In Your Face....

Taylor

Taylor

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Have a somewhat funny story to share. As some of you know, I recently pushed for (and received) Deaf Awareness training for our officers, and this program is now included with our police academy.

Anyhow, last night I was working what is called an 'overlap' shift where he have 2 platoons on the streets between 10pm and 2am (or busiest and sometimes most violent times). My shift had finished their normal patrol and started the overlap.

I partnered up with another officer and we went out in a police car. While we were riding, he said he didn't understand why I was pushing for Deaf Awareness. His argument was that he rarely has run-ins with any deaf people in our jurisdiction. We have plenty of deaf people and families in our area, but it is rare we get a call for service at their houses..and when we do, communication generally isn't a factor. Therefore, he didn't understand what all of my 'hoopla' was about. He wasn't criticizing me for it, but just didn't get it.

Literally in the middle of our conversation, a call went out for a loud music complaint coming from an apartment. We were not too far away so we cancelled the normal patrol officer that was going and we said we'd take the call. We get there, and sure enough, there was a television that was cranked up very loud. We could hear it from way outside in the parking lot before we even got out of our car. Went up and knocked on the door and a child answered the door. I asked if there was an adult at home and then a man and a bunch of other people came over to the door. The officer I'm with starts explaining that their TV is way too loud and that it was disturbing the neighbors...everyone standing in the doorway just looked at us and said nothing. So he explained it again and they still stared at us....my partner then looked at me and had the look of WTF on his face.

While he was explaining it, I noticed the child in the back of the room say something in sign language to somebody else in the room...I then told my partner to let me handle this and I signed to the guy in the door asking him if he was deaf. He let out a big smile and signed to me that he was.

I know very little sign language but knew enough to explain to him that the television was disturbing the neighbors and that it needed to be turned down (this was after midnight BTW). He smiled and signed that he had no problem with that and wanted to know if there was anything else...I told him that was all we were there for and I appreciated his cooperation. TV was turned down and everyone was happy....

On the way back to the car, my partner says 'You A**hole' (in a joking manner...he wasn't really upset). I just laughed at him as we got back in the car....and now he finally understood why I pushed for Deaf Awareness within our department...and that is probably the most satisfaction I ever got from a simple noise complaint.
 
LOL what a coincidence :)

Bravo on you for pushing Deaf Awareness training for the police officers :applause:
Best of luck to you all.
 
I like it, Taylor ;) Action speaks louder than words, indeed.
Thank you for being you, and for your support!
 
Tousi said:
Have ya the warm-fuzzies, too, eh, Tayor? :)
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Sheesh, the first word above was supposed to be "Gave", not "Have". Sorry..
 
Thats cool that you are pushing deaf awareness in your department. Wish same was being said for all police departments across the country.

Good one by the way.
 
Sugar Addict said:
Thats cool that you are pushing deaf awareness in your department. Wish same was being said for all police departments across the country.

Good one by the way.
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Amen... :) :thumb:
 
:applause: Taylor! :applause: Taylor! :applause: Taylor! :applause:

Way to goooooooooooooooooo!!!!! I'm so happy you did this! And the timing was just perfect!
 
Will the gun you bring to the Caucus have a silencer on it?
 
*grins* perfect timing and you did good too Taylor!! :thumb:
 
Wow I'm impressed that you educated those police about sign language to communicate with the deaf. That's much better than having paper and pen passing back and forth to each others. ;) Way to go Taylor I'm proud of you for thinking about deaf people out there.
 
Bet your partner gulped when he realized that's why you were pushing for Deaf Awareness. It sure is a coincidence! Gotta applaud for your encouragement!
 
I'm glad everyone caught the humor in that...and that is what made it funny. We were literally talking about it when the call came out. I don't think I could have set it up as a joke and have it turn out any better. When I was pushing for the program, I did meet some resistance....but not neccesarily in a bad way. When it comes to getting any type of goverment agency to do anything at all, it is always a battle...no matter what it is.

I would like to see more agencies do something similar. The problem is that it is almost impossible to teach police officers sign language and then have them retain that knowledge....signing is a skill that if you don't use it, you lose it. The program has some basic sign in it, but a lot of the block was geared more towards deaf culture and how an officer should handle a call when dealing with a deaf person (whether suspect or victim). A deaf professor at a local college gets the credit for actually coming up with the program.

Unfortunatey in our area we are more likely to deal with a Latino then we are with the deaf, so I was only able to get an 8 hour block of time in the academy instead of an entire week like with Spanish. I'd much rather be signing than saying "¿Usted habla inglés?"
 
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