Minority Officers Say Cultural Sensitivity a Must

In the aftermath of the shooting death of Frank Martinez, some criticism has focused on the need for cultural training for Westminster police, who witnesses say yelled ethnic slurs during the incident.

In view of Southern California’s changing ethnic makeup, cultural sensitivity must become a priority in police training throughout the area, minority police officers and sheriff’s deputies said in interviews.

In addition, police departments, especially in cities with growing Latino, black and Asian populations, must be made aware of the need to hire more minority officers to promote greater understanding of the changing community, they said.

“We’ve all heard the horror stories about successful black businessmen being stopped by police only because their crime was driving a Mercedes,” said Sgt. Don Jackson, a Hawthorne police officer and chairman of the police practices committee of the NAACP’s Los Angeles chapter.

A police officer’s training begins with the fundamentals of a police academy. But the training doesn’t stop there. Police departments rely on a probationary period, usually six months to a year, during which a rookie is attached to a training officer, said Ysidro Francisco Patino, director of the Criminal Justice Training Center at Golden West College, where most Westminster officers receive academy instruction.

520 Hours of Training

The Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training, a government agency in Sacramento, requires that each sworn officer successfully complete at least 520 hours of academy training, Patino said. Golden West offers 810 hours, including instruction on firearms, use of force and about eight to 10 hours on handling ethnic communities, he said.

“But we devote lots of time for additional instruction on human relations, which is interwoven throughout the basic curriculum,” he said. “We have 18 weeks, but in that time we cover more than 500 performance objectives required by POST.”

In Los Angeles, the Police Department offers 940 hours of academy instruction, including a mandatory 100 hours of Spanish taught by Latino officers.

Sgt. Emilio Perez, an instructor at the academy in Los Angeles, said that when racial slurs and cultural sensitivity are discussed, instructors often take note of a memorandum issued by Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl F. Gates.

“The memorandum that came from the police chief’s office points out to everyone that we do not use racial slurs to other officers, let alone to the community,” Perez said.

Racial Humor

The in-house use of racial humor has always been a sticky point, Perez said.

“It’s human nature to use humor, and in this case, if someone uses (racial humor) among his fellow officers, he’s venting that emotion,” Perez said. “But if he’s going to use it, he’s not respecting that person or that community. If someone comes up to me and says, ‘Hey, hello Chuy,’ and they know my real name, to me that’s an insult.”

Said LAPD psychologist Nels Klyver: “We train our officers to deal with situations on an individual basis, regardless of whether the community is Latino or black or white.”

The Los Angeles Police Academy curriculum includes instruction on geography and cultural biases, Perez said, adding, “It’s amazing what these new recruits don’t know,” especially about South Americans and Spanish-speaking communities.

As an example of the importance of this instruction, Perez recounted situations in which officers in Los Angeles had been having trouble with immigrants from El Salvador, who often fought with them during arrests.

Cultural Differences

“Our officers were coming into their houses in the middle of the night, telling their families they were there to take somebody away and then grabbing them and ordering them to lay prone on the floor. What our guys didn’t know is that this resembled the midnight death squads in El Salvador who would do the same thing right before executing somebody. Of course these people are going to fight. They think they’re going to die.”

When officers fail to respect cultural differences, they lose credibility, said Michael Buelna, a Latino community activist in Anaheim.

“My personal feeling is that when police get into a barrio, instead of being cordial, they get this attitude, like they’re not trying to serve our community,” Buelna said.

Another activist, Rodney Burge, who helped form a civilian neighborhood watch program in Westminster after the Martinez shooting, said: “We want to create a good relationship with police. We need them to help protect our community. But they have to understand how to treat us with respect.”