Erin Dunn Is In The Newspaper Today

http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2012/11/portland_police_and_9-1-1_fail.html#incart_river#incart_m-rpt-2

Lack of Portland police, 9-1-1 policies for interpreters discriminates against people who are deaf, lawsuit alleges

 





 

A deaf Portland man who reported he was the victim of a domestic assault said police and 9-1-1 operators failed to respond with a sign language interpreter, hampering the police inquiry and putting him at risk.

Philip Wolfe, 39, is suing the city of Portland in federal court, alleging the city violated the Americans With Disabilities Act, which prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities in state and local government services.

Wolfe's allegations highlight a gaping hole in Portland Police Bureau policy: Twenty-two years after the ADA was enacted, the bureau lacks any protocol on how to respond to people who are hearing impaired.

Wolfe is seeking a court order requiring the city to adopt uniform policies for police and emergency dispatchers to ensure sign language interpreters are supplied when a deaf crime victim or witness makes a report, requests assistance or is interviewed by police.

"During Plaintiff's contact with the police, he was overwhelmed, disoriented and hurt," his attorney Daniel Snyder wrote in the suit. "Plaintiff was unable to understand the police officers clearly."

City Commissioner Amanda Fritz, who oversees the city's 9-1-1 dispatch center, declined to comment. Sgt. Pete Simpson, Police Bureau spokesman, said the bureau doesn't have a specific policy on how to respond to hearing-impaired people. He declined to comment on the lawsuit but released the police reports in the case.

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Read the lawsuit brought by Philip Wolfe.

Since 2006, the U.S. Department of Justice has urged police agencies across the country to adopt effective communication policies to ensure a "consistently high level of service is provided to all community members, including those who are deaf or hard of hearing."

Under the Justice Department's model policy, police agencies would have 24-hour access to a sign language interpreting service and would use aids, such as text telephones or written notes, to help people who are hearing-impaired.

Simpson said there are volunteer translators available through the Police Bureau's Crisis Response Team, "but currently there are no sign-language interpreters."

Officers try to have people write down or type a statement, he added.

Wolfe's lawsuit stems from an April 9 call to 9-1-1 about 9:20 a.m. after Wolfe fled his Northeast Portland apartment to escape his partner, who had grabbed him by both ankles and dragged him along the floor. Because Wolfe's cell phone was almost out of power, he sent a text message to a friend, who is also deaf, asking her to contact 9-1-1.

The friend, Erin Dunn, contacted emergency dispatch through a video relay operator to report the assault. Dunn told dispatch that Wolfe, deaf since birth, needed an American Sign Language interpreter.

According to the lawsuit, the 9-1-1 operator said officers would get an interpreter if necessary. When Dunn asked for the dispatcher's name, the dispatcher said he was ending the call.

When Portland police arrived, Wolfe asked for a sign interpreter. He tried to use a laptop computer to communicate with police, but he couldn't get it to work. Wolfe wasn't aware that his partner had removed the computer's hard drive, the suit says.

Wolfe showed police a red mark on his back, but he did not understand that he could have his partner arrested, the suit says.

According to police reports, the responding officers believed Wolfe just wanted to get back into his apartment and helped him do so.

Once inside, they talked to Wolfe's partner, who was not deaf. Both men agreed they felt safe and would work things out, the police report says.

So the officers left.

Later that night, Wolfe said, his partner kicked in his locked bedroom door and tried to choke him. As Wolfe ran out of the bedroom, his partner broke a lamp, threw glasses and threatened to kill him if he left, his suit says.

Again, Wolfe sent a text message to his friend Dunn, asking her to contact 9-1-1.

She did, asking the dispatcher at 10:49 p.m. to send police and noted that Wolfe was deaf and needed an interpreter.

Wolfe met officers -- some of whom had been on the earlier call -- on the street outside. He tried to explain that his roommate had attacked him, and he asked again for an interpreter.

Police said in their reports that Wolfe was able to communicate with officers in writing and with hand motions. Yet one officer called dispatch and asked for someone who knew American Sign Language.

When Officer Heidi Brockmann arrived, she apologized to Wolfe in American Sign Language for her beginner-level sign skills. "Due to her lack of skills," the suit says, "Officer Brockmann was unable to adequately assist Plaintiff."

According to a police report, Brockmann suggested that another officer remove his car's mobile computer so Wolfe could type a statement. By that time, Wolfe was back in his apartment trying to type one on his computer.

Police took photos of Wolfe's injuries and arrested his partner on assault and harassment charges. Brockmann helped another officer communicate with Wolfe to explain how he could obtain a restraining order, the police report says.

By the time the police report was written, Officer Joseph R. Cook said he had not received Wolfe's statement. According to police, Wolfe had trouble e-mailing it. The officer offered to pick up a printout, but Wolfe did not have a printer. The statement reached police by 12:11 a.m.

Charges against Wolfe's partner were dropped in late July, when the partner committed suicide.

Wolfe's suit seeks economic damages up to $5,000 and compensatory damages for inconvenience and mental anguish.

"Just as businesses are expected to try to accommodate customers with disabilities and employers provide reasonable accommodations to allow employees with disabilities to do their job, police departments are expected to adjust to citizens who are deaf," said John Dineen, a training and information specialist with the Northwest ADA Center at the University of Washington.

-- Maxine Bernstein

Maxine Bernstein, The Oregonian

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About Me:

Bernstein has been a staff writer with The Oregonian since 1998, and covers crime, Portland police and law enforcement.


Professor Carl's comment: 



The police incident with Philip Wolfe in Portland was unfortunate.  Are we really created equal?  What about women?  Are all women created equal?



What about ASL?  Are all languages created equal, too?  The English language is known to be imperfect in respect to its inability to describe ASL fully; even more imperfect is its ability to respect and revere ASL as the language and culture of the Deaf. 

We the Deaf have a different disability.  Most disabled people speak English, and we need a language interpreters.  Our society made us to guess our best by lipreading what is spoken to us. Or we do appear uncooperative or insubordinate.  In some cases, a police brutality is justified if we use our hands in ASL.  Their rationale:  It takes the hands to kill.