SOUTH JERSEY

Berlin Twp., police department sued over language barrier

Jim Walsh
@jimwalsh_cp

A Spanish-speaking woman arrested in 2012 after she left her two young children alone in a car has sued Berlin Township and its police department over the alleged lack of a trained translator during the incident.

In her lawsuit, Carmela Hernandez says "language-based discrimination" led police to wrongly accuse her of endangering the welfare of both children in June 2012.

The suit says a policeman, pressed into service as an interpreter, created the mistaken impression Hernandez was aware of putting her youngsters at risk.

That supported criminal charges against Hernandez of neglecting the welfare of the children. A judge later cleared her.

Hernandez was charged after her son Jovany, then almost 3 years old, wandered away from an unattended vehicle outside Future Fitness Center on Route 73.

She and her boyfriend searched on foot for the missing boy, leaving their infant daughter, Natalia, alone in the car for almost two hours, the lawsuit says.

The children were recovered unharmed, but the incident had painful repercussions for Hernandez, according to her attorney, Felix Gonzalez of Pennsauken.

"She was only 22 when she got arrested, and three months pregnant," Gonzalez said of his client, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico who speaks little English.

"All of a sudden, she's in jail, separated from her children."

He said Hernandez spent six months awaiting trial in Camden County Jail, unable to make $50,000 bail, and gave birth to a third child during that time.

When a judge ordered her release in January 2013, Hernandez returned home to find all of her belongings had been stolen.

"You can tell the pain that she suffered as a result of everything that happened to her," said Gonzalez, who identified Hernandez only as a Camden County resident.

He noted the state has taken custody of her three children, who are now living with family members.

Berlin Township solicitor Stuart Platt declined to comment Tuesday, saying he has not yet seen the lawsuit. But Gonzalez asserts Hernandez's actions at the fitness center were not a crime but a mistake, worsened by a language barrier.

"How many people run into a Wawa for a minute and leave their kid in the car?" he asked. "It's wrong, but people do that."

According to the lawsuit, Hernandez and her children were waiting in the vehicle while the baby's father, Oscar Mendez-Ortega, cleaned the fitness center.

Hernandez left the vehicle sometime after 6 p.m. to use the gym's bathroom, then noticed Javony was missing from his car seat when she returned.

While the parents looked around the gym, someone noticed the boy outside a Route 73 water park, Sahara Sam's Oasis. A park worker alerted police around 7 p.m. and an officer took the boy into custody.

A second officer found Hernandez and Mendez-Ortega looking for Javony around 8 p.m.; the couple and the boy were reunited at the township police station.

The lawsuit acknowledges Hernandez did not tell police that Natalia was still sitting in the car, but says that was due to the mother's inability to speak English. A third township officer found the girl when he checked on the mother's car, also around 8 p.m.

According to the suit, Hernandez could not be questioned until a Spanish-speaking officer arrived from the Voorhees police department. It contends the officer, Patrolman Carlos Garcia Lazar, although fluent in Spanish, had "ineffective and inadequate interpreting skills."

For instance, the lawsuit contends, when an investigator asked in English whether Javony "has gotten out of the car before like this," the interpreter asked Hernandez in Spanish whether her son had ever gotten "out of the security belt."

She answered "mm hmm," which Lazar translated to "yes," according to the suit.

Gonzalez said the police interrogation of his client should not have occurred until a qualified interpreter was available. He contends Berlin Township's police department receives federal funds and thus is "obligated to provide meaningful and competent access to the services they provide to (people with limited proficiency in English)."

Gonzalez said Superior Court Judge Anthony Pugliese refused to allow the flawed interview into evidence at Hernandez's trial in February 2013.

The judge, who a month earlier had ordered Hernandez released on her own recognizance, then found the woman not guilty.

Reach Jim Walsh at jwalsh@cpsj.com or (856) 486-2646.