12112: Fort Lauderdale police on a quest to hire Haitians (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Posted on Mon, May. 20, 2002

Fort Lauderdale police on a quest to hire Haitians
BY BRAD BENNETT
bbennett@herald.com


Natacha Brea, right, speaks with Sgt. Alfred Lewers Jr. at Fort Lauderdale
police headquarters.

When the United Nations helped Haitian President Jean-Bertrande Aristide
return to power after a 1991 coup, Natacha Brea helped translate for
civilian workers who could not speak Creole, and taught them how to use
computers.

With that important diplomatic mission under her belt, Brea is now on
another international quest: She recently flew in from her home in Haiti to
apply for a job as a Fort Lauderdale police officer.

Although it's too early to tell if Brea will get the job, her visit to Fort
Lauderdale last week is the first visible result of the police department's
recruiting trip last month to Port-au-Prince.

As Broward's Haitian immigrant population continues to grow, Fort Lauderdale
police are looking to boost the number of Haitian, Creole-speaking officers
on the roughly 500-member force beyond the single officer they have now.

''We want to prevent any type of problems associated with a department that
does not reflect its community,'' said Sgt. Alfred Lewers Jr., head of the
police department's recruitment unit.

Led by Haitians and Jamaicans, West Indian immigration is helping drive
population growth in South Florida.

In Broward, Jamaicans are the largest group of West Indians with 67,945,
followed by 65,100 Haitians, according to the 2000 Census. Haitian leaders,
however, say their numbers are higher than that.

That's the reason Fort Lauderdale has become the first American police
department reaching out to recruit Haitian students, activists say. The
department plans a second trip in coming months.

''This is really a very, very good gem on their part in terms of them really
outreaching,'' said Marvin Dejean, vice president of operations for Minority
Development & Empowerment, Broward's Haitian community center. 'And it
speaks volumes of Chief [Bruce] Roberts' commitment toward reaching out to
the Haitian community.''

Lewers agreed.

''We are very, very serious about the diversity of our department,'' he
said. 'We tell the world, `We're looking for the best and brightest.' ''

Between April 21 and 24, police went to two Haitian schools, looking for
students or staff members to come back and join the force. New recruits must
be at least 19 years old and have a high school education.

Lewers, Officer Michael Stitt -- the department's only Haitian,
Creole-speaking officer -- and Junia Jeantilus, a community relations
specialist for the department who speaks Creole, went to the Quisqueya
Christian School and Union School in Port-au-Prince. Both teach students
from elementary through secondary school.

There they met Brea, an American citizen who is an assistant to two
administrators at the Union School. Though she's a few years older than most
recruits -- or perhaps because of that -- Brea believes she can help the
department.

''You have to be able to have somebody who understands their language and
their country,'' said Brea, who is taking a battery of tests which she must
pass to apply for the police academy.

``I'm happy that I'm here, and I really hope that I do get through this.''

The Haitian students -- many already American citizens -- seemed interested
and well-informed about American events.

Stitt, who joined the police department last year, was once a student at one
of the schools he visited last month.

''I believe that if a police agency reached out to me while I was attending
Quisqueya, I probably would have been on the police force many years
earlier,'' he said.



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