NPR covers Alamance County Sheriff Terry Johnson’s civil rights violations trial—listen below.
Note Commissioner Linda Massey’s comments toward the end —you guessed it –she’s now on the defensive. Note also the interesting lede:
JESSICA JONES, BYLINE: Sheriff Johnson’s trial is being held in a courtroom in a federal building in the middle of Winston-Salem. TV trucks idle outside on the curb. During a lunch break, Yajaira Cuevas is sitting on a bench across the street unwrapping a boxed salad.
YAJAIRA CUEVAS: (Speaking Spanish).
JONES: Cuevas says she’s attending the trial because she feared the traffic stops that Johnson’s department set up in Alamance County where she lives. She knows people who were picked up for minor offenses and sent back to Mexico.
Ok I assume Ms. Cuevas does not speak English or else she would be speaking it, especially to a journalist. So the question is–I’m not being flip here— how is she able to understand the court proceedings and testimony if they’re spoken in a language she doesn’t speak?
