Cloverdale Police

At a January 11th meeting between Women's Justice Center and Sargents Allred and King of the Cloverdale Police Department, the officers acknowledged the need for improvement in police services to Cloverdale's growing Latino population. To bring about these improvements Cloverdale Police Department has agreed to ongoing meetings with representatives of the Cloverdale Latino community. If you are interested in participating, call Sgt. Scott Allred at 894- 2150 or call us at Women's Justice Center at 575-3150.

We arranged the January 11 meeting in response to a spousal rape case of a Spanish-speaking victim that was very poorly handled by Cloverdale Police. In addition to working meetings with the community, we recommended the following additional changes which are crucial for providing adequate police services to Hispanic victims of rape and domestic violence in Cloverdale:

• That Cloverdale Police Department subscribe immediately to the AT&T language line and that this line be used in obtaining all statements from non-English speaking victims of domestic violence and rape, both at the scene and in the station. (The AT&T language line allows police to immediately reach a professional interpreter by phone 24 hrs a day.)
• That the next officer hired at Cloverdale be Spanish-speaking and bi-cultural. Currently, there are no Spanish-speaking officers in the Department and none who are members of a racial minority. Cloverdale Police also need to use the local media to recruit locally.
• That Cloverdale prioritize discussions of rape and domestic violence in their community relations activities. The very low numbers of reported rapes in Cloverdale relative to population size indicate that local victims of violence against women feel reluctant to call on police for help.

The current population of the town of Cloverdale is twenty five to thirty percent Hispanic. Law requires that police and other public agencies provide equal services to all members of a community. When a segment of the population speaks a language other than English this means that the agency must provide their services in the non-English language.)

Sargents Allred and King listened carefully to concerns and are open to working with the Latino the community to make these urgently needed.

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