Having officers who speak Spanish is one of the top priorities in reaching out to the Hispanic community, candidates running for Hamilton County sheriff say.

If there’s one thing the five candidates agree on in regard to the Hispanic community, it is getting rid of the language barriers Hispanics face with law enforcement.

“We need to get interpreters so that all our officers are bilingual, that are willing to, and for all new officers we can make it mandatory that they learn Spanish,” said Tim Akins, an independent candidate who, until recently, was a sheriff’s staff sergeant overseeing booking in the county jail.

On Wednesday, Republican Hamilton County sheriff nominee Jim Hammond told a group of Hispanic leaders, including City Councilman Manny Rico, that as sheriff he “will rectify the problem of representation of Latinos in the department.”

Out of about 400 employees in the department, he said, he could find only one Hispanic, and that person worked in the court system.

Mr. Hammond said he wanted to meet with Hispanic leaders not as part of his political campaign, because there are fewer than two weeks before the elections and he felt very good about it. But he realized there is a large population of Hispanics in the area and wanted to know the specific needs they have and how to address them, he said.

According to La Paz de Dios, an organization that works to integrate Hispanics into the community, there are about 15,000 Hispanics living in Chattanooga. U.S. Census figures show there were about 8,000 Hispanics living in the county in 2000.

Democratic nominee Greg Beck said he would make sure there is a translator on staff and available for most part of the day.

“They (Hispanics) have been misunderstood, and because of the language barrier (and lack of translators) they spend more time in the booking area,” said Mr. Beck, who said he has a lot of support from the Hispanic leadership.

Independent sheriff candidate Jim Winters said it’s important to reach out to the entire community, not just a specific group, but having Spanish classes available for the officers in the sheriff’s department is important.

“If they are in America, they ought to be able to speak English, but we need to have somebody there that can communicate with everybody,” he added.

The sheriff’s department needs to work with Hispanic organizations, churches and other groups to help the community understand it is as important as anyone else, write-in candidate Fred Fuson said.

“I know a lot of them don’t speak English, don’t trust banks and are victims of robbery because a lot of people know they don’t trust banks,” he said. “They’ve got issues of their own that don’t apply to most other people in our community. We need to help them understand they are as important as any other citizen in the county, and we want to help them with everything we can.”

At Wednesday’s meeting with La Paz, Mr. Hammond was told that an essential factor in reaching out to the Hispanic community is building trust, according to Mike Feely, director of the St. Andrews Center, a resource for Chattanooga’s multicultural communities.

That trust was damaged during the April immigration raids at the Pilgrims Pride poultry processing plant in Chattanooga, when more than 100 people were arrested, he said.

“When something like the raid happens, it’s a major setback. It’s basically two steps forward, four steps back,” Mr. Feely said.

Marisol Jimenez, board member of La Paz and an English as a Second Language teacher, said meetings are needed to open up the dialogue.

“Ultimately it will make a difference,” she said. “Basically it’s opening up a forum for Hispanic issues to come out, and that’s the only way change can come about, by communication.”