We've had some strange stuff here to where it gets shut down in the media. Like a couple years ago a Hispanic teenager who wasn't licensed ran from the cops going at a high rate of speed and slammed in a car killing a young girls coming home from a college event. Everyone questioned why he was driving without a license and could it be his immigration status but the media wouldn't investigate and took his families word he was a citizen. Next up was a guy who last year went on a nut, he also was Hispanic but a legal citizen....but after trying to set a hospital on fire then going out onto the helicopter pad (a supposed to be secured area) of the hospital and finally detained he told police he was not a citizen. The police inform their captain or sergeant, I forget which, who was at home at the time of the situation, after hanging up he calls ICE and asked them to get involved as the man claimed he was not a US citizen. When the guys mom brought in his birth certificate all hell broke lose, the police got called racist, bigots for so called jumping to conclusions about someone's status, the captain/sargeant was put on leave, the ACLU and Hispanic organizations crammed the chambers of city hall and demanded justice from profiling....all because one guy went on a nut and told cops he wasn't a legal citizen. By the time they were done everyone pretty much forgot about the crime involved here. Then just two weeks ago a crew was setting up a cement wall blockade in the early morning a.m. hours so construction could begin on a project. Traffic was backed up because everything went down to one lane. So some girl took it upon herself to pull out of the line of backed up traffic and go charging up the lane the construction workers were working striking and killing one of them. At this point from the prior incidence all the cops would say was "due to a language barrier they couldn't tell what the woman who struck the man had to say"....I bet your bottom dollar they weren't inquiring about her immigration status or calling ICE either. Immediately the whole story was shut down in the press, but when these things happen with citizens the press fries them for days to make headlines, they'll dig up everything in that person's past they can find and gladly tell you about it.
I was down to a city commission meeting last week. The illegal Hispanic population was down there asking the city to grow one and go up against the state's mandate and give illegals licenses. When you go there you get three minutes to talk about why you are there at the end of the meeting, you get an additional three minutes if they are doing an open public comment period on a specific item. I was just there to make comment on something at the end but what really galled me was the fact I had to sit there while those who couldn't speak English got a translator who repeated everything they said, which gave them all about six minutes doubling the time you had to wait for them to get done. When they got up there there the first time the translator explained she needed to translate so their voice could be heard and understood by everyone. If I hadn't already had my three minutes planned out I'd made a statement that this is the whole problem....they always want an exception to the rules, they don't want to abide by the same rules as everyone else. What was wrong with the translator introducing them and reading their letters? There is no exception for anyone else for any reason as if you try and speak past your three minutes they will repeatedly tell you your time is up and look over at the security guard as in if you don't stop you'll be removed. I have half a mind to find me someone who speaks Spanish, then find me a dozen people who also find this behavior reprehensible and take them to a commission meeting and say I need them to translate everything I say into Spanish so I know everyone in the meeting knows what's being said. Fair is fair I say.