Tender Troopers: The Beginnings of Community Policing in Harvard and Cambridge

Even results can be deceiving.

The hard numbers suggest that both the Harvard University Police Department (HUPD) and the Cambridge Police Department (CPD) successfully combated crime this year. But behind the statistics lie two pensive police agencies, each struggling to solve internal disputes that may one day impact the communities they cover.

Total crime on Harvard's Cambridge and Boston campuses has declined more than 21percent since 1997, including a nearly 30 percent drop in bike thefts, long the most persistent thorn in the side of campus law enforcers.

Although Cambridge's crime rate edged up slightly, numbers show the city is as safe as it's been in nearly 40 years.

But, as both HUPD and CPD officials admit, crime trends can change. And so both agencies hope to revive an internal sense of mission in the year ahead.

HUPD announced its plan for the future in early May--a restructuring aimed at an implementation of community policing. University Vice President and General Counsel Anne M. Taylor fired seven career lieutenants with many decades of service to begin this internal reform.

HUPD's rank and file initially had an overwhelmingly negative reaction to the layoffs--many refused to speak with The Crimson for fear they would lose their jobs.

Even HUPD Chief Francis D. "Bud" Riley's pride and joy--several of the 13 new officers he personally trained--said the changes had not improved morale.

But other officers were optimistic, hoping that once the storm blew over, HUPD would have a revived sense of internal harmony.

Harvard students reported five instances of sexual assault to HUPD in 1998. Two of those cases resulted in the alleged perpetrators--D. Drew Douglas and Joshua M. Elster, both of the class of 2000--being dismissed from campus.

On March 10, 1999, as a campus rally designed to raise awareness of sexual violence wound up, a Harvard-affiliated woman was raped in Byerly Hall.

Police have a suspect--but don't yet have the evidence they need to make an arrest.

Early 1999 also saw a brief upswing in muggings and assaults.

Beginning on March 19, when two students were mugged and assaulted in the Mather House courtyard, six Harvard-affiliated people reported they had been the victims of violent crimes.

Less than a month after the Mather assault, HUPD arrested Kevin Morrison, a Cantabrigian, and charged him with the crime. He is awaiting trial. HUPD hopes to pressure Morrison into disclosing the identities of two other suspects in the alleged assault.

Crime prevention was the order of the day when HUPD announced a program to help combat laptop thefts.

In what law enforcement officials called "hardening the target," students were able to have a metallic plaque affixed to their laptop.

The procedure, costing about $10, would allow HUPD to track stolen laptops and, in the hopes of police officials, detour would-be thieves from hardened computers.

Ironically, the HUPD lieutenant responsible for crime prevention, William K. Donaldson, was fired in the wake of the department's May shake-up.

Cambridge saw similar problems. Although its chief, Ronnie L. Watson, was hired to implement community policing, union problems and internal dissension have impeded his vision. The union protested against "geographic assignments"--placing officers semi-permanently in specific areas to bring them closer to their community.

Racial tensions, too, are plaguing the department, according to a prominent Cambridge politician.

Still, the numbers look good. Although violent crime was up 6 percent, the city has very little crime per-capita.

House break-ins and car thefts are still major problems--Cambridge's location and 17th century road construction make it difficult to catch suspects fleeing from the city.

The number of rapes and attempted rapes remained steady--in the first quarter of 1999 five rapes were reported and all led to convictions. Stranger-on-stranger rapes were rare.

Still, crime was up in the Harvard Square area. A series of wallet thefts plagued restaurants along Mt. Auburn Street, Winthrop Street and Church Street at the beginning of the year. Police have identified two growing trends--thefts from cafes and coffee shops between noon and 3 p.m., and thefts from restaurants between 7 p.m. and 11 p.m.

Since March 7, eight people--mostly young females--have been pickpocketed in the Square area.

There was a bit of good news. The CPD arrested a 45-year-old Hyde Park man and charged him with a series of so-called "smash-n-grab" robberies in Harvard and Central Squares.

Although the overall rate of reported robberies is down 30 percent from the first quarter of 1998, street robberies continue to be common in the streets around many of the River Houses, happening with highest frequency on Cowperthwaite, Bow, Arrow and DeWolfe Streets.

But crime statistics are all relative. Blue-light phones can be found in abundance, and calls for service usually bring an HUPD officer to the scene of crime within minutes.

The campus and the city are undeniably safer that they were during the late 1970s and early 1980s, when long-time HUPD officers recall arresting suspects weekly for armed robberies.