Spanish knowledge pays off at P.D.

Staff photo by Aaron Aupperlee Bilingual officer Albert Toro hops into his patrol car at the Barstow Police station.

By AARON AUPPERLEE Staff Writer BARSTOW - Children stepping off the school bus in front of the Santa Fe mobile home park on May 10 saw police, sheriff, military and even FBI vehicles. Unfamiliar faces surrounded the row of small apartments in a rear corner of the park. But the kids heard a familiar language -Spanish. Code Enforcement Officer Danny Zamora said he greeted the children as they got off the bus that Thursday afternoon. Estimating that a large percent of the kids spoke Spanish as their first language, he spoke it, too. "I let them know we had a critical incident," he said, "and told them where to go to find their families." Earlier that morning, a military rocket exploded in one of the park's apartments, killing the two people inside. As officers from almost every conceivable department converged on the scene, residents were evacuated and left asking questions. Zamora, whom the police department enlisted to maintain to help with security that morning, said he spent a majority of the time speaking Spanish with the residents of the mobile home park, explaining what had happened, where to go for help - and most importantly, he said, calming their nerves. "The most important thing I've found is you come into a tense situation speaking Spanish, and you've now diffused that situation and brought it down to their level," Zamora said. Zamora said he uses his Spanish-language skills on a daily basis, whether speaking to residents about municipal code violations or translating for officers during investigations. And he is not alone. Several other officers with the Barstow Police Department and the sheriff's department put their bilingual abilities to use every day. Interim Chief Lt. Rudy Alcantara said with the growing number of Hispanics in Barstow, officers speaking English and Spanish have become an asset. Spanish calms people down in some situations, Alcantara said, allowing the officers to get useful information. "It's a 'must' tool," he said. "It helps us out a lot with our relationships with people." After only a year with the police department, Officer Angel Nevarez said he has used Spanish many times to help his partner with investigations. "It helps them tell their side of the story," he said. The Spanish-speaking officer sometimes comes as a surprise to victims or suspects. Alcantara said some of the police department's officers do not look like Spanish-speakers at first glance. However, he said, when people tried to sneak stuff by officers in Spanish, a quick Spanish phrase or two usually silences them. Officer Albert Toro, another bilingual officer with the police department, has used the surprised tactic more than once. "A lot of times I just stand back," he said. "And then I'll start talking Spanish with them, and they'll be surprised." Toro has made his bilingual skills a prominent part of his job. The son of Puerto Rican immigrants in New York, Toro grew up speaking only Spanish and learned English when he went to school. He said he understands the fr ustrations people experience when they cannot communicate. He tells other officers on his shift to call him if they need help translating. He said victims often trust officers more who can speak their native language, and the officer understands the victim and the crime much better. Victims often speak a broken English, Toro said, and lack the vocabulary to state the true seriousness of their injuries or the crime. "With broken English, an adjective here and a verb there can make things very different," he said. "When you can put the adjectives and verbs together, what was before just a hit becomes a hit with a pipe. It increases the clarity of what they're telling you." As the school resource officer for many years, Toro spoke Spanish with Barstow students, often using it as a vehicle to earn their respect and find out what was going on in the schools. Scott Goodfrey, an assistant principal at Barstow High School, said Toro made students feel comfortable around him, helped with discipline issues and translated for parents who could not speak English. "Having the badge but also the ability to work with people - it just became a huge asset," he said. Toro even kept tabs on what students thought of police officers in Barstow. He said that during one of his first days as the school's officer, a group of kids talked trash about him and the department in Spanish as he walked by. Toro said he stopped, turned around and quipped back to the kids, telling them to respect authority and adding, "You better never talk about my mother like that.