.
GROWING AND LEARNING
Arkansas’ Hispanic population more than tripled from 1990 to 2000, according to U.S. Census figures, and is believed to be among the fastest-growing in the nation.
About 86,000 Hispanics live in Arkansas. Outside Northwest Arkansas, Pulaski County has the largest Hispanic population, with more than 8,800 Hispanics counted in 2000. The Hispanic population there was about 3,200 in 1990.
Some say the Census estimate is low, affected by undercounting of illegal immigrants and already outdated by two years of more growth.
“I’m not sure most people realize the size of the community,” Walker said. The state’s Criminal Justice Institute has developed a course in Spanish for law enforcement, and “survival Spanish” is taught in rookie school, Walker said. All the southwest patrol officers have learned some Spanish, and most have a vocabulary of about 100 words, he said.
"(Hispanics) are learning English much faster than we’re learning Spanish during this transition period, but we still need to be able to provide services to them,” he said.
On chilly December afternoons, the toasty air inside Taqueria Karina smells of baking bread. Between five and 10 officers show up, depending on what’s happening on the streets.
Martinez’s daughter Sara asks the officers questions in Spanish and offers gentle hints when they get stumped. She translates words most students wouldn’t ask about: blood, breath test, scar, tattoo, gold teeth, suspect.
At one recent class, each officer got a copy of DWI paperwork in Spanish. They also discussed getting an official translation of the Miranda warning on a pocket-sized card.
“There’s still a lot to be done,” Walker said. “We’re hoping that by encouraging this group to keep their culture, their community, their language, that we don’t see the alienation that we’ve seen in other cities,” alluding to the Hispanic gangs in places such as Los Angeles and Chicago.
“We’re trying something different,” Walker said. “In 10 years here, we’ll be able to see if it’s all working.”