RENEE MONTAGNE, host:
The Los Angeles Police Department has a new crime-fighting tool. It looks like something that Captain Kirk and his crew might have used in the original "Star Trek" series. This device was developed by the Pentagon for U.S. soldiers now serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.
As NPR's Mandalit del Barco reports, it could come in handy in lots of L.A. neighborhoods where English is rarely spoken.
MANDALIT DEL BARCO: Outside LAPD headquarters, Captain Dennis Kato shows off the department's newest gadget.
Captain DENNIS KATO (Los Angeles Police Department): It's called the Phraselator. It's not a translation device. It's not something that I can actually speak into and have it convert my voice or my language.
DEL BARCO: Instead, Captain Kato says, the Phraselator is a handheld electronic device downloaded with prerecorded phrases and commands.
PHRASELATOR: Hands behind your back.
Cpt. KATO: Now it's going to play in Arabic.
PHRASELATOR: (Speaking foreign language)
Cpt. KATO: We'll go to Cantonese now.
PHRASELATOR: (Speaking foreign language)
Cpt. KATO: Spanish.
PHRASELATOR: (Speaking foreign language)
Cpt. KATO: And then the last one was in Vietnamese.
PHRASELATOR: (Speaking foreign language)
DEL BARCO: Kato says more than half of today's LAPD officers are Spanish speakers and some speak Korean or Chinese dialects, but they're not always available. And in a city where more than 260 languages are spoken, the captain says this device can help officers meet the challenge.
Cpt. KATO: I can either give orders or I could - if you can answer by pointing, that's what the device is used for. So if say - can you show me which way the suspect ran, then at least you can - she could point down the street.
DEL BARCO: Responses by witnesses or suspects can be recorded onto the Phraselator to be translated later. The main idea is for police to use the Phraselator for crowd control, to avoid the kind of chaos that happened last year during the huge May Day immigration rights march.
Police in riot gear use batons and rubber bullets to sweep through MacArthur Park, trying to disperse the crowd. Dozens were hurt, including Spanish-speaking immigrants and news people.
Cpt. KATO: One of the difficulties at MacArthur Park is that we used a helicopter to disperse the crowd, and it wasn't very intelligible to the crowd that was on the ground. And most of the demonstrators were Spanish-speaking. We only did in it in English. So when we started looking at what kind of tools we had that can help, we came across this Phraselator.
PHRASELATOR: Welcome to this event. We are here to facilitate your First Amendment rights.
DEL BARCO: Are you going to translate what First Amendment rights means?
Cpt. KATO: Or would we explain that out on this device? No, we didn't do that.
DEL BARCO: So how are they going to know?
Cpt. KATO: That's a good question. That's something that we're going to put in here. And that's a valid question.
DEL BARCO: The LAPD is still working out the kinks on four test devices, priced at $2,500 each. They can be hooked up to powerful speakers to project sound for up to half a mile away.
Cpt. KATO: Now, this speaker allows us to communicate with the crowd.
Unidentified Man: (Speaking foreign language)
DEL BARCO: Sergeant Eric Lee projects this order from speakers mounted on the LAPD's other new gizmo, a four-wheel drive buggy that can go over curves and sidewalks.
Sergeant ERIC LEE (Los Angeles Police Department): It's a souped-up golf cart, if you want to say that, for going over a whole wide array of terrain. I mean it's such a large city that, you know, we go from the mountains literally to the sea.
DEL BARCO: The LAPD now has four of these $35,000 vehicles. They're also equipped with video cameras and electronic billboards to visually project information or commands.
PHRASELATOR: (Speaking foreign language)
DEL BARCO: The LAPD is hoping its new technology will help officers cope with an old problem - making themselves understood.
Mandalit del Barco, NPR News.
INSKEEP: To hear the Phraselator say hands behind your back in five languages, go to NPR.org.