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ALDAcon 2018Gary Talley

Interaction Between Law Enforcement OfficersAnd Deaf/Hard of Hearing People

OCTOBER 12, 2018

GARY TALLEY: Good morning, everybody. My name is Gary Talley, and I am from the Virginia Department of Deaf and Hard of Hearing.

These are the four groups that are served by my agency:

Late-deafened and “Culturally” DeafHard of HearingDeafblind and BlindSpeech Impaired

There is a wide diversity of ages including senior citizens, middle age people, young adults, teenagers, adolescents; and law enforcement officers will always be interacting with them.

We are all individuals here whether late-deafened or culturally deaf. I am a late-deafened person. And there are many situations in which we may have to interact with law enforcement.

This presentation covers the training that I give to law enforcement officers and is designed to improve interaction between police officers and deaf and hard-of-hearing citizens.

The goal is to improve interaction between those citizens and law enforcement. There are a lot of instances out there where people have been injured or sometimes killed, simply because they do not hear the instructions.

It is a struggle for both hearing impaired people and the police officers, especially at night or dusk when we cannot see their faces clearly enough to speech read. That can lead to some serious situations. We are hoping to help make that a little bit better.

The number one reason for this training is safety: for the officers and the citizens. There have been a lot of urban myths out there, but people really have been injured. One thing I want officers to remember is never ever assume because someone has a disability they cannot or will not hurt you. There are procedures established and officers need to be aware of those and follow those procedures; they also need to be aware that citizens may not be able to hear them clearly or at all. Again, safety is why we are doing

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this and misunderstandings can easily occur.

How many of you have ever been pulled over by a police officer? I am not going to ask why. Most of you here have been pulled over. The cop pulls up behind you and he sits there for a few minutes. What is he doing? He is calling in your license plate. Why not have information about the hearing ability of that driver or at least the registered owner to that license plate be available to that police officer? So instead of coming up and telling me to get out of my car, he will know I cannot hear. Now, you think that would be a simple process, but we are dealing with government agencies. It is not. It will take us a little while, but we will get there.

Technology is a big part of the interaction. When I first started doing this training, text messaging was the technology we were using. I used to warn hearing impaired people not to pull out the text messaging device in order to communicate because that “flipping” noise sounded like a gun cocking. Today, this warning has been revised because technology has improved. We try to keep up with the technology.

When I talk about hearing impaired, I mean some measure of hearing loss. Hard of hearing, by definition means difficulty understanding normal speech. Deaf means unable to understand normal speech. I explain to the law enforcement officers that it does not always mean no sound. It means you cannot hear normal conversations. If an officer should happen to stop a deaf or hard of hearing driver, how does that officer know that the person has a hearing loss and is not just ignoring him/her? There are clues. They may sign the word deaf. They may start signing or finger spelling. They may display a "visor alert." They may have very poor or no speech at all, and may not respond to the officer’s instructions. It is not that they are ignoring you, it is that they simply cannot hear you.

Often, hard of hearing people will watch a person’s mouth intently. All or most of us try to speech read. Some are better than others, and it varies in different situations, but we are all looking at the face.

Now, a hard of hearing person may be wearing a hearing aid or Cochlear Implant (CI).

(It is important to know that people may or may not admit to being hard of hearing. Hearing loss is the most common acquired disability as we get older and it is also often the most often denied. Chances are that people need assistive listening devices for years before they admit to needing it).

They may or may not have this special license plate.

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Virginia has these and they have been around awhile. When I moved to Virginia they never offered this to me. I never knew about it. There are only 54 being used in the state. I promise you there are more than 54 deaf people in the state. For whatever reason, these not being used. That is one of the reasons we proposed that legislation, so that information appears on the license plate, on the license plate information. When they call it in, my hearing loss should be displayed for that police officer.

Front

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Back

This Visor Alert (above) was put into use in 2003. It has been endorsed by the Association of Chiefs of Police This helps you know why you are getting the ticket and that is an improvement, because when I first started this training many years ago, I would get complaints about once a week:

“I got a ticket. I don’t know why. The officer would never really interact with me.”

The officer would give them the ticket and leave.

We have improved that situation with the training because officers are a little more patient and using this card can help explain the reason for the stop: your license plate has expired, your driver's license has expired, you are not wearing your seat belt, etc. It helps the communication tremendously. It can still be improved. There are other ways to do it better maybe. Other states have copied it. The pictures for us came from Kentucky. We used to have a lot of writing on the back which is not good for culturally deaf for whom English is a challenge. It is a second language for some of us. And the one icon that is changed quite a bit is that third row, second from the left. The first

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picture was the text messenger, then it was a Blackberry. Now we have the Smartphone. So, as technology improves, we will keep changing this card to make it better and clearer.

Something that works in the cities is iPad with Video Remote Interpreting (VRI).

This is showing a picture of a police officer showing the iPad to the deaf driver. There is an interpreter on the iPad screen. As the police officer is talking, the words are being signed to that driver. She can sign back and it is voiced for the police officer. This is a good system, but its limitations with Wi-Fi signals are very, very limited. I was trying to get one with a grant because I do this training at Crater Criminal Justice Academy and in a lot of cities south of Richmond. They said well, they have all these already; but believe it or not, not one police officer in these five counties in three cities has an iPad. Question in the back?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Why did they need to use Wi-Fi? Why not just use the standard system (like) Verizon LTE or the regular system so you do not need to be limited to Wi-Fi.

GARY TALLEY: You have to have some connection to the Internet to get that VRI interpreting.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Right, but you do not need Wi-Fi; it would be an Internet connection. Are you saying it is still not very good?

GARY TALLEY: In rural areas, it would not be. In some of the bigger cities it would be fine. Richmond, Alexandria, Arlington, Roanoke maybe, but for the rest of the county it is not.

Now, many people who use hearing aids, also speech read or speech guess. It is important for officers to understand that hearing aids do not return or restore hearing to normal. There is not a device out there that will give a deaf or hard of hearing person normal hearing. The device can improve it, but I know a lot of officers think that if the person has hearing aids, then he can hear me. Not always. I explain to the law

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enforcement people that circumstances must be right. I promise you that if you are on the side of the road with blue light in your back window, that is not a good situation for hearing for anybody.

Remember we mentioned the general characteristics of the deafened individuals? There is no such thing as a “typical” deaf or hard of hearing person.

In general, the hearing public is a little bit clueless about late-deafened individuals, and there are more of us than there are culturally deaf. The type of hearing aid, analog versus digital may vary. A late-deafened individual may or may not use sign language; may require an interpreter or written communication; may or may not have clear speech, may or may not be able to communicate with reading//writing. They can often speak clearly. It depends on many different factors. They can often read and write well. It depends on how well they could read and write before they lost their hearing and at what age. But they are deaf. I get asked “How could you be deaf, you can talk?” all the time. I say because I lost my hearing, not my voice. Kind of a simple answer. For effective communication, the main thing a law enforcement officer needs to do is ask. First, ask. Do not assume. I was in a situation where I was told that we that would have a deaf person coming in and we needed an interpreter, but I happened to know that the deaf individual did not sign.

“Why are you getting an interpreter?”“Well, because he is deaf.” “Yes, but this person does not sign.”

They were making assumptions about being deaf.

This is what I tell law enforcement about how to communicate with deaf or hard of hearing people.

If they do not sign and prefer speech-reading:FACE the individual Good lighting on YOUR face with no “backlighting”Speak a little more slowly and clearly, but do not over-enunciate.

If their choice is written communication:Ensure adequate lightingUse white paper and a bold-point writing pen Simplify questions and statementsBe patient

Pre-Print cards with often-requested information!

I also warn the officers that as they approach the car, they should not shine that flashlight in the person’s face because all that does is blind them. Then they cannot see you at all. If you want to shine a light in somebody's face, shine it on your face.

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I give examples to the state police of three-by-five cards they can use that say things like:

Show me your driver's license. Your license plate is expired. Your taillight is out.

There are a lot of misconceptions about people who are deaf and hard of hearing. For example: when one sense diminishes, other senses increase to compensate. (If that were true, I would probably not need glasses. I lost all my hearing, so I should have “super-vision,” but I do not.)

I have learned to use my other senses a lot more effectively. I am very visual now. Things I might not have seen in the past do not get by me anymore visually. When I am driving, especially alone, I have to stop about every hour and a half to give my brain and eyes a rest. Because I am driving, I’m looking at that side mirror, rearview mirror constantly. And I am scanning the horizon, especially looking for sirens or flashing lights. It is exhausting. Nobody warned me when I lost my hearing. They said communication would be difficult. Nobody's warned me how exhausting hearing loss is.

Another misconception is that deaf and hard of hearing people are excellent lip readers. People think we are all perfect at it. They also think we are mind readers. They are talking to us while looking all over the place. I tell them look at me. Speech reading is a skill that takes a lot of practice. It is an imperfect science. I am usually pretty good at it. I do better than most but I had a lot of training at it. When I make a mistake, it is usually a real big mistake, not a little one. I misunderstand completely. It will vary with individuals and the conditions.

People I work with, the nine people there, I can understand. With my family, my brothers, when they look at me I can I can understand, but my sister does it better. Her lips are fuller. She speaks more clearly. Guys, we do not speak clearly all the time. It is just a fact of our gender. We do not always speak clearly. Women tend to speak a lot more clearly. They are easier to speech read.

People also think that hearing aids and cochlear implants give you normal hearing and you can understand just fine. That is not true. That also varies with conditions like weather. Just because you have a device does not mean it is going to give you normal hearing.

Another myth is that if you are deaf, you can sign or use ASL. Again, not true. Most culturally deaf people can sign, but most late-deafened people do not sign. Often, if they lose hearing later in life, especially 40s and 50s, they do not learn sign language. They depend on writing.

I explain to the officers that ASL is not a manual form of English. It is a true living language. And it was never intended to be a written language. With the advent of TTY in

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the 60s, and now text messaging knowing how to write is required. How do you teach English in a language that is not English? The deaf student is having a terrible time with that. Question?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Sir, that is becoming an even bigger problem now because TTYs are phasing out. They are used by the older adults, but at this time there are still businesses, federal government agencies that still say why not use the TTY? I am just letting you know what I am hearing from the federal end of it, from the states, that it is eventually going to be phasing out, however, how that information gets around to all the states, is another issue. GARY TALLEY: When TTYs came out, they were a Godsend, an absolute Godsend. It is considered older technology, but there are large sections of Virginia that still use TTYs because Internet service is not available. In some areas where it is available, it is simply too expensive. I think TTY will stay around as long as we have landlines. Again, in rural areas where you cannot get the Video Phone signal or cannot get the Internet for that Video Phone, they will have to find some other way to do it. One of the ways we have addressed that in Virginia is to put Video Phones in public libraries in these smaller towns. It is semi-private but it is not out in the open for anybody to see. We are making that available. That helps. But it is not the best solution and not the only solution out there. I tell the officers that when they are responding to a deaf individual, they should keep sentences simple and basic, not because deaf people are not smart, but because it could be a second language. One suggestion is to picture this person as coming from another country and that might help you understand the difficulties a little bit better.

All the police interactions are not going to be traffic stops. Domestic calls are the most problematic and dangerous for law enforcement officers. For example: a woman may be “having the crap beaten out of her” by her husband. Officers go arrest him and she attacks the officers. There is no explaining human behavior sometimes. It is a very dangerous situation. It is important that officers recognize if at all possible that a person in that house has hearing loss. Here are some possible clues:

E 9-1-1 informationSpecial doorbells / signalersVideo PhonesAmplified or Captioned TelephonesTTYs

One time I had to deliver a new clock system to a person in the rural part of the county. Along the road there were ten mailboxes lined up. I drove into the little neighborhood where there was not a house number anywhere to be found. I found the right house

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because of the doorbell; the system we had previously given them was still there. Most of the door bells are built into the doorjamb. It is a little device. I was able to stop at the right house because of that doorbell. Not everybody, unfortunately, has that equipment. Most will have some type of flashing alert, but not all. In an abusive situation, though, the spouse may not allow that person to have it because they want to isolate them.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Or they are living with other people. You have to realize that the deaf person may be the only one at home, but it may be a “hearing” household.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: This is an issue that happens quite frequently: if someone has a hearing loss in the family and they have other members that are hearing, then that person who is hard of hearing is dependent on a hearing person. We try to explain to hearing impaired people that they should not depend on other members of the family, because at some point, they will be home by themselves.

Not only that, the state of Pennsylvania has started a new program called “Smart 911.” You can sign up for it and all the information about you gets entered, so if you have to call 911, that information you have in “Smart 911” goes to the 911 center, which is really a big help.

GARY TALLEY: Again, when a cell phone is used, the event may not be at home. So, I am not sure how we will get around that.

I tell officers that some hearing-impaired people may say “I can hear you, but I cannot understand you,” which may be a tone issue.

Those of you who were in the keynote speech yesterday know that the speaker lost all the high tones hearing and he could still hear the low; his friend Art spoke in those lower tones (so he could understand him). People talk in a range like Mini Mouse and Darth Vader. I tell the officers that changing the tone of your voice may not solve the problem but it helps.

Now, there is some food for thought here. For a roadside stop, once a person is identified as being deaf, is the officer required to get an interpreter? The answer is no. Police officers do not need to get an interpreter during a roadside stop, but it is important that the officer be absolutely certain s/he is being understood.

Is the officer required to get an interpreter before arresting a suspect? The answer is no, but you have to have an interpreter or an acceptable alternative means to ensure absolutely that the individual understands their Miranda rights. That must be done properly, in a language the person understands. Just because a deaf person is smiling and nodding, it does not mean they are agreeing. It means they are paying attention. If the officer says “he shook his head yes when I asked if he understood his rights,” a first-

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year law student will get the arrest tossed out. If it is a serious case, law enforcement does not want to have it tossed out. I tell officers that it is the law enforcement’s responsibility to make sure the person understands their Miranda rights by whatever mode of communication they need. Not every deaf person reads, signs, or reads English well. So how do you make certain that the person understands their rights? How do you explain to them so that they fully understand?

Many people think that American Sign Language is universal. It is used in the United States, English-speaking Canada and parts of Mexico. I have no idea what that last sentence refers to.

I was watching a video and in the corner of the screen a person was shown, and I was thinking what is that person doing? The person was signing, but I could not understand it. I could not hear it. I did not know it was British Sign Language. I thought “what is wrong with me?” It was not me. He was signing a different sign language. There are over 300 different sign languages in the world.

How do you explain to a deaf individual the reason they have been stopped? I tell the law enforcement people: Show the driver the problem. Point at the taillight. If the stop is at night, show them.

I tell the officers that people with hearing and speech disabilities are not the only ones you will come across. There are people that could have hearing loss, but also be mobility impaired. They may be blind or have low vision. They may have speech disorders, someone who is not legally blind, will not have a driver's license. You may encounter them in situations of domestic disturbances. They could be the passenger in a vehicle being driven by somebody who is intoxicated. They could be intoxicated themselves. They may have been in possession of illegal substances. It is sad, but many people with disability self-medicate quite a bit.

I tell officers to be aware that many people with disabilities use service dogs or other animals. When I was growing up, a service animal was typically a seeing-eye-dog. It is a different world now.

There are a lot of officers who ask about situations like this:

>You stop a deaf 36-year-old woman for speeding and you administer the breathalyzer test, which she fails. You want to arrest and question her and her 14-year-old son is in the vehicle with her, he can interpret for her. Is that okay? You would be surprised how many police officers say oh, yeah, that would be fine. No. Absolutely not. It is never appropriate to have a child do it except in a life or death situation, but this situation this is not life or death. >A 54-year-old man is seen weaving down the sidewalk with his service dog. You stop him for questioning. You determined he is intoxicated. You arrest him. What do you do with the dog? Do you allow the animal in the cell with the man? Who says yes?

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AUDIENCE MEMBER: The dog stays with him. GARY TALLEY: Who says no? You can only ask two questions about a service animal. One, is it a service animal, and what service does that animal perform? If that dog is going to be needed in that cell and this man is under arrest, then you cannot separate them. If you do separate them, what do you with the dog? It is your responsibility to take care of it.

It varies from jail to jail. There should be standard operating procedures to determine this. Law enforcement must keep in mind that when dealing with individual/s with a disability they have rights protected by the law, and the officers are sworn to uphold that law. Officers need to consider each case carefully and make the best decision for everybody involved. AUDIENCE MEMBER: My question is how do we protect ourselves? We have heard of a couple of different incidents of deaf people being shot. There is a man in Florida in jail serving a life sentence for a crime he did not commit. How do we protect ourselves when we do not know what is going on?

GARY TALLEY: When in the car, turn on your overhead lights and then keep your hands on the wheel.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: I was not speaking about when we are in a car. I meant when we are out in public and the police are yelling for us to stop and we do not hear it and we keep going. How do we protect ourselves in that situation?

GARY TALLEY: Number one, always be aware of your surroundings. Be aware of where you are and what is going on around you as best you can. Get all the information that comes in visually and use that to be aware of what is going on around you. Do not walk just focusing on that phone text. You are just blocking out the world around you. That will not help you. It is always a good idea to go with somebody else. Even if It is another person that cannot hear; with two people watching, you have a better chance of knowing what is going on. If a bank is being robbed and someone is running down the street, you need to see that. If you are looking at your phone screen, you will not. So just be aware of your surroundings all the time as best you can. AUDIENCE MEMBER: Gary, I so appreciate your presentation here. I also gave a presentation this summer to the ADA Symposium, the Americans with Disabilities Act Symposium, in Pittsburgh. And I taught the law enforcement and other people in this field who were there. The primary principle about what the Audience Member was asking is de-escalating the emotion we experience that has caused deaf people to be shot on sight because of a

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lack of communication. The lesson for us, though, is to put our hands up. There is nothing wrong with doing that. It lets a police officer know that you are safe for them. Then tell them that you are unarmed or licensed to carry. Most of us here are late-deafened and still have our voice, like Gary said, but tell them these things in a non-emotional way so you can keep their (law enforcement) emotions down. Remember, they are always one trigger away from getting shot themselves. They are always on edge. I know that not hearing and being surprised at a sudden stop or a sudden realization that an officer is trying to get your attention is really scary for us. So, I think the important principle is defusing our own emotions. We can practice that, thinking about this presentation next time we are stopped by an officer and be thinking about their perspective of always being on edge, and then letting them know that we are safe for them and that they will make us safe, too.

GARY TALLEY: I tell the officers, in a crowd situation, an accident scene or something, that if you are trying to control the crowd and one person whose back is to you does not respond, ask somebody else get that person's attention. Chances are, that is a person with a hearing loss and he is not looking at you because he does not know you are trying to communicate.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: One of the things we have to understand is the differing perspectives of the officer and the deaf person. It is a two-way street. GARY TALLEY: This Visor Card can help. It is better in the daytime. I keep one in the car and hold it so the officer can see it. On my car, an SUV, there is a shelf just under my dashboard. It works great in the daytime, but not so much at night.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: I want to add a comment to that picking up the Visor Card issue, because we do have documented cases that folks have been beaten up, pulled out of cars, for reaching up to the visor. The best thing is to have your hands up in a humble position or on the wheel. That puts you in a “safe for them” position. In that position, turn to them and start talking to them and say “officer, could you wait a minute. I am deaf. I want to reach up and show you my deaf driver card.” Most of us can talk. This is different for the culturally deaf, I realize. Just make sure you put the officer in a position where s/he feels safe. Always be thinking about their perspective. They are the ones that are on edge and you do not want that police officer to be mad at you. They already are if they are tailing you for a long time and you do not see them. [laughter] So, it is our responsibility to keep them calm.

GARY TALLEY: It is both of our responsibilities. We have to work together, which is the reason for this training. It is called sensitivity training.

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AUDIENCE MEMBER: I would like to mention two types of Visor Cards are available to download at hearinglosshelp.com. There is one for late deafened people who want to use their voice or write, and one that explains the need for ASL for culturally deaf people.

ANOTHER AUDIENCE MEMBER: Everybody, a key point here. My sister and I got pulled over by a policeman. We were polite. My sister told them that I am deaf. The cop said to her, "If I yell loud enough, can she hear me?" She said, "No, she is completely deaf." He went and got a pad. I became a statue in that car. I froze. And I had my voice. I used my voice, and I just told him no, I am completely deaf. I am a late-deafened adult. When the pad was used, it diffused the situation.

GARY TALLEY: It has to come from both sides. That is one reason for this training. The aim is for the law enforcement officers to understand our situation and also that the consumers can understand the law enforcement situation.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: I am a private investigator. The majority of the law enforcement officers that I work with, tell me that deaf people are overly animated. That is what scares them. The officers want people, when they have been pulled over, to put both hands on the steering wheel so the officers can see them. But it is an automatic way of life for a deaf person to start signing or as the officers say “start flailing their arms around.” That scares officers because they do not know that the person is deaf or if they are trying to reach for a weapon, or whatever. The officers recommend that you put your hands on the steering wheel when the officer approaches, then if you have speech, you turn to them and say, "I am deaf, but hold on." After that you can start your sign language. They say it is just that so many officers out there are targets and are getting shot that they are all just a little on the jumpy side.

GARY TALLEY: One more comment and we will move on. AUDIENCE MEMBER: I am someone who signs. There has been lots of discussion within the Southwest Commission of the Hard of Hearing because a lot of people have been arrested. There are lawsuits that are going on right now about not getting your rights to have an interpreter, about not being allowed to make your first phone call, and also about a lot of abuse. Regarding ASL, there is by nature a lot of facial and body language that is supposed to go into it. That is part of the language. So that whole calm down thing is not the way of the ASL user/culturally deaf person. What we have here is a cultural conflict. It is not the fault of the deaf people being too animated. The problem is the cops have not been educated that sign language is animated.

GARY TALLEY: Which is the reason for this training.

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Many police officers have no idea what to do in a situation with a person with a disability. I want them to treat each one as an individual not to lump us all together. For example, I am late-deafened, but I communicate differently than other late-deafened people. All of us have a disability, but we adapt differently. Talk to me. Do not assume that because I am deaf I sign. We are individuals. How many of you have been asked, "You can’t hear, can you drive? How do you drive?"

I say, "Very carefully, thank you." I am a pretty good driver now. I am a much safer driver than I was before.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: One of the things I wanted to ask is this: We have had some situations where law enforcement has provided Active Shooter Incident training, but for myself and many others, we cannot tell where those shots are coming from. How can we explain this to the police officer that is doing the training to better understand that we deaf people are in a very odd situation? So how can we do that? GARY TALLEY: I am in the same situation. We have done the Active Shooter training. I do not even know there are shots being fired. I just figure I ain't going to survive it. There is just no way. There are some things that cannot be overcome. I could be in my office when somebody could come through the front door and start shooting, and I am not going to know it. There is no answer to that, unless we put in video monitors and I am watching that monitor every second of the day. I just cannot do it.

AUDIENCE MEMBER:I was in a situation when I was traveling and shots were fired. All of a sudden everybody around me drops to the floor. For a second I kind of sit there thinking what the hell, and then I decided let me just drop right now, I will figure it out later. But they all heard shots, I did not. Everybody around me in the crowd dropped to the floor. I did the same thing. I had no idea why I was dropping.

There are just some things that technology, even knowledge, is not going to overcome. We are taught that if shooter comes in the office, run, hide, or fight. I promise you if somebody comes in the office with a gun, I am going to fight because it is too late to run and hide. That is why I said earlier, when you are out in the public, watch what is going on. Be as aware of your surroundings as much as possible to see what is going on. The cop, if there is something going on, the policeman behind you telling you to stop, everybody around you suddenly freezes, look around you and see what is going on.

GARY TALLEY:

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Our time is up. I know that sign. I will be around for the rest of the conference. Thank you all very much.

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GARY TALLEY has worked in emergency management in some form or another since 1982 and now serves as the Community Services Manager at the Virginia Department for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing in Richmond. He develops and conducts trainings for first responders, senior citizens and people with disabilities throughout the Commonwealth of Virginia. He currently serves as an advisor to the Virginia Department of Emergency Management for disability issues in emergency shelters, and is a regular instructor at Criminal Justice Academies in Virginia. He represents the Virginia Department of Deaf and Hard of Hearing (VDDHH) on many state committees, and speaks frequently throughout Virginia about emergency preparedness for people with disabilities and senior citizens. Gary is late-deafened, having lost his hearing in 2003. He now uses sign language and speech reading for incoming communication though he still has effective use of his voice.

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