Police Officers Offer a New Perspective
Ms. Becki Medellin, Spanish Teacher
June 9, 2017
On Friday, June 2, Sgt. Mike DeTomaso, Officer Benny Williams and Officer Mong Lee from the St. Paul Police Department paid a visit to Ms. Rebecca Medellín’s classroom. This visit offered an opportunity to the students in her level 200 Spanish class to ask a wide variety of questions to the officers.
No question was off limits. Students asked about minor and major driving infractions, about the legality of police officers asking about immigration status, the exact authority of the St. Paul Police and the Metro Transit Police, and even inquired about the change in president and the officers' assessment on whether it affected the incidence of hate crimes on a local and national level. These are challenging topics to discuss but they were all addressed during the class period. The officers answered questions, gave advice and offered words of wisdom to the students.
The police officers hoped to create a bridge of understanding between themselves and the students. One thing that Ms. Medellín stresses in her classes is the need to try to understand and consider different perspectives. This is one thing that the officers brought to the conversation - another valid perspective.
Ms. Medellín commented, “I am so grateful to these officers for taking time out of their hectic schedules to come and engage in a meaningful dialogue with my students about issues that are impacting some of them on a daily basis.”
Back in August, Ms. Medellín invited Sgt. DeTomaso in to speak to her class about being a bilingual officer and how being fluent in Spanish has helped Mike both professionally and personally. This conversation eventually moved to questions about difficult issues that face our police officers and young people in our society today. Some challenging topics, often not discussed in classroom settings because they can become uncomfortable and emotional, were part of the conversation. We managed to have respectful and meaningful conversations about difficult subjects that helped everyone consider different perspectives.
The learning objective was definitely achieved. Officer Mike visited us throughout the year and brought two of his fellow officers and mentors to our final meeting of the year. Ms. Medellín concluded by saying, “I hope that the dynamic trio of St. Paul officers are able to return next year to be able to offer their wisdom and perspectives to help foster this relationship and open this bridge of understanding between our youth and our St. Paul Police.”