Friday, May 30, 2008

Police Lax in communication!

G'day Everyone!

Why are Police Departments in the Rochester, NY area and in the DC Metro so weak in training their officers in an effort to learn Sign Language? Just because Rochester, NY and Washington, DC Metro area have a great population for deaf people, it makes no sense for police departments for treating the deaf community like A.G. Bell suggests "treat the deaf like they were hearing". It's shameful and frightening.

Lately, I've been alerted to a story that was on the Rnews channel. Here's the link and yes it has an article about it since it's non-CC web video: http://www.rnews.com/mediaplayer/players/wmplayerlite.aspx?sid=61455

Now, for some time Ridor has been saying that police are very evil since the police culture won't learn sign language. But, don't avoid the police. Especially if you've been stopped for any reason.

Presently, it's been a never ending battle for the deaf community to encourage the police departments to make Sign Language a mandatory training requirement. If police officers learn every other language in the hearing community, then why not learn SIGN LANGUAGE as well?
We have been trying to encourage the police department to be more friendly and learning sign language would promote the cultural understand between the deaf and police.

But should a lawsuit happens in which the deaf community have an oversight of a police department to insure all the officers learn sign language? I hope not. It's the last thing we should ever have to do.

My hope is that police departments will learn Sign Language before a tragic misunderstand happens that will inflict a lot of lives very badly.

Salute to Nick Vera for the tip!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hello, Deaf Sherlock. Pls let commenters posting in the open. Pls show them to the readers. So the comments educate them. That is important to learn something new.

Unknown said...

Dear Smandreal:

I'd like to do just that. But experience from several past incidents of abuse from readers have led to impose a form of control. It's necessary to protect my blog and everyone else.

Thank you.