WCSO Sergeant Bridges Cultures Through Bilingual Policing
The Walton County Sheriff’s Office, the agency that answers law enforcement calls across Walton County — including Freeport — has a sergeant who can take those calls in two languages. Sgt. Oscar D’Lassalas, raised in a Spanish-speaking household, is drawing on his bilingual upbringing to connect with the county’s Hispanic community and help its members feel heard.
D’Lassalas was born in New Jersey to a parent from Colombia and a parent from Puerto Rico, both of whom worked two jobs. His grandmother raised him, and she didn’t speak a word of English — so their household ran in Spanish. “She didn’t speak English, so we only communicated in Spanish, nothing else. But I learned English in school. She was my everything,” D’Lassalas told WJHG. She was strict but lovable, he said — his first love, his mom in every way that counted, the woman who took him to school and to church and had arepas waiting when he woke up.
He never planned on a badge. D’Lassalas joined the Air Force before becoming an officer, and his childhood dream was the soccer field, not the patrol car. “I didn’t want to be a cop. I wanted to play soccer. I had a dream as a kid to play soccer. But after I injured my knee, God pointed me in a different direction… to be an officer,” he said. The upbringing his grandmother gave him still shapes his home life, too: he told WJHG he tries to model her love in the way he loves his wife and kids, and to balance work and family time the way his parents taught him.
On patrol, the language she taught him is more than a courtesy. “Sometimes people feel more comfortable talking to people who speak Spanish. They feel heard,” D’Lassalas said. The Sheriff’s Office provides law enforcement across Walton County, including Freeport, and for a Spanish-speaking resident who might hesitate before reaching out, a deputy who can meet them in their own language can be the difference between a report made and a call for help that never happens. His message to the county’s Hispanic community is straightforward: don’t be afraid to contact authorities when you are in danger.
The skill works both ways. D’Lassalas said understanding Spanish has given him an upper hand on calls where what is said in his presence isn’t meant for him. “Sometimes I go to a call, and they speak in Spanish within themselves and say, ‘Hey, I’m gonna run this way, I’m gonna run that way, and we’ll meet later.’ Well, now because I know and understand Spanish, I know they are planning something criminal, and I can call backup. And that happens often,” he said.
Hispanic Heritage Month gives him a stage to share the culture he grew up in with the community he serves. “A lot of people don’t know what our culture is like. And whenever we do promote it and we do celebrate it, they just get a taste of what we are in the end of the day. Man, there’s so much to say about our culture, but I think what brings us all together is we like to have fun,” D’Lassalas said. His own kids skipped soccer for baseball — which he considers Latino enough — and the kitchen-table lessons that started with his grandmother’s arepas are the ones he is passing down to them.
Originally reported by WJHG.
Image: WJHG.
