In Fairfax County, Virginia, where Wilson Lee, the Chinese-American director of the county's Criminal Justice Training Academy, signed his diploma in Chinese, the local police chief refused to recognize the student's qualifications.
Mr. Lee, president of the Fairfax County College of Criminal Justice Training, denied to recognize the certificates he received last month to 61 police cadets, three of whom applied to join the Herdon police force, NBC reported.
It is reported that Debode had seen the certificate before the graduation ceremony and noticed that Li Huaixin had signed in Chinese, and he was very unhappy at that time, and then sent an email to Li Huaixin, saying that this was unacceptable and did not want his subordinates to receive such certificates.
Debode also said that English is the official language of the country, and Li Huaixin did not consult the heads of local police stations before signing in Chinese, so he needed to re-sign the new certificate in English.
Witnesses said that Debode complained about it when he attended the police graduation ceremony and argued with Fairfax County Police Chief Kevin Davis, and then the Fairfax County Government, which belongs to the training academy, responded strongly, not only refusing to reissue the certificate, but also saying that the trainees from Herndon Town were no longer welcome.
Thomas Arnold, the deputy county commissioner for public safety, sent a letter to Debod saying that the county Criminal Justice Training Institute would terminate its cooperation with the Herndon Township Police Force as of June 1.
According to statistics, there are about 54 police officers in Herndon Township, and 16 percent of the town's 24,000 residents are Asian, slightly less than the 21 percent in Fairfax County.
The record also shows that the 60-year-old de Bode has been in the police since 1987, became the first female police chief in northern Victoria in 2012, and after the death of George Floyd, an African American man in Minnesota in 2020, she attended African American rallies and wrote to the immigrant community to urge people to report to the police without fear of being deported.
However, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) has also criticized Debode's racism because of an argument between an African-American student and a white student on a school bus in 2020.
After the turmoil fermented, neither Lee Huaixin nor Debode responded to the incident, and the Fairfax County Police Department issued a statement saying that there are many Asian Americans living in the area, and the ethnic community has made historic progress in serving the community, and any words and deeds that question this fact are unfortunate.
A spokesman for the town of Herndon said that the town's residents are also tax payers, and that local police officers have been attending classes at the county police academy for many years, and the relationship should be maintained.
In response, the National Asian Peace Officers Association expressed support for the Fairfax County Government's decision to uphold inclusion and multiculturalism.
The Hamkae Center, which focuses on the rights of Asian Americans in Victoria, also stood in solidarity with the county and criticized Debod's approach for undermining minority confidence in police officers.
This matter also sparked heated discussions among netizens, some people think that signatures should not be signed in Chinese, because others cannot recognize (confirm) that this is a valid signature/
The view was also expressed that there was no explicit provision that a signature could not be signed in a language other than English.
Others said: Signatures are only legal rights, and some people's casual signatures are no different from Chinese signatures, and the other party is therefore looking for faults.
I don't know what everyone thinks?