Anyone who has ever gotten behind the wheel most likely knows what it's like to run into a slightly overzealous police officer with an itchy ticket-writing finger. Many times the vehicular infractions are serious enough that the driver really has no room to argue; missteps such as excessive speeding and DWI are not to be taken lightly. Other times it seems like the long arm of the law is looking for someone to pick on, a $100 ticket for being 6 inches too close to a never-used fire hydrant comes to mind.

A recent story out of Texas seems to fall in the latter category: innocent drivers falling victim to officious officers, but with a fun new twist... borderline racist, anti-immigrant xenophobia! Hey, they always said everything's bigger in Texas.

It appears that over the past three years, Dallas police officers have wrongly ticketed at least 39 motorists for failing to speak English. Police Chief David Kunkle has vowed to investigate all cases of drivers being punished for breaking a law that doesn't exist, reports the Dallas Morning News. Cases still pending will be immediately dismissed, while motorists who paid a $240 fine (again, for breaking a non-existent "English only" law) will be reimbursed by the city.

The incident that brought this pattern to the attention of Dallas police brass occurred on October 2 when Dallas resident Ernestina Mondragon was pulled over for a seemingly benign illegal U-turn. A rookie officer, 33-year-old Gary Bromley, cited Mondragon for disregarding a traffic control device, failure to present a driver's license, and finally being a "non-English-speaking driver." Before issuing his ticket, Bromley's findings were signed off on by Sgt. David Burroughs and Senior Cpl. Daniel Larkin, both longtime veterans of the department. 

Bromley claims that the English-speaking violation was presented to him as a possible infraction by a computer program in his squad car and that he naturally assumed it to be something Mondragon, a native Spanish speaker, was guilty of. According to the Morning News however, the law referred to by Bromley's computer program was most likely a federal standard that neither Bromley nor any other local police officer has the power to enforce.

Mondragon, who does have a valid Texas driver's license, challenged the ticket in court and was ultimately vindicated. The Dallas Police Department has said they will drop all charges against her.

It is entirely possible that a somewhat inexperienced officer like Bromley simply didn't know the difference and made an honest mistake. That explanation seems to become less plausible when applied to longtime department veterans like Larkin and Burroughs, and that is where the possibility of police officers willfully deceiving a citizen into thinking they've broken a law when they've done nothing wrong comes into play.

For his part, Police Chief Kunkle is placing the blame squarely on the shoulders of the senior officers. "In this case, the field training officer was aware of ultimately what the recruit officer had done," he told reporters. "The field training officer is going to bear more responsibility than the recruit officer."

George A. Martinez, a professor at Southern Methodist University's Dedman School of Law, isn't buying the notion that the officers made an honest mistake. "It sounds like a policy," Martinez told the Morning News. "Discrimination on the basis of language ability, and that's targeting Latinos, and so that sounds pretty serious to me."

Brenda Reyes of the League of United Latin American Citizens is similarly unconvinced of the motives of the police. "There are police officers out there representing our city who actually think that it's a crime not to speak English," she told reporters.

Whether you agree with Reyes and Martinez most likely depends on whether or not you are willing to give law enforcement the benefit of the doubt. If this had been the only case of its nature in the city of Dallas it would probably be easy for most fair minded people to argue that it was most likely a case of ignorance and irresponsibility on the part of the officers rather than a concerted effort to "get" Spanish speaking drivers. It is when you hear "39 cases in 3 years" red flags naturally start to go up. One case is an aberration, two is a coincidence, but 39 seems to suggest something deeper at work.

Some would want to make this a story, or more likely a sweaty rant, about an "invasion" of illegal immigrants wreaking havoc on our roads and highways whilst plowing down decent hardworking Americans. That, of course, would be changing the entire point of the conversation... which is something this writer just did, but that's alright. This isn't a debate over who does or doesn't have a right to be here. Rather it is a debate over the right to speak how you want once you are here. That is something most people can understand in any language; except for this guy.

More "What the Gov?" Immigration stories from OhMyGov:

[+] DHS official accepted bribe to allow illegal immigrants into U.S.