Greenfield swears in five new bilingual officers

GREENFIELD, Calif. (KION) The Greenfield Police Department is swearing in five new officers Monday, and all of them are bilingual.

City officials said they expect that all of the officers will become role models in the community.

The hope is to create more transparency and trust within the Greenfield community.

With 80% to 90% of the Greenfield population being Latino and Spanish speaking, it's not a surprise that the police feels that it's important to erase language barriers. But in the wake of decreased positive sentiments towards police, the force feels that it is important to build relationships with the community.

Armando Mendoza, Police Administrative Sergeant of the Greenfield police feels that they're in the step in the right direction.

"What we're trying to promote here in the department is a sense of transparency and build relationships with the community. It's important for them to feel confident and want to engage with our officers, know that we're here to help them. They don't just need to give us a call when it's a time of need but it can be anytime when we're out there getting lunch or out there in the park," says Mendoza.

Janelle Sanchez, one of the new officers sworn-over the weekend, says she hopes to erase any language barriers between her and the community.

"If we can't speak to our community than we can't get to the bottom of what they need, how we can help them and how we can better serve them so just not having that language barrier of having to wait for a translator or have somebody come, being able to personally get to speak to a victim, get to know them, and see what's going on with them. That's the biggest blessing that we're bilingual and we're able to help because otherwise we would have such a hard time with that," says Sanchez

Sergeant Mendoza says that the officers are expected to begin patrolling Greenfield today.