A barrier of silence in East Boston
Police strive to gain Latino immigrants' trust
A thief breaks into a car on Eagle Hill. A day laborer is beaten up near Chelsea Street for not handing over his wages. Near Maverick Square, a woman's house is ransacked and her belongings stolen.
Such crimes have been commonplace in East Boston in recent months, but police said they often do not hear about them until hours or days after they have happened, and sometimes not at all, because few witnesses or victims are bothering to call 911.
As the city works to keep the peace in this largely immigrant neighborhood, which has seen a sharp rise in crime over the first four months of the year, police say they are confronting a formidable obstacle: silence.
Time and again, police say, Latino immigrants, often the victims and witnesses of the crimes, have suffered anonymously rather than come forward. "No vale la pena," is one of the excuses Sergeant Arthur McCarthy has heard. "It's not worth it."
"That's the general attitude," said McCarthy, a fluent Spanish speaker with eight years in the district.
Persuading citizens to alert them to crimes and participate in investigations is a chronic challenge for police. In some neighborhoods, witnesses or victims fear they will be accused of "snitching" and become a target of criminals. In others, such as South Boston, a changing population has created a less cohesive sense of community, forcing police to beg neighbors to watch out for each other.
In this neighborhood, police say, the silence is mostly a byproduct of fearful immigrants who worry that if they tell police about a crime, they may be forced to reveal their illegal status.
"Don't even look in their eyes," adults would tell 29-year-old Diana Cardona and her twin sister, who moved to the United States from Colombia as children. "They said to us, 'Be careful. They're going to take you away.' "
That message, she said, is still out there.
Cardona was one of about 50 people, most of them Colombian immigrants, who gathered under the vaulted ceiling of the Maverick Community Center on a recent Thursday night for a 13-week course entitled "Despierta" or "Wake-up." The program is run by ¿Oiste?, a Latino political organization that is trying to inform immigrants about local government, how to organize as a community, and the court and criminal system.
Every Thursday, McCarthy or another representative of the police department shows up at the meeting to answer questions about how the department works, in hopes of engendering more trust for police within the community. The number of Latinos in this heavily Italian neighborhood has jumped to more than 15,000, making up about 40 percent of the population.
Anna Stifano, director of advocacy for ¿Oiste?, said the community's mistrust stems not just from apprehension about deportation but also from the corruption many Latinos witnessed in their native countries.
"In Colombia, in Venezuela, people are scared of police," said Stifano, who was born in Venezuela. "You're afraid that they're going to do something to you. So imagine if you have no documents. They have even more fear."
There is also a perception that police don't like immigrants, according to many interviewed in Maverick Square, a bustling commercial center in East Boston filled with shops, bakeries, and Mexican restaurants.
"When a policeman stops a Hispanic person in a car, they get rigid," said David Gomar, 42, a Salvadoran who has lived in East Boston for two years. "When talking with Hispanic people, they're more aggressive."
Over coffee in La Sultana Bakery, Mario Sepúlveda recalled one time he asked police for help. It was after midnight, and Sepúlveda, a 48-year-old cook, walked to the station to complain about his loud neighbors.
The detective who responded was a Spanish-speaker, Sepúlveda said, but refused to speak to him in his native tongue.
"He didn't want to talk to me," he said. "He didn't want to have anything to do with me. He just told me to knock on their door."
Sepúlveda said that if he sees that detective on the street asking witnesses for information, he won't provide any. "Why would I?" Sepúlveda said.
Sergeant Detective Donald S. Gosselin, a fluent Spanish speaker who is assisting in the courses, said that communication between the police and the Latino community has improved immensely over the past 20 years.
"I'd like to think that our relationship with the Latino community is far and away better than when I started," he said.
But McCarthy acknowledged there is still a way to go. He has asked officers from his district to come to the meetings so both sides will learn to overcome barriers. Last week, Gosselin and McCarthy took a group of about 35 immigrants to the Police Academy for a tour while another group toured the 911 call center at headquarters.
At a recent meeting, McCarthy implored the audience in Spanish to cooperate. Don't be afraid to call 911 even to complain about loud music, he said.
"There are many people, gringos as well, who don't want to talk to police," McCarthy told them. "You are the voice of the city, the eyes of the city, and we need to know the problems."
Many looked dubious until Gosselin and McCarthy told them that as officers they have absolutely no legal authority to ask about the immigration status of people who come forward as witnesses or victims.
That reassured 31-year-old Natalia Isaza. "They're not our enemies, they're our friends," she said. "We found out the most important thing - they can't ask us for papers."
Maria Cramer can be reached at mcramer@globe.com.
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Comment: If the local police really want trust they are going to have to themselves be trustworthy. Any White-Gringo police officers must build up that trust due to the long history of racism against non-Whites inside the United States and widespread prejudice against people who appear to be darker skinned and immigrants from outside the United States. Then, you have some Spanish-surname officers who do not want to show any kind of favoritism so they make sure to check out, harass and beat up more on those who may appear to be Latinos. All of us have the potential to be racist, especially if we without basic humane qualities in our inner character, in our inner soul, in the area where our true hearts are inside of us. Be a humane being!
Education for Liberation!
Peter S. Lopez ~aka: Peta
Sacramento, California, Aztlan
Yahoo Email: peter.lopez51@yahoo.com
http://anhglobal.ning.com/group/humanerightsagenda
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Humane-Rights-Agenda/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NetworkAztlan_News/
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