So, you no speak-a ze Eenglish? Shutup-a yo mouth-a … and pay

Now that I’ve offended every single minority group in existence (sorry!), here’s the story: Dallas officers have been going around improperly applying a “no-English” law and handing out tickets to drivers who don’t speak English. Yeah, talk about making immigrants and foreigners feel welcome, guys.

Police officials say they have uncovered 38 cases where Dallas officers improperly cited drivers for not being able to speak English.

Chief David Kunkle said Friday the discovery came after a woman was pulled over earlier this month for making an illegal U-turn and was given a ticket for being a "non-English speaking driver."

Kunkle said his department's computer system for citations has a pull-down menu that includes a law requiring drivers of commercial vehicles to speak English.

The chief said it was a federal law that was misapplied to local drivers of private vehicles.

Kunkle says at least six officers wrote the citations. He said the officers and their commanders are under investigation.

The report doesn’t say exactly how this law should and shouldn’t be applied. I do agree that drivers of public service vehicles should at least know some basic English, for obvious and practical reasons (kinda hard to tell someone where you want them to drive you to when they can’t understand you), but imparting such citations upon non-commercial drivers is so obviously wrong, it’s just stupid that cops could’ve thought it was the right thing to do. Seriously.

(via The Agitator)
Technorati tags: laws · police · Dallas