Racism and the Police

In October 1972, two white youths--Lawrence Largey and Thomas Doyle--were placed under arrest by several Cambridge police officers. Within hours, Lawrence Largey was found dead in his cell. A subsequent autopsy disclosed recently inflicted internal and cranial injuries.

Later that month the City Manager John H. Corcoran appointed Paul J. Liacos, Boston University Professor of Law, as his Special Assistant in order to conduct an investigation of the events concerning the Largey arrest and death.

Prof. Liacos completed his investigation in November, 1972. His recommendations were:

1) That the City Manager initiate, either himself or through any proper municipal officer or agency, the appropriate disciplinary proceedings against Officer Peter E. DeLuca; 2) That the City Manager or the Chief of Police take such disciplinary action against Officer Rudolph V. Carbone as may be deemed appropriate in light of these findings; 3) That the City Manager or the Chief of Police take such disciplinary action against Lieutenant Anthony J. Temmalb as may be deemed appropriate in light of these findings; 5) That the City Manager and the Chief of Police take such other action in regard to findings herein made as they may deem appropriate in the circumstances, including but not limited to, disciplinary proceedings, reprimands or censures of other officers herein named in regard to their failure to effectively discharge their assigned responsibilities.

City Manager Corcoran took no steps to implement the Liacos recommendations.

The present City Manager, James Leo Sullivan, has also failed to initiate any action around this issue. No Civil Service hearings have been held. No departmental Internal Affairs hearings have been convened within the police force. The Liacos Report gathers dust and all four officers remain in good standing on the Force.

In 1972 and again in 1973 police-inspired and racial colored riots occured at the Roosevelt Towers housing project, during which several residents received serious injuries.

On June 10, 1974, Councilwoman Saundra Graham sponsored a City Council resolution whose preamble stated that there is "racial friction" within the Police Department, and that Cambridge has a record of brutality against blacks."

It is interesting to note, in this regard, that until a few months ago the 250-man Cambridge Police Department had only five black members and now has only ten. There are no black sergeants, lieutenants or captains. Five black patrolmen recently instituted a civil suit against the City of Cambridge and the Police Department, charging discrimination in the recruitment and promotion procedures within the Police Department.

The complaint issued by the five black patrolmen states that: "Despite an unprecedented increase in reported serious crimes in Cambridge during the past eight years, city officials have both refused to substantially increase the number of black patrolmen and superior officers and have at the same time reduced the number of supervisory police personnel so as to avoid the promotions of the plaintiffs."

On August 15, 1974, two young men were shot to death on Mead Street. The killings followed months and months of harassment of the Price family by gangs of white youth. Mrs. Clorae Everteze, Cambridge Civic Unity Committee, Mr. Alvin Thompson, Special Assistant to the city Manager for Community Affairs and Councilwoman Graham made numerous pleas to the present and former City Manager to do something so that the Price family might live in peace.

Letters were written to Chief Reagan asking him to do his job. (Including the removal of Captain Burke's son as a participant in the continuing harassment.) The police Chief and the present City Manager were told that a tragedy was brewing. Nothing was done, and two people died needlessly.

Mr. Price is now on trial in the third district court for first degree murder of one youth and for manslaughter of the other--Jay Hugh Price, Jr.--his own son. It is supremely ironic that one week to the day before the killings occured, Mr. and Mrs. Price took the initiative to hold a hearing in the municipal clerk of court's office in order to have warrents sworn against their tormentors. No warrents were sworn and up to date not one of the white youths--all of whom are well known to the police--have been charged or arrested with anything. Not even disturbing the peace.

It is, therefore, reasonable to lay the death of Lawrence Largey, James Moree, Jay Hugh Price Jr, the Roosevelt Tower riots and injuries, the loss of Clarence Anderson's eye, and the costly civil suit by the five black policemen, at the feet of the former and the present City Manager and Police Chief Reagan.

As a consequence of this duplicity, malfesance, brutality and racism, the Coalition to Combat Racism emerged in late August 1974.

On Sept. 9, the coalition presented several demands to the City Council and succeeded in placing those demands on the Council agenda for debate and response the following week.

Those demands included:

* We call upon the City Manager to fire the Police Chief or to admit he is incapable of managing the city and to resign.

* The racist and brutal police behavior that we find objectionable and reprehensive is typified by police officers like Burns, Hallice, DeLuca, McCarthy, Boyle, Loder, and Hussey. These officers should be removed from the city payroll for cause.

* Captain Cusack, as head of the Bureau of Internal Affairs, is responsible for investigating charges of police misconduct. Seventy cases have passed across his desk within the last year. Yet not a single police officer has been disciplined. Captain Cusack should be removed for cause.

* The City Council should empower a public citizens' investigative unit--whose members would be named by the Coalition to Combat Racism--to look into the practices of the Police Department. This Citizens' Investigative Unit would have full powers in order to make it effective and capable of delivering the kind of report and recommendations that will deal with the question of racism and brutality in the Cambridge Police Department.

The following Monday, the Coalition and its supporters were treated to a weird show as council members alternately reflected, whined, pontificated and obfuscated the issue concerning the Coalition's new demand that the hearing and debate of the demands presented the previous week take place at the Martin Luther King School so that the community might listen and participate.

The final answer, as might be expected, was negative.

On Monday, Sept. 23, the Coalition returned to the Council for a hearing and debate of its demands. The Council was packed with community residents. In an opening statement from the Coalition, the Council was told that: "The fact of our presence here tonight points up and concretizes the failure of city government in Cambridge."

The statement went on to declare that "as inflation continues and prices rise even higher; as unemployment continues to rise; as housing options, especially for the poor, decrease and rental rates increase; as the campaign to scuttle rent control continues; as this council continues to hand Cambridge over to Harvard and M.I.T. (the Holy Trinity--Harvard claiming two-thirds of that equation); you can rest assured that serious and potentially dangerous activity between citizens and police will dramatically increase--and that increased activity will take on profound racial as well as economic features."

"All the more reason why citizens must make the City Manager accountable; why citizens must make the City Council something other than a weekly debating society (in public) and a vehicle for cronyism, career advancement and the care and feeding of friends and relatives (in private).

"Citizens must also make it plain that the police apparatus--from the Chief on down--is supposed to be designed as a support mechanism in the social order. It is not designed in order to beat someone's eye out--as in the Anderson case. It is not designed to close its collective eye to the anguished months--long cries for help before dreadful, unnecessary and racially-inspired killings occur--as in the Price family case."

What transpired at and resulted from this citizen-packed City Council hearing?

Chief Reagan announced to an astonished Councilman Wylie that: "There is a direct correlation between excellent police work and the number of brutality charges brought against an individual officer."

Both Chief Reagan and City Manager Sullivan declared lack of knowledge as to when the now recovered Anderson tapes would be transcribed and an Internal Affairs Hearing could begin. The Council failed to pin the Chief and the City Manager to a specific timetable, and completely dismissed the Coalition demand that additional clerical assistance be hired to complete the transcription in order to commence a public hearing on the Anderson case within ten days.

Both Chief Reagan, City Manager Sullivan, and the Council refused to address themselves to the recommendations as contained in the Liacos investigation of the Largey case.

Both the Chief, the City Manager and the Council swore and pleaded as to the impotency of their office when it comes to dismissing misbehaving officers. According to them, they are powerless to do other than hope, trust and pray that the Civil Service Commission will take action.

As for Captain's Cusack's Internal Affairs track record of five hearings held and no officer dismissed or disciplined out of seventy-odd official complaints of police misconduct--nothing! No response whatever except for a suggestion from Councilman Wylie and City Manager Sullivan that the International Association of Police Chiefs make a second visit to Cambridge in the course of their current investigation of the Cambridge Police Force.

The demand for a citizen's investigative unit, after much debate, backing and filing was tabled on a legalistic note until next week.

The City Manager, Chief Reagan and most members of the City Council are mechanical blocks of concrete. They are incapable of human responses. One gets the feeling that if you step on their toes a memo or some pre-fabricated oral rendition will issue from their mouths like a bubble gum ball from a penny candy machine.

On the way out the door, City Manager Sullivan complimented me on my presentation. As if that were the point. Such maddening nerve! Such insufferable arrogance! Such inability to comprehend the scope of community needs and desperation!

There is no need to make doomsday predictions. Neither the City Manager, the City Council nor the Chief of Police will read or hear for meaning until it is too late.

In the meantime, the City Council has approved, on the City Manager's suggestion, a $60,000 grant from the Committee on Criminal Justice, Dept. of the Commonwealth of Mass., for a Police-Community Task Force Program that was thoroughly repudiated by significant segments of the Cambridge community a year and one-half ago.

Calvin Hicks is a member of the Coalition to Combat Racism, a faculty member of Staten Island Community College, and a Program Planner at the Institute of Learning and Teaching, University of Massachusetts at Boston.

Mayor Sullivan's Statement

Walter J. Sullivan submitted the following to The Crimson as his "full statement" on the police civilian investigative unit:

I am opposed to the proposals of the Coalition to Combat Racism.

The statement that was issued by the Coalition on September 7, 1974 was in itself racist; and in my opinion, served only to increase tensions, not decrease them.

I would suggest that the members of the Coalition look closely at the cooperation that took place in our sister city of Boston during the height of the busing situation.

This is the kind of cooperation that I support and the city of Cambridge should strive for.

"...The City Manager, Chief Reagan and most members of the of concrete. They are incapable of human responses."

"...Chief Reagan anounced...that: 'There is a direct correlation between excellent police work and the number of brutality charges brought against an ...officer."

"...until a few months ago, the 250-man Cambridge Police Department had only five black members and now has only ten. There are no black sergeants, lieutenants or captains."