Deaf Americans and 9-1-1

It was sweet that he thought of me when he heard another police department over our region's shared police frequency, requesting the assistance of an officer fluent in American Sign Language with the arrest of a Deaf individual. Maybe the appropriate response would have been something along the lines of, hey, neat!

But I didn't think it was neat, and I still don't. In fact, it bothered me. 

the official symbol for ASL interpreters,
based on the sign for "interpreting"

"That's super illegal," I texted Gabe back. "They can’t use an officer. A Deaf person has the right to a certified interpreter."

"Interesting," he sent back. "That's good to know."

But I wasn't done. "Just think about it," I continued. "If their Miranda rights aren’t read, correctly and in full, the entire arrest is bonk. How much worse do you think it could be if an un-licensed cop plays interpreter and screws something up? Even if they don’t, there’s no accountability. It’s a really risky game to play, as a department. You don't fuck with the ADA unless you want a serious lawsuit."

In 1990, then-President George H. W. Bush signed the ADA into law. The Americans with Disabilities Act was meant to protect individuals with a wide array of disabilities, a category that includes the deaf and hard-of-hearing.

President George H. W. Bush signing the ADA, July 26, 1990

“The ADA broadly protects the rights of individuals with disabilities in employment, access to State and local government services, places of public accommodation, transportation, and other important areas of American life. The ADA also requires newly designed and constructed or altered State and local government facilities, public accommodations, and commercial facilities to be readily accessible to and usable by individuals with disabilities."

Americans with Disabilities Act: Title II Regulations (.pdf)

There are a few different ways that dispatchers are expected to comply with ADA expectations. The first method is using TTY technology, with which our 9-1-1 systems are required to comply. There's also text-to-911 services, some of which work better than others, and silent call procedures, in which a party unable to unwilling to speak aloud can still communicate with dispatchers. 

But even after the call, there are a thousand different ways that a deaf person can be failed by emergency responders. From police interactions to neglect in the courtroom, the issue is broad and systemic, and fixing it is going to require more than just attention and awareness.  

For a d/Deaf or hard-of-hearing person, the right to an interpreter is probably the most important right protected by the ADA. After all, the primary barrier of deafness is communication. How are you supposed to know what you're in trouble for when you're arrested, or follow along in your own court case, or tell the police what happened if you're a victim of a crime?

The ADA is supposed to protect against these sorts of injustices, but unfortunately, as demonstrated by the fact that we heard one of our own local PDs requesting an officer with ASL knowledge over the radio, the follow-through just isn't always there. The resources allocated to teaching law enforcement how to deal with individuals with disabilities are severely lacking. As Professor of Sociology Alex Vitale of Brooklyn College states, “Police compliance with ADA provisions is pretty poor across the board. It’s clearly not a priority for a lot of police leaders." 

In some places, in spite of the ADA, violations happen all the time. In 2012, St. Louis police tasered a deaf man on the side of the road, only for it to turn out he was having a diabetic emergency. Then in 2014, an elderly deaf man was dragged from his car and beaten by officers, before being charged with resisting an arrest by the same department that cleared the officers of all wrongdoing. A month later, a deaf man had been similarly beaten, tased, and choked out after being mistaken for a burglar. The officers had seen him signing, trying to communicate with them, and believed the movements to be signs of aggression, and had responded in kind.

This problem has been addressed by independent journals, such as The American Civil Liberties Union and The Atlantic, as well as in a humorous episode of Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, guest-starring Deaf activist and entertainer Nyle DiMarco.

However, there hasn't been much coverage of D/deaf interactions with law enforcement in the mainstream media, with the exception of those reports where things do get out of hand. Like with many issues of civil rights, pleas for systemic change continue to go unaddressed, or are only addressed after tragedy occurs. More often than not, too, these are underwhelming measures that smack of PR damage control, and are unlikely to maintain traction after the initial outcry dies down.

There is a reason the law requires anyone who is serving as an interpreter in any official capacity to be certified. Without those protections, children may be coerced into interpreting for parents, which opens up all sorts of issues, both for the child and for the efficacy of services being provided.

Many of the same issues arise when unqualified third parties are asked or compelled to serve in the same way. Interpreters are held accountable to standards of care, much in the same as their doctors and judges are. They are trained in the language's nuance, in skills for effectively communicating complex ideas to and for their Deaf clients. Furthermore, there is a code of ethics, compliance to which can help ensure privacy, regulate appropriate intervention, and serve as a framework for professionalism.

Of course, a national interpreter shortage is part of the issue. In college, I chose the ASL Linguistics track, which focuses on the science of language with ASL as a model, rather than the ASL Interpreting track. This was a decision that many of my peers and even some professors expressed disappointment in, as there is such a profound disparity between the needs of the community and the available resources. I chose dispatch over working directly in the Deaf community, but my background both through my education and in the jobs I worked between the years of 2018 and 2023 has given me insights that I assume the department making the request did not have.

However, as a hearing person with no experience trying to run a law enforcement agency, I am far from qualified to decide what is and is not an acceptable risk. I don't know what was going on at that department. I don't know what kind of attempts may have been made to locate a certified interpreter before they put out that request over the radio. What I do know is that it's still unacceptable. 

Unfortunately, I don't have the answer. I'm just one dispatcher, in one small-town PSAP, with one set of ideals that I wish I could see reflected in the big wide world outside. But I can write, and so I do. I write to inform, to entertain, to commiserate with you, dear reader, dear stranger. I write in hopes that someday, somebody with more power than me understands what needs to be done, and sees it through. 

In the meantime, we can write. We can write to our representatives, calling them to action. We can write to police departments out of which atrocities are born, and demand justice for those wronged. We can write, and we can speak up. We can learn sign language and support organizations that support our local disabled communities. We can listen to the voices of those who experience the world a little differently to us, and maybe, just maybe, we'll be part of the force of change that makes the world a better place for all.

For Americans who want to make a difference, to find and contact your state representative, visit the U. S. House of Representatives website and search by your state and district. The same can  be done for state senators here. The National Association of the Deaf has a great letter template found here that you can use as well.

If you are able to and wish to donate financially to local or global Deaf activism groups, the bottom of this Wikipedia page contains a list of organizations from all over the world.

For works cited, see here.