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the police came without an interpreter, J. Souza encountered great difficulty in <br />communication. <br />T. Spinola-Campbell stated that she got back to J. Souza and clarified some of his <br />issues and then forwarded it to Captain J. Enanoria. <br />J. Souza said that the police meant well, but they don’t know how to communicate <br />with the deaf and they need to. He was treated like a second class citizen because <br />the police officer interviewed other people, but they ignored him. He asked for an <br />interpreter and the police officer kept pushing him aside.He felt it was awkward and <br />he was very uncomfortable. In the past, another interpreter tried to convince the <br />police to set up some kind of emergency interpreter services. She contacted them <br />three times and nothing happened. <br />Captain J. Enanoria explained that when he looked at the situation, it didn’t excuse <br />the police for not communicating with J. Souza any better. Because the situation <br />presented itself, it could have been a fatality. At any type of near death or death <br />situations, people are treated a little bit differently. Because police officers <br />responding to the scene didn’t know exactly what was going on, that would make <br />J. Souza possibly in harms way of criminal charges and they needed to protect his <br />rights as well as the injured parties. Since this was an emergency situation which <br />happened on Route 19 by the Seventh Day Adventist Church, police had to shut the <br />road down. The reason the police officers had asked J. Souza to wait aside is that <br />they needed to consult with witnesses regarding the accident as well as contain the <br />scene because it was an emergency situation and other cars had to be diverted <br />somewhere else. Their prime concern was taking care of the injured party. Both <br />boys were critically injured and one boy was flown to Honolulu initially. However, <br />this situation does not relieve the Police Department’s responsibility to communicate <br />with J. Souza effectively and create a level playing surface for everyone. Captain <br />J. Enanoria said they should have provided J. Souza with some type of information <br />to make him aware of what was going on and why they weren’t talking to him. They <br />could not release the names of the juveniles at that time because that is vital. All <br />those issues should have been communicated to J. Souza somehow, perhaps by <br />writing it down on a piece of paper. <br />Captain J. Enanoria stated that he saw some positive things happen when the traffic <br />enforcement unit came on seen and an officer was able to tell J. Souza what was <br />going on. A police officer was able to provide better information the next day. As a <br />result, Captain J. Enanoria has been in contact with T. Spinola-Campbell and they <br />have been working on ways to get training for the police officers. Prior to this <br />meeting, he asked T. Spinola-Campbell if they can try to identify all the services from <br />DCAB and he will write a memo to dispatch center to make sure names of <br />interpreters are available. Captain J. Enanoria would like to take a proactive <br />approach and he expressed how sorry he was that this happened to J. Souza. They <br />will look at ways to prevent this situation from happening again. <br />2 <br /> <br />