ENGLISH SYNTAX SEMINAR

Instructions for the following practices:

1. Translate the practice into Spanish. You may use dictionaries.2. At least a day after you translated the document, take the Spanish version

(your translation) and translate it into English.3. Compare your English translation with the original practice. Watch out for

prepositions, word order, tenses, and so forth. Correct your mistakes. Payattention to your mistakes. Identify the area that you need to work on.Review those areas (ie. prepositions, word order, etc.)

PRACTICE #1

A Seattle police officer punched a teenage girl in the face after she shoved himduring a confrontation Monday afternoon in an incident that was captured by awitness on video.KING 5 News purchased the video and aired a brief clip at the top of its 10 p.m.news broadcast on KONG TV and later, at the top of its 11 p.m. report on KING.The video shows an unnamed officer trying to control the hands of a 19-year-oldwoman. A 17-year-old girl appears to try and break his grip. The 17-year-old thenpushes the officer away. The officer responds by punching her in the face.Seattle police spokesman Sean Whitcomb said he had not seen the video lateMonday but the officer’s report made clear he was trying to gain control of apotentially explosive situation. It developed after the officer saw the twoteenagers jaywalking, police said.A large crowd had gathered in the 3100 block of Martin Luther King Jr. WaySouth and “I do know we had verbally hostile people at the scene, and at leasttwo people who were being physical,” Whitcomb said. “Every officer will handle asituation differently depending on what they see and what they perceive.”Whitcomb said punching is part of the repertoire of techniques officers are taughtto use when a situation gets unruly. Police said the officer in this case believedone teenager was “attempting to physically effect the first subject’s escape.”The two young women were both arrested — one on charges of obstructing anofficer, the other on investigation of assault on an officer, according to police.The arrests come seven weeks after a high-profile incident in which two officerswere caught on video kicking and stomping a prone robbery suspect. One officerkicked the man while he was lying on the sidewalk and shouted, “I’m going tobeat the [expletive] Mexican piss out of you, homey. You feel me?” Officers laterlet the man go after they realized he was the wrong person.Police said Monday’s incident began about 3:10 p.m. when the officer wasdriving north along Martin Luther King Jr. Way. The officer saw an 18-year-oldman jaywalk across the busy street about 15 feet from a pedestrian overpass.

After the officer stopped the man, he saw four women jaywalk at the samelocation and ordered them to come over to his patrol car, police reports say. Atthat point, the women became verbally antagonistic, and one turned and beganwalking away, police said.When the officer approached her and began escorting her back to his car, thereport says, she tensed and pulled away, ignoring his order to put her hands onthe patrol car. By then, a crowd had gathered.Police said the officer then began trying to handcuff her.A 2-minute, 46-second version of the video posted on KING 5’s website appearsto begin at this point, and shows the younger woman approach the officer.After the officer punches her, a witness in the crowd can be heard exclaiming“Are you serious? Are you serious?” Another man in the crowd finally pulls the17-year-old away from the officer.The officer continues to wrestle with the 19-year-old for a few minutes beforefinally handcuffing her and placing her in his car. He also later arrested thewoman he had punched.Whitcomb said no one was seriously hurt, and he didn’t see anything in theofficer’s report that would suggest he handled the situation inappropriately.“Officers are confronted with different situations all the time,” Whitcomb said

PRACTICE #2

A Chicago police officer shot and wounded a man who they said had opened fireon him on the South Side Monday night, police said.At about 9 p.m., Calumet Area Gun Team officers tried to conduct a fieldinterview with a male in the 6900 block of South King Drive, according to astatement from police early Tuesday morning.As the officers approached and identified themselves as police, the man ran,police said. The officers gave chase into a vacant lot in the vicinity of 6900 S.Vernon Ave. As one officer emerged from the lot, he was met by the suspect,who opened fire. The officer fired back, striking the suspect, according to thepolice statement. The nature of his wound was not available.Paramedics took the critically wounded suspect to Advocate Christ MedicalCenter in Oak Lawn, fire department spokesman Quention Curtis said.Further information about the suspect was unavailable, said Chicago policeNews Affairs Officer Hector Alfaro

PRACTICE #3

Legislation now before the House Judiciary Committee is just a paragraph long,but it has set off a major battle between firearms owners and law enforcementauthorities who want to reduce gun violence, especially in Philadelphia.State Rep. Bryan Lentz, a Delaware County Democrat who’s running for acongressional seat in suburban Philadelphia, has introduced House Bill 2536,aimed at ending the “Florida gun loophole.” It would prevent Pennsylvanians who

have been denied a Pennsylvania license to carry a concealed firearm (or havehad their Pennsylvania permit revoked) from simply getting a license fromanother state.The proposed legislation would prohibit Pennsylvania residents from exploitingwhat Mr. Lentz calls a loophole in current law, a provision that lets them obtain alicense to carry from another state.Mr. Lentz said his bill is needed “to ensure that local authorities retain controlover the [firearms] permit process and that Pennsylvania residents who aregranted a license to carry have met the standards of our state and not those ofanother state, whose standards may be less than ours.”Residents of other states can now carry concealed weapons in Pennsylvania ifthey have permits issued by their home states.Florida has been a popular state for Pennsylvanians to use the end run on gunpermits. It has issued about 3,000 weapons permits to Pennsylvanians, in partbecause many vacationers and “snow birds” from the Keystone State go there forthe beaches, sun and Disney World.However, Mr. Lentz said, many Pennsylvanians who get Florida permits have“absolutely no connection” to the Sunshine State — they merely go there onlineor through the mail.Pennsylvania law requires a person to be licensed in order to carry a concealedweapon on his person or in his vehicle. No permit is required to openly carry afirearm.But Pennsylvania permits are not issued by the state police or another stateagency. They’re given out by the county sheriff in 66 Pennsylvania counties andby city police in Philadelphia.Philadelphia has had serious problems with gun-related violence and killings foryears, which police are trying to stop.Mr. Lentz cited a case where a man was arrested in a rental car at thePhiladelphia airport. There was a loaded weapon in the car trunk and anothergun concealed on his person. The man had had his Pennsylvania licenserevoked.While the legal proceedings were still pending, Mr. Lentz said the man “obtaineda Florida ‘license to carry’ by mail. He was subsequently stopped by Philadelphiapolice in a car with another loaded firearm. There was no arrest, however —even though his Pennsylvania ‘license to carry’ had been revoked — because henow had a Florida license to carry.”But groups representing firearms owners are opposed to the Lentz bill, saying itwill unfairly impinge on the rights of gun owners who have been accused of acrime but not yet convicted.Kim Stolfer, director of Firearms Owners Against Crime, contended that the bill isjust part of Mr. Lentz’s campaign for Congress. “It’s political theater,” he said.He said that a Pennsylvania firearms’ permit can now be revoked if a person issubsequently arrested on a charge unrelated to guns, such as driving whileintoxicated. He said the current system gives county sheriffs and Philadelphiapolice too much leeway and subjectivity in deciding whether to deny or revoke afirearms permit.

State law lists about 15 reasons for denying a permit, including denying one for“an individual whose character and reputation is such that the individual would belikely to act in a manner dangerous to public safety.”Such criteria is far too vague and gives too much latitude to a sheriff to deny aweapons permit, Mr. Stolfer said. Also, a person shouldn’t have a firearms permitrevoked based merely on an arrest; that step should wait until there is aconviction.“This bill will let authorities take action based merely on an accusation,” he said.“Our system of justice is based on the presumption of innocence.”Joe Grace of CeaseFirePA, who supports the Lentz bill, said that inPennsylvania, county sheriffs and Philadelphia police “look at a person’s‘character and reputation’ before issuing a permit. Florida doesn’t have thisrequirement to look at character and reputation. That is a key difference betweenthe two states.”That’s why, he added, a number of Pennsylvania residents who have “criminalbackgrounds, prior arrests or protection from abuse orders against them,” can’tget a Pennsylvania license to carry “but can get one in Florida. By going toFlorida, we think it does an end run around Pennsylvania law enforcement.”Mr. Lentz insisted his bill is not related to his campaign for Congress, adding, “It’san effort to help law enforcement. Ask the Western Pennsylvania police chiefs,who have endorsed the bill, and the sheriffs association and police chiefs inDelaware County. Getting a permit from Florida is essentially a ‘get-out-of-jail-free card’ for criminals.”

PRACTICE #4

Police were searching for a man who shot and killed an off-duty Maryland statetrooper working security at a Prince George’s County restaurant early Friday.Trooper Wesley Brown, 24, escorted a disorderly customer from an Applebee’son Thursday evening and when he left the restaurant around 12:40 a.m. Friday,State Police Superintendent Col. Terrence Sheridan said that customer shot him.Brown, who was wearing a jacket that clearly identified him as a police officer onthe back, was talking on the phone in the parking lot of the restaurant and wasshot without warning, Sheridan said.Brown was taken to a local hospital where he was pronounced dead, police said.Police closed the road to the shopping center where the shooting took placeFriday morning with cruisers, vans and yellow police tape.Some Applebee’s employees who were at the restaurant when the shootingoccurred were just leaving Friday morning after being there all night, but declinedto be interviewed.Brown’s death has devastated the trooper’s law enforcement and personal familyand the community he protected, Sheridan said.“These men and women put their lives on the line and when this happens it goesagainst our society, it goes against everything we stand for,” said Sheridan, whovisited the scene with Gov. Martin O’Malley on Friday morning.O’Malley said that for now, police must focus on finding the shooter.

“There’s no way to make sense of a murder like this of a dedicated 24-year-oldtrooper who was doing his job and out there on the streets for us,” O’Malley said.Brown was assigned to the Forestville barracks and was recently engaged to bemarried, Sheridan said.State Police spokesman Greg Shipley said Brown was working off-duty. Manytroopers do security work as part-time jobs, but it must be approved by the statepolice command, he said.Police were searching the area for the gunman.

PRACTICE #5

An unarmed black man killed by a transit police officer on a train platform nearSan Francisco last year was scared of being shot with a Taser stun gun,harkening back to a prior run-in with police that led to his arrest.Carlos Reyes, who testified about shooting victim Oscar Grant on Monday,fought back tears as he watched a video of himself sitting several feet away fromwhere Grant was shot in the back.It was the second time in three days in which a friend of Grant was overcome byemotion during testimony at the trial of former Bay Area Rapid Transit officerJohannes Mehserle, who has pleaded not guilty to murder.The case has stirred racial tensions – Grant, 22, was black and the 28-year-oldMehserle is white.Mehserle was among several BART officers who were called when Grantbecame involved in an altercation aboard the train that arrived at Oakland’sFruitvale station on New Year’s Day 2009.On Monday, Reyes viewed one of the videos and said he looked away for asecond when he heard the gunshot that killed Grant as he was lying face down“I kept telling him it was going to be OK,” Reyes recalls telling Grant. “I told him,‘Keep your eyes open.’”Reyes, 22, testified he heard Mehserle say moments after the shooting, “‘Oh(expletive), I shot him.’” Mehserle resigned shortly after the shooting.Last week, Jamil Dewar turned away from a large television screen and begancrying after hearing the gunshot. Dewar, 17, was consoled by his mother who ranto him while he was on the witness stand.Other people who saw the events leading up to the shooting also said they weredeeply affected. Lydia Clay, who was with three friends on the train, said she was“upset and angry” that Grant had been shot.“Because it should have never happened,” Clay said.Defense attorney Michael Rains has maintained that Mehserle meant to pull outhis Taser stun gun instead of his .40-caliber handgun when he shot Grant. In hisopening statements, Rains said Mehserle told fellow BART officer Tony Pironebefore the shooting, “Tony, Tony, Tony, I can’t get his hands. I’m going to tasehim.”Pirone was fired in April.

Prosecutors believe Mehserle did intend to shoot Grant and that he used hisweapon because officers were losing control of the situation.

Instructions for the following practice:

1. Read the Spanish version (one segment at a time). While doing it, askyourself how you would translate that segment into English (you may eventranslate the segment on a separate piece of paper).

2. Compare your translation with the English version on this document.3. Watch out for prepositions, word order and tenses.4. Continue the above steps for all the segments included in this practice.

Practice begins on the next page.