Black Parents Accuse Police of Discrimination Against Youths

For the second time in two weeks, local parents came before the City Council last night to charge that Cambridge police officers are harassing their children because they are Black.

At 11:15 p.m. on Saturday night, a group of seven Black youths went to the 7-11 store in Central Square to buy drinks, and as they stood in front of the store, two plainclothes policemen allegedly told them to "go home to their rooms or else," parents charged.

None of the group were arrested. "But our children are being harassed, and they are afraid, and we will be at council every time an incident occurs," said one parent, who asked not to be identified.

City Manager Robert W. Healy said that Officers Bruce Cromwell and Richard Gardner told him they thought the youths were loitering and not customers at the store. Healy added that police say they only told the group to move on.

Police Chief Anthony Paolillo refused to comment on the case until he had met with both parents and his officers, but denied any racism within the force.

Parents charged that the case goes deeper because two of the youths involved in the incident had been arrested on Jan 1 in connection with an assault of a bicycle rider.

Their parents last week appeared in city council to allege that the officers had treated their children harshly and brutally in their arraignments and had arrested them without probable cause, simply because they were Black.

Parents say that at the 7-11 the officers did not identify themselves to the youths, but that one of the boys involved in the earlier incident recognized an officer and threatened to call his mother to tell her they were being harassed.

When the boy phoned and asked her to come talk to the police. Gardner and Cromwell left the scene.

"I'm concerned that my son is becoming a target because his mother has brought her complaints to this forum [of the city council]," another parent said.

The manager of the 7-11, Shanmuga Lingam, said the group was not bothering him and that he had made no call to the police.

Paolillo, however, said the officers did not know the children and left because they did not want to get the youths in trouble with their parents.

Healy, Paolillo and the parents did agree that all the participants should sit down and discuss the incident. At last week's meeting, the city council approved both a revamping of the juvenile department of the police force and a citizens' commission to review the actions of the police.

Both of these long-range solutions, however, will not take effect for several months.

Some city councilors felt the parents' actions would only alienate police officers from those they are supposed to protect.

"Right now we have a police force that cares," Councilor Thomas W. Danehy said last night. "But if we keep dragging them up here and dissecting everything they do, they will stop caring."