By Ginny Laroe
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
BENTON, Ark. — The Mexican Consulate intervened on behalf of 15 Mexican citizens who were in the Saline County jail over the weekend after learning they were not advised of their right to notify consular officials.
The situation prompted Sheriff Bruce Pennington to implement a notification process, based on a State Department manual, to comply with an international treaty that he said he was previously unaware of.
The consulate can help notify family members, arrange for lawyers and advocate on behalf of an inmate, said Andres Chao, Mexican consular in Little Rock, who has worked to educate local law enforcement of the Vienna Conventions requirements.
“After the detention is probably deportation, so we need to have that information to follow up all the processes and to bring the family all the information,” Chao said Thursday.
The lack of notification was one of several issues raised by consulate officials and others after weekend sobriety checkpoints landed 66 suspects in jail on a variety of traffic offenses, warrants and other charges.
Pennington, in general, denied any bias in the multiagency operation or mistreatment of inmates.
However, the sheriff said he couldn’t be certain about some of the claims, because he wasn’t at the jail all weekend. He said that without the name of a specific jailer, he could not launch an investigation.
“If these people would produce a name as far as jail staff, then we can do something with it,” he said.
Claims of inmates being denied access to telephones over the weekend prompted the American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas to question jail officials, and an immigration lawyer said he plans to research potential civil-rights violations in light of complaints he has received.
“I’ve heard an allegation of physical abuse,” said Little Rock lawyer Reggie Koch whose law office bills itself as a “leading firm in central Arkansas protecting the rights and representing the interests of Hispanic persons.” He did not provide any specifics on the purported physical abuse, saying he has not yet had a chance to look closely into the matter.
Mario Mendez, a 30-year-old restaurant manager who was jailed on a misdemeanor traffic offense, said he was subject to derogatory remarks, was denied a shower on the third day of being jailed and was kept in a cramped cell with seven to 10 other Hispanic inmates without toilet paper for some amount of time. He said he overheard a jailer call a Pakistani inmate “Osama.” Mendez, who is married to an American citizen with whom he has a 3-year-old son, is an illegal alien. His citation for driving on a suspended license led to an immigration hold, leaving him behind bars for three days before being released pending more proceedings by an immigration judge in Fort Smith.
He said he entered the country illegally in 1996 and was applying for citizenship before his arrest Saturday night on his way home from work at a Senor Tequila restaurant in Little Rock.
He and his wife, Heather Mendez of Benton, said they have always known deportation was a possibility. But they said they were shocked by their experience with the sheriff’s office.
“They treated us like animals,” Mario Mendez said.
When asked about specific allegations made by Mendez, Pennington said: “I will tell you this much, most of the clientele - and I’m not saying Hispanic - are not real happy about having been put there. I’m not saying they would lie, but we have found through experience, those people are not always truthful.” He added: “I personally show no difference. Race, color, creed - we’re all human beings living here.” Regarding the consular relations provision, Pennington said he takes “full responsibility.” He said even his jail chief, who has worked there for eight years, never knew of it.
Misty Borkowski, a Little Rock lawyer who consults with the Mexican Consulate and was briefly involved in Mendez’s case, said that lack of knowledge speaks “very lowly of the education that our sheriffs are receiving.” “I find it just incredible that in this day and age that a sheriff is saying he is not aware of the Vienna Convention and the requirement that his police officers are required to follow and adhere to,” she said.
Copyright 2009 Little Rock Newspapers, Inc.