Chatham, IL (WAND) – When a traffic stop turns into a language barrier, multilingual officers become a hot commodity. Even though they are a smaller community, the Chatham Police Department has two officers fluent in Spanish who are always ready to answer the call.

One of those officers is Patrol Officer David Toledo. He said he grew up only speaking Spanish, learning the ins and outs of the language from his mother’s family from Cuba.

“I didn’t speak English until I was almost six!” Toledo exclaimed. “I grew up in a Latin household in a Latin culture. I was exposed to that all my life.”

Toledo said that his lived experience allows him to connect with Latin American members of the community, which in turn helps him serve the community even better.

“It is a very definition of heartwarming for me. This is what I set out to do,” Toledo said. “For me to be able to have that, be involved with a community that has some trepidation because they don’t know what to say or they don’t know how to say it, and they don’t feel comfortable. To be able to do that, it just feels good.”