Dallas police wrongly ticketed non-English-speaking drivers

By Michael J.W. Stickings

This must surely warm up the cold, bitter hearts of Pat Buchanan, Lou Dobbs, and the rest of the English-only nativist movement in the U.S.:

Dallas police ticketed 39 drivers in 3 years for not speaking English.

They will not be happy to learn, however, that Police Chief David Kunkle is not amused and has promised "to investigate all officers involved in the cases for dereliction of duty."

I was surprised and stunned that that would happen, particularly in the city of Dallas. In my world, you would never tell someone not to speak Spanish,

Kunkle said. Pending cases are being dismissed and fines are being reimbursed to those who were ticketed and paid them.

It doesn't seem there there was a department-wide effort to target non-English speakers. "The citations were issued in several different patrol divisions by at least six different officers." In some cases at least, ignorance of the law may have played a role:

In [one] case and perhaps the others, officials said, the officer was confused by a pull-down menu on his in-car computer that listed the charge as an option. But the law the computer referred to is a federal statute regarding commercial drivers that Kunkle said his department does not enforce.

Still, Kunkle is right to investigate, and those ultimately responsible ought to be held accountable. Ignorance is no defence, after all, and along the way there were officials who should have known that what was being done was wrong.