San Jose Police Department Launches Multilingual Community Outreach

SAN JOSE (KPIX) -- The San Jose police department has launched an outreach and educational video series to be distributed in various foreign languages as part of an effort to battle misinformation online and foster more community connections.

Dubbed "Ask An Officer, Questions from the Community," the videos will be released about once a month. The first episode debuted Thursday in Spanish, Vietnamese, Mandarin, Farsi, Punjabi and Khmer and addressed hate crimes. Each three- to four-minute clip explaines how victims should protect themselves during an incident and how to properly document or report the crime to an officer.

From 2016 to 2021, the number of reported hate crimes in San Jose rose by 500 percent.

"When an officer actually speaks the language of the person they're communicating with, I think it builds trust and it helps build the relationship," said assistant police chief Paul Joseph.

The department plans to release videos on scams, how to report missing persons, crime prevention, navigating police interactions and recruiting. SJPD says they will work with community organizations on future topics.

Joseph said one of the goals of the project is to dispel myths or rumors that spread through social media.

"When that gets spread from person to person, if it's not accurate, it's very hard for us to change someone's mind when they've heard it from a source that they trust. So our idea was, if we can present information that we know is accurate, in a language that someone understands and that they're comfortable hearing it in, it will help us to get the proper information to people," Joseph said.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, "a language other than English" is spoken in 57.7% of San Jose homes and 40.5% of the city's population is foreign born.

Sam Ho, a community activist and vice president of the Thousand Oaks Neighborhood Association, supported the production of the videos, calling it an investment in the city's people of color.

"I think it's long overdue and I think it's better late than never," Ho said. "It helps them understand what's going on, how to navigate police procedures, understand how to report crimes, how to avoid becoming a victim. Those are very complicated messages if it's all in English."

Lt. Ken Tran, who appeared in the Vietnamese language video, said speaking to citizens in their native language quickly breaks down barriers.

"You can see they open up and they're able to communicate better and become very receptive," Tran said.

Tran added that, as an immigrant, the department's efforts make him feel "seen and heard."

"The Vietnamese community is gaining traction, right? We're being recognized," Tran said.