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Apple Valley police officers learn Spanish, pilot a new language training program for law enforcement

Posted: 12/9/05
by Jeff Achen
Thisweek Newspapers

“Le paré por ...” means “I stopped you for ...” and is just one of the 30 phrases Apple Valley police officers will have to memorize each session during a new 12-week training.

The customized training is provided through the Dakota County Technical College’s Diversity Institute, a new initiative put forward by Ron Thomas, president of Dakota County Technical College. The initiative puts together training for multicultural needs in the private, public and nonprofit sectors. One of the initiatives is to teach Spanish specifically for certain occupations. The police-specific training is the first of its kind in the Twin Cities area, according to Customized Training Coordinator Harold Torrence.

Apple Valley Police Chief Scott Johnson said the department has been looking for training like this for years.

“Apple Valley is becoming more diverse,” Johnson said. “There’s a growing number of Hispanics in our community, good hard-working people. Some of them don’t speak English and many of our officers don’t speak Spanish. We’re trying to bridge this gap.”

Most of what was available in the past involved sending individual officers back through college language programs. That was far too time and cost prohibitive, especially considering the department’s desire to train multiple officers.

Their goal is to be able to identify situations and be able to convey basic instructions and information. The police say they want to be able to get control of the situation.

“Then we can always bring in interpreters,” Apple Valley Patrol Division Captain Jon Rechtzigel said. “If we can make our officers fluent someday that would be great.”

Officers who attended the first training session Wednesday evening, Dec. 7, say they’re coming into the program hoping to give and get information in situations where there is a language barrier.

“Often times people are very nervous talking to police and many times it’s a traumatic event that’s brought the police to their door,” Johnson said. “If we can speak just a little of their language, that can set them a little more at ease.”

Some officers said they would like to use the program as a start toward fluency. Either way, it’s good news to at least one Hispanic family the police visited recently. Torrence accompanied officers on a ride-along last month.

“Went to a residence during the ride-along and talked with a father and mother of a family of six and they expressed surprise and excitement to see the city and police taking this initiative,” Torrence said.

The initial cost to the police department for the 12-week training is $3,000. Right now only one Apple Valley police officer speaks Spanish, but 12 officers are taking the program.

Torrence has developed the curriculum by drawing on an existing occupational Spanish manual for police officers and his prior experience in customizing Spanish language training for businesses. Under the customized training, officers don’t learn grammar or verb conjugation. They’re not even going to focus on the alphabet. Torrence says the emphasis is on pronunciation, repetition and role play.

“The goal is to build relationships, be proactive instead of reactive,” Torrence said.

Johnson says this type of approach is a perfect fit, and resembles other efforts on the part of the department to diversify their training regimen. They’ve already added an automated external defibrillation (AED) program, an important tool for law enforcement in a city with an aging population, Johnson said. They’ve also adjusted programs to cater to the area’s youth, starting a teen citizens academy.

“You always have to a look six steps ahead,” Johnson said.

Now police officers in Apple Valley will also be able to look “seis” steps ahead.

Jeff Achen can be reached at av.thisweek@ecm-inc.com.

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