High Schoolers Teach Conn. Police Sign Language to 'Increase Inclusivity'

FAIRFIELD, CT — Seated snugly at the desks of a Fairfield Ludlowe High School classroom, about a dozen police officers and cadets began to recite the alphabet with their hands.

Sophomore Rhet Sealfon guided them from A through Z in sign language a few feet away.

"J...K...L...M."

"Wait, hold on, sorry," one of the officers interrupted. "Where's your thumb?"

It was tough to make out, tucked beneath curled fingers. Sealfon took a few steps closer to give the officers a better view.

The alphabet was the first part of a lesson Fairfield police received from Ludlowe's American Sign Language club recently to learn signs they could use with deaf or hard-of-hearing community members in town. No Fairfield police officers have formal sign language training beyond some basic signs, according to the department, and that appears to be a common trend throughout Connecticut.

Liza Alers — the club's faculty adviser and the president of the Connecticut Council of Organizations Serving the Deaf — said four police officers in Connecticut know ASL.

"That's why it's so important for so many of you to learn some of the basics," she told the officers and cadets through an interpreter.

Student interest in ASL has increased in Fairfield as the school district has rolled out three levels of ASL curriculum in as many years. The club has been one example of the rising demand.

"Our first goal of the ASL club was to go into the community and teach them sign language, just increase inclusivity," Fairfield Ludlowe senior and club President Kiera Esposito said.

The club members took turns signing vocabulary to the officers and cadets, looking to the front of the class and then down at their hands as they mimicked the signs. Students signed numbers through 10 and cycled through dozens of words police could use while they're on duty: license, car, stop, wait, scared, lost, water, food and family were among them.

"While we may not have a way to determine the exact number of deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals in our community, we recognize their presence and the importance of effective communication," Fairfield Officer Jenna Wellington said in an email. "If we can take steps to make interactions with law enforcement smoother and more accessible for them, we are committed to doing so."

Wellington said Fairfield police officers receive training on responding and communicating with people with hearing and visual impairments, among other disabilities. Officers are trained to recognize sign language and use other forms of written communication.

The Americans with Disabilities Act requires police to "ensure effective communication" with people who are deaf or hard of hearing, but Wellington said there are not many options for law enforcement to take ASL classes aside from online resources.

Without them, police are left with a communication barrier that can differ from person to person depending on their ability to read lips and speech. Alers and Sealfon said written communication also comes with a barrier because of differences between ASL and English, like missing articles and different grammar structure. She said those factors can bring extra anxiety and confusion to police encounters.

"How am I going to interact with this officer?" Alers said. "How am I going to explain things? That really causes so much fear in deaf folks when they're pulled over because they know with the communication barrier, it just leads to so many misunderstandings."

In Arizona last year, Maricopa County dismissed charges against a deaf Black man whom police punched and shocked when they responded to a call that he committed assault at a convenience store. One officer testified that the altercation could have been avoided if McAlpin indicated he was deaf.

Alers showed the Fairfield officers and cadets videos simulating hearing loss and the difficulties it poses for lipreading. She suggested they either wave or lightly tap someone's shoulder, make eye contact and try contacting an interpreting agency when confronting a deaf or hard-of-hearing civilian. She added that a text-to-speech function on a digital device could also be helpful.

Alers has worked to support the deaf and hard-of-hearing community throughout the state in her role leading the Connecticut Council of Organizations Serving the Deaf, a nonprofit group. In addition to the organization's community events, she said families have approached her in need of a strobe light fire alarm in their apartments, and others have come with concerns about communicating with medical professionals, firefighters and attorneys with a lack of available interpreters.

She also teaches ASL to adults. One of her former students — a Seymour police officer — joined the Fairfield Ludlowe session on a video call to encourage Fairfield law enforcement to continue learning. Alers said the police should consider practicing with each other, looking up a sign every week and searching for sign language classes, among other resources.

She said the police academy should offer sign language training. She knows about 20 deaf residents around her hometown, but there are no local police officers who know how to sign.

"I hope that they at least got an understanding of how critical it is for the deaf community to be able to know that police officers have invested and done some work into understanding us because we are citizens here too," she said.

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