The Embattled Chief

When then-General Counsel Daniel Steiner '54 chose 26-year Boston police veteran Paul E. Johnson to be Harvard's police chief in 1983, he made the choice largely on one criterion: professionalism.

Johnson, who had served as director of training and education for the city's force, was a paragon of professionalism. And Steiner said he wanted, above all else, "a professional police department here."

"A lot of people with more command experience, higher rank, applied for the job at Harvard," says Boston Lt. Det. Richard C. Cox, who now occupies the same corner office Johnson used when the chief was the area police commander for sections of Roxbury, North Dorchester and Mattapan. "I happen to be privy to the fact that after Paul's interview at Harvard, they basically stopped looking."

Ten years later, Johnson, who turns 63 this year, is considering retiring to his home on Martha's Vineyard, police department sources say. Johnson has long told acquaintances that a decade at Harvard would be enough, although his current boss, General Counsel Margaret H. Marshall, says she has not discussed retirement with him.

If he leaves on December 6-the date he was hired in 1983--Johnson will bequeath to his successor a department very much like the one Steiner wanted when he hired him. By nearly all accounts, Harvard police are more professional, have better facilities and hire and retain far better educated officers than they did a decade ago.

Johnson, then, has made Steiner's vision a reality, but the chief may leave a department that is bitterly divided over charges of discrimination and on-the-job harassment in its security guard unit. Many employees say internal relations are bad and frequently bitter, though police officers have a better working relationship than do the guards.

"As a commander, I have respect for him," says one department employee. "But as an overseer of department policy, he is uninformed of the atmosphere and the conditions we're working under."

Some of these conditions may be race-related, though the extent of such troubles within the ranks is hotly debated. Johnson has insisted there is no racism in his department, suggesting that such a problem would be inconceivable in an office where the chief is Black.

"How could I, as a Black man, tolerate a racist supervisor?" Johnson said in an interview last year. "That wouldn't make any sense."

Sources within the department, however, say Johnson has long ignored hints of racial troubles, and the department--particularly the security division--is now beginning to pay the price. Some have dubbed Johnson "No Waves," suggesting he is content if the department is running smoothly even when a tempest is storming beneath the surface.

Even those who agree that the department fairly treats its employees blame Johnson for not being assertive enough in his job.

"I think he's too mellow," says one guard. "I think he's just riding the tide to retirement."

Even Manager of Operations for Security Robert J. Dowling, whom Johnson has defended in the face of allegations of harassment and discrimination in the security guard unit, said in a February interview that he would like the chief to assert himself more.

Some veteran Johnson watchers see this criticism as symptomatic of a larger problem with Johnson's management style.

"Decision-making: He's not too good at that," says one longtime Johnson friend. "He paul E. Johnson has been a police officer for nearly four decades. He has been everything from a patrol officer to an area police commander. In December, he will complete his tenth year as the chief of the Harvard University Police Department. He is known for his consummate professionalism, but whenever he has faced problems on the job, police department employees say Johnson has always followed one simple rule: tends to vacillate and find a way to get by day by day."

Johnson did not return phone calls seeking comment for this story.

Paul E. Johnson has always been a hard man to know. Even does friends say they are not privy to the simplest details of his private life.

"Paul has always been a little aloof," says the longtime Johnson friend, who believes the chief's hands-off leadership style may have to do with his upbringing. "The people don't know him that well."

Johnson has been a police officer for nearly four decades. He quietly worked his way up through the ranks, gaining promotion in sergeant in the Boston police force in 1975, according to his former collage, Cox.

Johnson was later appointed to the position of deputy superintendent and became commander of Area, B, which includes the crime-ridden neighborhoods of Roxbury and Mattapan.

Those who worked for him at Area B remember Johnson as a competent, quiet manager who instituted few changes in policy and always followed procedure to the letter.

"His main thing would be his demeanor," says Cox. 'He always spoke softly with measured speech, never raised his voice, never threatened or cajoled."

Johnson's major challenge in Boston was dealing with the city's growing drug trade, which became increasingly sophisticated in the late '70s and early '80s.

William "Billy" R. Celester, now the director of police in Newark, N.J., says he worked with Johnson one the only major new effort during the chief's command in Roxbury: forming alliances with the federal government to fight the drug trade.

"We put together coalitions with the federal agencies," says Celester, who was night commander then while Johnson worked days. "It allowed us to go past city and state boundaries."

Celester says there was no politics in Johnson's decision to leave his Boston post in 1983 to become Harvard's chief.

"He just thought it was a good opportunity to be going to Harvard," Celester says.

But Cox and others have different recollections. They say Johnson, a longtime supporter of former Mayor Kevin H. White, had to leave because incoming Mayor Raymond L. Flynn was likely to find Johnson a replacement as deputy superintendent.

"I think it was more political itself," Cox says now of the decision to leave. "With Ray Flynn coming in, I think he saw he was going to be affected by that clean sweep."

Replacing then-Harvard Police Chief Saul L. Chafin, now the police chief at Tennessee's Vanderbilt University, would not have been an easy task for anyone. But for Johnson, it was especially tough. Chafin, according to department employees of the time had a much more open style of manager then Johnson.

Chafin was known for getting in the faces of employees who deviated from his wishes. At the same time, he was an outgoing man who was friendly and approachable, officers says. By one count, Chafin had five going away parties.

"When [Chafin] walked through the Yard, people knew him," says one senior police official. "The officers don't know Johnson."

For one thing, Johnson has no strong lies to Harvard. His social friends were more likely to include Democratic movers and shakers than Harvard police officers or administrators, and he lives in Milton, not Cambridge.

While Johnson focused on his day-to-day policing responsibilities, many of the problems that would come to divide the department festered, particularly in the security division. Periodic negotiations between management and the police and security guards unions often inflamed tensions, officers and guards say.

But equally as troublesome was outside criticism. The Harvard police department has repeatedly been accused of singling out Black students for harassment during Johnson's tenure. But even in these cases, students and administrators refrained from criticizing Johnson even as they lambasted the officers he supervised.

"I think our chief, Paul E. Johnson, has made a very great effort to sensitize his department," Director of the Harvard Foundation Dr. S. Allen Counter said after a fall 1987 meeting with Johnson to discuss alleged police harassment. "He has really worked hard at that. He shares the students' concerns."

In each public case, though, the chief has defended his officers' actions and cast doubt on student complaints.

In spring 1989, Harvard police were present as Cambridge police stopped a shuttle bus and removed two Black undergraduates who were suspected of shoplifting at Rix Pharmacy of JFK St. After the two students were searched without anything being found, police officers from both forces left without any explanation.

Johnson said Harvard police later arrested a white suspect in the incident, and insisted police had done nothing wrong. He has said he believes that Harvard police officers only stop people when they look suspicious, and that his officers never break the law.

But, in the 1989 case, Johnson received half-hearted backing from the Harvard administration. After a rally by about 250 students, administrators and faculty to protest what they called racial harassment, General Counsel Daniel Steiner '54 issued an apology to the two Black students, although he defended the conduct of the Harvard police as being within procedural guidelines.

In 1990, gay members of the Harvard community criticized the police department after a slew of arrests of several men in a Science Center bathroom for zalleged "lewdness." He met with members of the gay community and was praised for his role in increasing dialogue, but again, he defended his officers' conduct.

After security guards removed high school debaters from Sever Hall one night in the spring of 1991, Harvard debate coach Dallas G. Ferkins said University police had engaged in misconduct.

Nothing that security guards and no police officers were involved. Johnson denied the charges, but then went one step further. He accused the debate coach of a "set-up" to discredit the police, but refused to explain further.

But perhaps the strongest criticism of Johnson's officers was the most recent. Last spring, the Black Students Association distributed a flyer to undergraduates citing four cases in which Harvard officers allegedly mistreated students because of their race.

In interviews, Black students and Harvard police officers gave similar accounts of specific cases but disagreed on whether the incidents constituted racial harassment. The officers, in particular, said they were generally understanding of the students' concerns, but Johnson blasted the flier for inaccuracies.

"I felt the need to address the specific charges made by the Black Students Association," Johnson said in May. "There are glaring misstatements in the flyer--errors of fact."

This latest round of incidents left minority students, once strong supporters of Johnson, damning him with faint praise.

In particular, they suggest Johnson isn't sufficiently sensitive to the attitudes of the officers who work under him.

"I'm sure [Johnson] has good intentions, but I questions whether a racist officer would express his racism openly and overtly in front of him," Black Students Association president Zaheer R. Ali '94 said in an October interview.

Some employees suggest that department insensitivity has been abetted by a lack of minorities in the upper ranks of the department. All sever Harvard police lieutenants are white, they note. And Johnson's record of promoting and hiring minorities is, at best, mixed.

While four of the department's 13 sergeants are Black, all of them were promoted before Johnson became chief. In fact, of the eight senior officers promoted by Johnson who have remained with the department, none are members of a racial minority.

Of the 24 officers currently on the force who were hired by Johnson during his tenure at Harvard, two are Black, four are women, and one is Asian-American. But until last year's crop of new officers, the Harvard police had no more Black officers on the force then when Johnson first became chief.

N issue the chief has faced highlights problems of racial insensitivity in the department more then the current crisis in the security guard unit over charges made by seven former and current minority guards last May that they were discriminated against and harassed by their supervisors, who work under Johnson.

Johnson strongly defended his supervisors, who have denied the charges. He said the charges were old and had been properly investigated. He criticized The Crimson for reporting a dead issue.

At the same time, Johnson moved quickly to seek out and discipline whomever had leaked documents to The Crimson detailing the charges.

Immediate suspicion centered on security guard Stephen G. McCombe, a longtime employee and union steward in the guard unit.

According to McCombe and department sources, Johnson dispatched Sgt. Edward Greene to write up a police report for stolen documents--even though McCombe says he had not reported anything stolen--so that the police could search The Crimson for the documents.

"Greene told me Chief Johnson had sent him." McCombe said in an interview in February. "They might have been trying to put pressure on someone for possession of stolen property."

McCombe says Greene left without writing a report, saying there was no crime to be investigated. Then, in an October letter, Johnson again asked McCombe about any possible stolen documents, McCombe says.

And while Johnson continued to say the charges of harassment and discrimination had been looked at thoroughly, it was revealed that then-University Attorney Diane Patrick, who conducted an investigation of the guards' complaints last spring, did not interview any of the guards making charges.

In September, Johnson gave hints that he might be approaching the controversy differently. He named Kevin Bryant, a Black officer with race relations experience, to serve as a resource to the guards. Johnson maintained that there was nothing more than a "perception" of racism at the time, but many guards say they don't feel comfortable approaching Bryant.

Later in September, Johnson said that Donald P. Behenna, a security supervisor who had been the subject of some of the guards' charges, had undergone "retraining and admonishment" two years ago because of his behavior on the job. Behenna has refused to answer questions from The Crimson.

In February, Johnson fired a Russian guard who had been one of the seven charging harassment. The guard, who had a history of disciplinary problems, had been involved in a fight with another guard in the security officer Harvard Police Lt. John E. Rooney said his investigation was "not completely conclusive in finding who had started the incident.

People on both sides of the dispute say Johnson could have averted troubles by making standards of discipline clear and being more involved in the operations and personal decisions in the unit.

"It's important to realize that the chief of police has the responsibility to establish guidelines for who you can hire as supervisor of guards," says a police officer. "He's never done that."

It was just this quiet, withdrawn style of management that allowed Johnson to rise in the ranks of the Boston Police force. It was this style of management that prompted Harvard to hire him in 1983.

But it was also this style that employees say is at the root of many of the department internal problems. These employees many of whom consider themselves friends of Johnson--way there is a lesson here. A lesson for the police, a lesson for Steiner, a lesson for the University, but, above all, a lesson for Johnson: Internal problems must be confronted head-on, even if it means making waves.

"I don't think the chief asserts himself enough," says one department veteran. "When you're in a leadership position, sometimes you have to delegate authority. But sometimes you have to find out what's really going on."CrimsonAs Chief, Johnson has frequently responded to student complaints of police harassment (pictured here in February 1992).

Johnson did not return phone calls seeking comment for this story.

Paul E. Johnson has always been a hard man to know. Even does friends say they are not privy to the simplest details of his private life.

"Paul has always been a little aloof," says the longtime Johnson friend, who believes the chief's hands-off leadership style may have to do with his upbringing. "The people don't know him that well."

Johnson has been a police officer for nearly four decades. He quietly worked his way up through the ranks, gaining promotion in sergeant in the Boston police force in 1975, according to his former collage, Cox.

Johnson was later appointed to the position of deputy superintendent and became commander of Area, B, which includes the crime-ridden neighborhoods of Roxbury and Mattapan.

Those who worked for him at Area B remember Johnson as a competent, quiet manager who instituted few changes in policy and always followed procedure to the letter.

"His main thing would be his demeanor," says Cox. 'He always spoke softly with measured speech, never raised his voice, never threatened or cajoled."

Johnson's major challenge in Boston was dealing with the city's growing drug trade, which became increasingly sophisticated in the late '70s and early '80s.

William "Billy" R. Celester, now the director of police in Newark, N.J., says he worked with Johnson one the only major new effort during the chief's command in Roxbury: forming alliances with the federal government to fight the drug trade.

"We put together coalitions with the federal agencies," says Celester, who was night commander then while Johnson worked days. "It allowed us to go past city and state boundaries."

Celester says there was no politics in Johnson's decision to leave his Boston post in 1983 to become Harvard's chief.

"He just thought it was a good opportunity to be going to Harvard," Celester says.

But Cox and others have different recollections. They say Johnson, a longtime supporter of former Mayor Kevin H. White, had to leave because incoming Mayor Raymond L. Flynn was likely to find Johnson a replacement as deputy superintendent.

"I think it was more political itself," Cox says now of the decision to leave. "With Ray Flynn coming in, I think he saw he was going to be affected by that clean sweep."

Replacing then-Harvard Police Chief Saul L. Chafin, now the police chief at Tennessee's Vanderbilt University, would not have been an easy task for anyone. But for Johnson, it was especially tough. Chafin, according to department employees of the time had a much more open style of manager then Johnson.

Chafin was known for getting in the faces of employees who deviated from his wishes. At the same time, he was an outgoing man who was friendly and approachable, officers says. By one count, Chafin had five going away parties.

"When [Chafin] walked through the Yard, people knew him," says one senior police official. "The officers don't know Johnson."

For one thing, Johnson has no strong lies to Harvard. His social friends were more likely to include Democratic movers and shakers than Harvard police officers or administrators, and he lives in Milton, not Cambridge.

While Johnson focused on his day-to-day policing responsibilities, many of the problems that would come to divide the department festered, particularly in the security division. Periodic negotiations between management and the police and security guards unions often inflamed tensions, officers and guards say.

But equally as troublesome was outside criticism. The Harvard police department has repeatedly been accused of singling out Black students for harassment during Johnson's tenure. But even in these cases, students and administrators refrained from criticizing Johnson even as they lambasted the officers he supervised.

"I think our chief, Paul E. Johnson, has made a very great effort to sensitize his department," Director of the Harvard Foundation Dr. S. Allen Counter said after a fall 1987 meeting with Johnson to discuss alleged police harassment. "He has really worked hard at that. He shares the students' concerns."

In each public case, though, the chief has defended his officers' actions and cast doubt on student complaints.

In spring 1989, Harvard police were present as Cambridge police stopped a shuttle bus and removed two Black undergraduates who were suspected of shoplifting at Rix Pharmacy of JFK St. After the two students were searched without anything being found, police officers from both forces left without any explanation.

Johnson said Harvard police later arrested a white suspect in the incident, and insisted police had done nothing wrong. He has said he believes that Harvard police officers only stop people when they look suspicious, and that his officers never break the law.

But, in the 1989 case, Johnson received half-hearted backing from the Harvard administration. After a rally by about 250 students, administrators and faculty to protest what they called racial harassment, General Counsel Daniel Steiner '54 issued an apology to the two Black students, although he defended the conduct of the Harvard police as being within procedural guidelines.

In 1990, gay members of the Harvard community criticized the police department after a slew of arrests of several men in a Science Center bathroom for zalleged "lewdness." He met with members of the gay community and was praised for his role in increasing dialogue, but again, he defended his officers' conduct.

After security guards removed high school debaters from Sever Hall one night in the spring of 1991, Harvard debate coach Dallas G. Ferkins said University police had engaged in misconduct.

Nothing that security guards and no police officers were involved. Johnson denied the charges, but then went one step further. He accused the debate coach of a "set-up" to discredit the police, but refused to explain further.

But perhaps the strongest criticism of Johnson's officers was the most recent. Last spring, the Black Students Association distributed a flyer to undergraduates citing four cases in which Harvard officers allegedly mistreated students because of their race.

In interviews, Black students and Harvard police officers gave similar accounts of specific cases but disagreed on whether the incidents constituted racial harassment. The officers, in particular, said they were generally understanding of the students' concerns, but Johnson blasted the flier for inaccuracies.

"I felt the need to address the specific charges made by the Black Students Association," Johnson said in May. "There are glaring misstatements in the flyer--errors of fact."

This latest round of incidents left minority students, once strong supporters of Johnson, damning him with faint praise.

In particular, they suggest Johnson isn't sufficiently sensitive to the attitudes of the officers who work under him.

"I'm sure [Johnson] has good intentions, but I questions whether a racist officer would express his racism openly and overtly in front of him," Black Students Association president Zaheer R. Ali '94 said in an October interview.

Some employees suggest that department insensitivity has been abetted by a lack of minorities in the upper ranks of the department. All sever Harvard police lieutenants are white, they note. And Johnson's record of promoting and hiring minorities is, at best, mixed.

While four of the department's 13 sergeants are Black, all of them were promoted before Johnson became chief. In fact, of the eight senior officers promoted by Johnson who have remained with the department, none are members of a racial minority.

Of the 24 officers currently on the force who were hired by Johnson during his tenure at Harvard, two are Black, four are women, and one is Asian-American. But until last year's crop of new officers, the Harvard police had no more Black officers on the force then when Johnson first became chief.

N issue the chief has faced highlights problems of racial insensitivity in the department more then the current crisis in the security guard unit over charges made by seven former and current minority guards last May that they were discriminated against and harassed by their supervisors, who work under Johnson.

Johnson strongly defended his supervisors, who have denied the charges. He said the charges were old and had been properly investigated. He criticized The Crimson for reporting a dead issue.

At the same time, Johnson moved quickly to seek out and discipline whomever had leaked documents to The Crimson detailing the charges.

Immediate suspicion centered on security guard Stephen G. McCombe, a longtime employee and union steward in the guard unit.

According to McCombe and department sources, Johnson dispatched Sgt. Edward Greene to write up a police report for stolen documents--even though McCombe says he had not reported anything stolen--so that the police could search The Crimson for the documents.

"Greene told me Chief Johnson had sent him." McCombe said in an interview in February. "They might have been trying to put pressure on someone for possession of stolen property."

McCombe says Greene left without writing a report, saying there was no crime to be investigated. Then, in an October letter, Johnson again asked McCombe about any possible stolen documents, McCombe says.

And while Johnson continued to say the charges of harassment and discrimination had been looked at thoroughly, it was revealed that then-University Attorney Diane Patrick, who conducted an investigation of the guards' complaints last spring, did not interview any of the guards making charges.

In September, Johnson gave hints that he might be approaching the controversy differently. He named Kevin Bryant, a Black officer with race relations experience, to serve as a resource to the guards. Johnson maintained that there was nothing more than a "perception" of racism at the time, but many guards say they don't feel comfortable approaching Bryant.

Later in September, Johnson said that Donald P. Behenna, a security supervisor who had been the subject of some of the guards' charges, had undergone "retraining and admonishment" two years ago because of his behavior on the job. Behenna has refused to answer questions from The Crimson.

In February, Johnson fired a Russian guard who had been one of the seven charging harassment. The guard, who had a history of disciplinary problems, had been involved in a fight with another guard in the security officer Harvard Police Lt. John E. Rooney said his investigation was "not completely conclusive in finding who had started the incident.

People on both sides of the dispute say Johnson could have averted troubles by making standards of discipline clear and being more involved in the operations and personal decisions in the unit.

"It's important to realize that the chief of police has the responsibility to establish guidelines for who you can hire as supervisor of guards," says a police officer. "He's never done that."

It was just this quiet, withdrawn style of management that allowed Johnson to rise in the ranks of the Boston Police force. It was this style of management that prompted Harvard to hire him in 1983.

But it was also this style that employees say is at the root of many of the department internal problems. These employees many of whom consider themselves friends of Johnson--way there is a lesson here. A lesson for the police, a lesson for Steiner, a lesson for the University, but, above all, a lesson for Johnson: Internal problems must be confronted head-on, even if it means making waves.

"I don't think the chief asserts himself enough," says one department veteran. "When you're in a leadership position, sometimes you have to delegate authority. But sometimes you have to find out what's really going on."CrimsonAs Chief, Johnson has frequently responded to student complaints of police harassment (pictured here in February 1992).