Massachusetts Mayor Can’t Understand English, Needs Translator In Court

Massachusetts Mayor Brian DePena made waves for requesting the assistance of a translator during a court appearance on Friday.  

DePena requested that his personal assistant act as a translator during the proceedings, which the judge overseeing the hearing denied due to concerns that the staffer had not been independently verified. Because the judge and opposing counsel do not speak Spanish, it was determined that mistranslations could negatively affect the case, either intentionally or unintentionally, per The Post Millennial.

The mayor of Lawrence, Massachusetts who is from Dominican Republic gets a translator in court because he can’t understand English pic.twitter.com/9rcre4kLRN

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) December 22, 2025

The incident occurred during a Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) Commission and quickly went viral. It’s been revealed that DePena hails from the Dominican Republic and immigrated to New York in the early 1980s before moving to Lawrence, Massachusetts, in 1989. 

The hearing concerned former Lawrence Police Chief William Castro, who lost his policing credentials after a 2024 police chase and subsequent false report. Castro was accused of driving the wrong way down a city street during the chase. He later filed a report saying he was responding to an armed bank robbery. In reality, he had been going after someone who had allegedly cashed a bad check.  

Documents uncovered by the NBC10 Boston Investigators revealed that DePena tried to curtail the investigation into the acting police chief, who is a political ally of the Lawrence mayor. 

Social media users have been reacting strongly to the clip, saying it’s shocking that an elected official is not able to speak fluent English.

“How is this even real life?” one response said.

“This is absurd. We live in a parody world,” another person echoed. 

“If you can’t speak English, you shouldn’t even be eligible for citizenship, much less public office,” a third commenter wrote. “How are you supposed to represent Americans if you can’t even understand our language?”

Per census data, Lawrence, Massachusetts, is over 82% Hispanic.