Giving Back to the Community

At a corner table in the House of Blues last month, University General Counsel Anne Taylor and Harvard Police Chief Francis D. "Bud" Riley reflected on one of their hardest days at Harvard.

With Taylor's blessing, Riley had just fired all seven of his department's lieutenants--the middle managers who were the last obstacle to his overhaul of the Harvard University Police Department (HUPD).

"It's bittersweet," Taylor said of the firings. Each lieutenant had spent more than decade on the force. "I'm incredibly excited about the future."

But Taylor's optimism is not universal. As Riley's new approach to policing envisions a force of "tutors with guns," old ideas about policing are dying hard at 29 Garden St.

Older officers complain that "community policing" makes them more like security guards than real cops. Union contract talks have stalled, two lawsuits are pending against the department, and Riley has been criticized for communication problems.

And so, while campus crime declines and experts endorse Riley's approach, HUPD's internal turmoil may force Riley to remake the department in order to rule it.

Cops Without a Cause

HUPD--like the University that it protects and serves--has never been free of controversy. From the earliest days of the organized department, when Robert Tonis was chief in the late 1960s and early 1970s, black students had accused HUPD officers of racial discrimination. Complaints of police brutality were fairly common.

HUPD's beat was far more dangerous then than it is now, and accordingly the department was structured like a municipal police force.

Most of the force's 52 officers patrolled the campus on foot during this time. The command structure included 17 sergeants, two lieutenants and one captain below the chief.

One survey called HUPD a "reactive" force during the 1970s, essentially aimed at being in position to flood a crime scene with officers immediately after a crime was reported.

Foot chases were common. One senior lieutenant remembers once running all the way to Somerville to catch suspected robbers.

Minor changes took place in the late '70s, as HUPD took more officers off the beat and into patrol cars. But the department's focus remained reacting to serious crime.

In 1983, the University hired Paul E. Johnson as chief. He made a few structural changes but was known as "No Waves" because he avoided making decisions that would upset anyone.

Johnson was not popular. Union problems and accusations of wastefulness were compounded by accusations that Johnson, himself black, had allowed a climate of discrimination to grow within the force.

In 1987, the department was slapped with a $2,000,000 civil rights suit filed by two black Cantabrigians who claimed HUPD had discriminated against them.

In 1992, student Inati Ntshanga '96 filed suit against the University, claiming that HUPD officers falsely arrested him. The campus community saw the incident as an example of HUPD's overaggressiveness toward members of minority groups.

Several lawsuits later, after interminable departmental headaches, and a personal illness, Johnson retired.

The crime wave of the late '70s and early '80s had subsided. Traditional police work--collaring the bad guys--was no longer a daily fact of life for HUPD cops

Cops began to complain that they were bored on the beat, reduced to taking daily joy rides on the few campus-area roads they were allowed to patrol. Officers started responding without sanction to calls in nearby areas of Cambridge, raising the ire of city officials.

The time had come for a new chief--and a new style of policing that made more sense for Harvard's quiet campus.

New Chief, New Philosophy

University officials chose community policing--a philosophy of law enforcement propounded by criminologists in the late '70s and early '80s and catechized in 1982 into a pragmatic philosophy by James Q. Wilson, then a professor of government at Harvard, and George Kelling, now a professor at Rutgers University.

This philosophy makes crime prevention--and, more specifically, preventing an environment which fosters crime--the major focus of a police force.

Community police try to get to know those in their community, making sure windows get fixed and lawns are kept up. Petty crimes like shoplifting and vandalism are scrutinized as signs of a larger problem.

Harvard administrators chose this as the new mission of the once hard-bitten HUPD.

With this mission in mind, in February 1995 the University began to search for a new police chief. Job postings were sent out nationwide, bringing in applicants ranging from military sergeants to top crime administrators.

One resume stood out.

A certain lieutenant colonel in the Massachusetts state police had made a name for himself by diversifying his force.

Francis Riley was seen as "progressive," a can-do manager eager to try new ideas and work with people. Better still, Riley was familiar with Harvard. He had completed a masters degree in public policy from the Kennedy School of Government in 1990.

He got the job and reported for work in January 1996. As one of his first acts in office, Riley had the bullet-proof glass which stood between HUPD officers and visitors to 29 Garden St. removed. The "Fortress on Garden Street" already had a new human touch.

Riley implemented a slew of new initiatives in the first months of his tenure. Bike patrols were established. An HUPD substation was opened in Weld Hall in the Yard.

Riley convened a student-police advisory board to increase student input in HUPD matters. He announced that two other substations would open. He helped to organize the Safety Walk program, which provided student escorts for late-night travelers.

By October of his first year, Riley had decided on the kernel of his policing philosophy: a team-based approach. Groups of officers permanently assigned to the River Houses, the Quad and the Yard would be responsible for crimes committed in their respective areas.

Hail to the Chief

Last year Taylor sought to evaluate the progress of Riley's efforts, commissioning a study by Kelling, the founding father of the community policing idea.

Kelling, credited by many with spurring the near-miraculous overhaul of the New York City Police Department, had never undertaken a study of such a tiny department and says he knew from the beginning that he would face problems.

He worried that his probe would exacerbate internal tensions. Still, he got to work, interviewing dozens of officers, managers, and University officials.

"Frankly, I was frustrated because I didn't have an opportunity to interview students more directly," Kelling says.

What Kelling found in the course of his three-month investigation mostly vindicated Riley.

Once-routine complaints like racism and aggressive force were virtually non-existent. Crime was down. House masters and University personnel had little but effusive praise for Riley and his efforts.

"It was hard to find critics of the chief and the new policing model outside of the police department," Kelling reported.

HUPD Blue

But Riley's vision did not and still does not sit well with the HUPD rank-and-file, many of whom are holdovers from the pre-Riley era and don't know what their role should be in the new system.

Two groups--young officers who had just been hired and the department's middle managers--told Kelling that Riley's new policing style was farcical and dangerous.

The younger officers "were feeling quite frustrated," Kelling says, with being told that they were too aggressive.

"[Y]ou have basically very good officers with not a whole lot of work to do," he says.

The sworn officers took pains to separate their work from that of Harvard's security guards.

"The police department being part of `Harvard University Police and Security' threatens some officers to the extent that they deeply resent that their business cards and stationary mention even security," Kelling wrote in his report.

Approached on Mt. Auburn Street on a May morning, five officers visibly recoiled when asked their opinions about HUPD's restructuring.

"I can only think of four letter words," one officer said.

"I think it's only supported by the upper ranks of the department," said another.

In another interview, George White, the president of the HUPD officers' union, said, "You don't want to hear what I'd have to say" about the changes. He declined further comment, citing ongoing contract negotiations.

Many officers mentioned Riley's hiring of former state police officers to fill paid consultant positions. Others questioned Riley's skills as a communicator, recalling incidents when Riley dressed them down for petty offenses.

"This concern is voiced enough that it must be taken seriously," Kelling wrote.

Riley admits that he has a hard edge but says it is only in response to an intransigent department bureaucracy.

"For any one of my naysayers, I could point in the direction of people who are very happy and very enthusiastic members of the department," he says.

Tarnishing the Brass

Riley's decisions and leadership--not a man to seek or heed consensus, his critics charge he makes decisions by himself and fails to justify them to others--have led to a number of other internal problems in the same time.

According to multiple sources, when he arrived Riley soon asked his lieutenants and sergeants a simple question: "What do you do here?"

The answers didn't please him. "It seemed to me that I had a lot of people that didn't know what they were doing," Riley said.

From this, he says, came the impetus for a restructuring that concluded with the firing of the seven lieutenants last month.

But one fired lieutenant who asked to remain anonymous said Riley took a "hands-off" attitude towards his managers from the beginning of his tenure.

"He never included the lieutenants. We were excised from the beginning," the lieutenant said.

In another unpopular personnel move, Riley brought in Nelson Ostiguy, whom he had known in the state police, as a "consultant" and head of the detective division and special operations.

In making this move, Riley demoted a long-serving HUPD lieutenant. This move was followed by charges that he had hired a crony at the expense of a department insider.

In the fall of 1996, Riley removed Sgt. Kathleen Stanford and Lt. John F. Rooney from their posts as head of the Criminal Investigations Division (CID), replacing them with newly made Sgt. Richard W. Mederos.

Although Mederos was seen as a "can-do" officer who was popular with his colleagues, Riley's treatment of his senior staff upset many veteran officers in his departments even though both Stanford and Rooney had requested transfers from the position.

The third internal tempest involved Riley's creation of a senior deputy position--captain of the department. HUPD had had several captains during its three decades of existence, but the position had not been filled for several years.

On Sept. 25, 1996, Riley gave the job to Jack Stanton, a highly respected HUPD watch commander.

Several lieutenants charged that they had been passed over for the position because of personality conflicts with Riley. They further charged that Stanton was unqualified and noted that he did not hold the recommended college degree.

"[Stanton's] experience was an over-whelming factor putting him in for that position," Riley said. He said the degree provision was only a "preference."

One lieutenant, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said he and three other colleges filed an internal grievance against HUPD for mishandling the captain's search.

And, finally, Riley's biggest move was to remove the lieutenants, who he characterized as dead weight in a department that refused to adapt to his new policies.

Several of the fired lieutenants dispute the charge that they resisted Riley's policy changes from the beginning.

"He's fostered the idea that everyone was resisting. That's not true. He had made his mind up that he wasn't going to include us into the [community policing] program," said one of the lieutenants.

Another fired lieutenant, who said Kelling did not interview him, said that while many of Kelling's conclusions were "accurate," they lacked context.

"Community policing is a Philosophy," the lieutenant says of Kelling's recommendation. "But police officers are still police officers. When push comes to shove, we're really a law enforcement agency."

Legal Trouble

Two lawsuits have grown out of Riley's actions in implementing community policing.

On Nov. 3, 1997, Kathleen Stanford, a veteran HUPD sergeant and former head of the Criminal Investigations Division (CID), filed a lawsuit against Riley and the University, claiming she had been discriminated against on account of her sex.

The lawsuit, filed with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination (MCAD) also alleges that Riley retaliated against Stanford.

Although MCAD would not disclose the nature of the complaint, sources with knowledge of the lawsuit say it stems from Stanford's being denied a promotion because she is female. The MCAD document cites the date of Riley's alleged violation as Feb. 6, 1997.

Part of Stanford's claim stems from an acknowledged change of policy by Riley--reducing the emphasis on state civil service exams and increasing the emphasis on more subjective factors when deciding whether to hire or promote officers.

Riley declined to comment on Stanford's suit, saying only he "unequivocally denies" any allegation of wrongdoing.

Stanford--who had once headed the prestigious CID--works an 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. shift five days a week.

She was not available for comment.

Earlier this year, Lt. Edward Sheridan filed an MCAD lawsuit charging that the University retaliated against him and denied him a promotion because he was an outspoken critic of Riley's. A duplicate lawsuit was also filed with the Cambridge Civil Rights Commission.

Riley, however, is not named as a defendant.

Sheridan declined to comment on why he filed his lawsuit--although department sources said Sheridan had had numerous arguments with Riley about policy since 1996.

Immediate Problems

The police patrol officer's association has been embroiled in a long-running contract dispute with the University. And the union that represents Harvard's security guards is no closer to a new contract of its own.

Compounding Riley's problems, 17 Harvard officers took a recent Massachusetts Civil Service Exam, ostensibly seeking employment in another commonwealth municipality.

Riley says his officers routinely take the examination, sometimes merely to see how well they can perform.

A more immediate problem is the aftermath of the lightning-quick firing of the seven lieutenants, which continues to generate fallout within the department.

New Faces

Part of Riley's plan to dig out of this crisis will be easily visible on campus this fall, as 13 new officers make their first term-time patrols.

Fresh from police academy, they bring to 19 the number of officers Riley has brought on. The new officers are handpicked and wholeheartedly sold on community policing.

These new officers will take the streets armed with a revised game plan from Kelling's report. Aside from putting more officers on patrol, Kelling recommends that HUPD reduce its reliance on squad cars.

He wants community policing sergeants like Robert A. Cooper, Robert J. Kotowski, and James McCarthy to formulate annual strategic plans.

On a patrol last month, new officer Mike Price stopped his car to shake hands with a student walking on the side of the road.

"I'm trying to meet as many people as I can," Price says.