Spanish speakers are getting lost in translation at Dallas City Hall, and that’s unacceptable
The city must provide certified interpreters to forum speakers.
Dallas City Hall, pictured in February 2012. (Lara Solt/The Dallas Morning News)(Lara Solt / Staff Photographer)
In the hours after robbers fatally shot Susana García’s teenage son outside her apartment door in Bachman Lake, the distraught mother grappled with her devastation and with the language barrier with police. Her 16-year-old twin daughters translated her Spanish that night three years ago.
Though Dallas police arrested the robbers, García said her neighbors urged her to move. They told her the killers could come back to hurt her family, but García wasn’t scared. They had already thrust a dagger through her heart when they killed 18-year-old Oziel.