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APD protocol with non-English callers

A language line is used by APD officers and dispatchers when dealing with non-English callers.

ABILENE, TX. — Within the last calendar year, an estimated 81 calls have been reported by APD dispatchers using the language line. It's an interpreter service used to translate non-English calls.

In Abilene, the top foreign language used by callers is Spanish, second is Swahili, then Vietnamese and Mandarin.

"We are trained through the state some basic Spanish conversation, to tell people to hold on and not to hand up and find out what the nature of the emergency is before we connect with an interpreter service," says APD communications manager, Becky Mackiewicz.

Although there is a bit of a delay between the caller, interpreter, and dispatcher, the officer dispatched has the ability to utilize the language line when they arrive at the scene.

"We do have normally at least one dispatcher who's fluent in Spanish...at this time we have several officers that are Spanish speakers and we have one that can speak several languages including Swahili," says Mackiewicz.

As technology advances, the hope is to have a system that decreases the delay between non-English callers and the dispatchers.

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