On January 14th, 2009 there were several police cars parked around the Center for Disability Rights building – and there was no protest going on! Even better, no one got arrested. The police were here for a good cause. They came to get together and discuss how each police department in Monroe County can work with the deaf and hard-of-hearing community. Participating police departments included East Rochester, Greece, Brighton, Fairport, Webster and Irondequoit and the Monroe County Sheriff.

The Regional Center for Independent Living’s (RCIL) Deaf Police Subcommittee has been working with the Rochester Police Department (RPD) on improving the relationship between police officers and deaf and hard of hearing people in Rochester.

I started off the meeting with a question to each officer, asking them how their police department currently handles vehicle traffic violations. Each officer except the RPD police said that they talk to the person first by writing or using their text phone prior to getting their license and registration. RPD said that their standard process is to get the person’s drivers license first and check if this person has a warrant and is the owner of the car. Then they go back and communicate with the person after they verify their identity.

As a Deaf Systems Advocate, my job is to educate people to help reduce problems. Please do not get upset about this RPD vehicle traffic stop. If the deaf or hard of hearing or person who does not speak English does not give their license at that point, RPD will either arrest or ticket the person.

Therefore, please have your license, registration and insurance card ready when pulled over in the city. Please be calm and try to cooperate with the officer and give them your license. And, please do not move your hands around too much and keep your hands on the steering wheel until the officer arrives and sees that you are not a threat. It would be a good idea to point at things before reaching out to them, so the officer will know that you are trying to get something. Please keep in mind that, if the person grabs quickly or the police officer can not see the hands, they might feel the person is reaching for a weapon. So stay calm and be patient and things will work out.

The RPD feel that they do not need to communicate to get any form of identification as they claim that everyone should know that a driver must give their identification to an officer. This is part of the study guide when you are first getting your permit and license. This policy was created to be sure that the RPD officer is safe.

After this discussion, I told the police officers that as the Deaf Systems Advocate, I get different complaints from people. With police departments having different processes and procedures, some that frustrate many deaf and hard of hearing individuals in various parts of Monroe County.

One of the officers from Greece said that they never had any problems in communication with their deaf and hard of hearing residents in Greece. Diane Amero is on our committee and she is from Greece and filed a complaint in the past. She explained what she did to file the complaint and they agreed that she did it correctly. It’s obvious that awareness of problems with the deaf and hard of hearing community among many police departments is not what it should be.

I told the officers that I get a lot of complaints, but the people who complain to me usually do not get the name or badge number of the officer involved. This makes it more difficult to pursue the complaint process.

We also asked each department if they had officers who could use sign language, a liaison that focuses on deaf and hard of hearing issues, or specific training. Each department, except RPD, said that they did not have any specific liaison or training focused on deaf and hard of hearing issues. Some departments had no officers that sign while others had some officers who know a few signs.

We asked if they would like to get together again to focus on universal training to help establish a standard method to improve communication between the police and deaf citizens. They all liked the idea but had to go back to their departments and allow their chiefs to decide. We hope that the chiefs will be able to attend the next meeting.

One more thing that’s cool: the Police Subcommittee is currently working on a Deaf Vehicle Visor Sign to alert police officers that the driver is deaf. We are also working on a survey, and hopefully soon we will send that out to the general community.
Please keep an eye out for our future survey and visor sign. And more to come… so stay tuned…