Rapping With the Cambridge Cops

IT'S NOT everyone that can get a parking ticket while they are talking to the chief of police. But, of course, I did, and in case you're superstitions, it was Friday the 13th.

I am not superstitious, but like many Americans- especially the young- I am Icery of the vast majority of policemen that I come in contact with. It is paradoxical that so many people actually fear that body of men whose primary function is to protect them. Perhaps this is because black demonstrators in Birmingham, black rioters in Watts and Newark, and student demonstrators in Chicago and in college administration buildings have discovered the uneasy feeling of being hit over the head by a billy club. Indeed, the estimation of policemen has been steadily declining among the young people in America, as is perhaps best shown by the popularization of that not altogether complimentary catch-phrase, "pig."

I have never been clubbed by a policeman, I was not around for University Hall last April, I was not teargases at the Justice Department in Washington. Yet as I walked toward the Cambridge Police Station- an odd-shaped, four-story building on Western Avenue that doubles as head-quarters for the Cambridge VFW and American Legion- I felt an inexplicable, and totally unfounded, anxiety. The closer I got to the station, the more convinced I became that I didn't really want to talk to the chief in the first place. Surely he didn't want to talk to me. Whatever the reason, I did not want to go into that police station.

JAMES REGAN took over as chief of the Cambridge Police Department 20 months ago. Since then, he has worked mainly towards solidifying the organizational structure of the department. Although he has initiated no sweeping reforms, he says he realizes that "any agency- including a police department- has to be flexible." I met Regan for the first time in his second-floor office, and knowing that he did not have much time to spare, I tried first to determine the relationship between Harvard and the Cambridge police. His answers were vague at the outset- "We have certain responsibilities. Our relations with Harvard and the Harvard police are excellent"-but he opened up when he realized that I was seriously interested in his department, and was not a CRIMSON reporter out to get the Cambridge cops. You see, he was leery of me as well.

As we walked down the hall to the Training and Planning Bureau, Regan tried to explain briefly the structural breakdown of the department. Soon I was staring at a large board that places each of Cambridge's 246 policemen in one of six bureaus. By the time I left this room two hours later, I was loaded down with organizational charts, daily manifolds (bulletins outlining the day's activities for each shift), the general statement of the Massachusetts Police Training Council, and a lengthy paper on "the role of the community in the development of police systems." This all seemed strange when Regan told me that "police work is an extremely closed society, and therefore we have to be careful about giving out information."

As he went over the organization chart, Regan pointed out that the department is oriented toward dealing with a large number of transients. Because Cambridge is bounded on all sides by college and university communities- M.I.T., B.U., Tufts, and Harvard- there is an inordinate amount of movement in and out of the city. The situation is complicated because large centers of student activity invariably attract outside groups and hangers-on.

Regan stopped to introduce me to Detective George Powers, a graduate of Boston University who taught in Boston schools for two years before joining the department in 1966, and he was soon excusing himself to attend a meeting. Along with Pat Cochran, a 12-year veteran of the force. Powers forms the staff of the Training and Planning Bureau.

The first class of the Cambridge Police Academy graduated in 1947, and as Powers put it, "in those days, they just handed you a gun and a club and sent you out on the street." Today, the minimum training requirement for Massachusetts policemen is 210 hours of instruction. The Cambridge academy, at which Powers is an instructor, works the 210 hours into a six-week course.

"Six-weeks still isn't a very long time, but it's certainly an improvement over the old days," Powers said. "Because time is short, the emphasis in training is on the responsible use of firearms and a thorough knowledge of criminal law. There is, for instance, a fine line of distinction between felonies, for which an officer must arrest someone, and misdemeanors, for which he may arrest you, but doesn't have to."

Powers pointed out that one of the greatest problems of any police force (including Cambridge's) is not being able to educate its officers in community relations and human psychology. A wrong arrest at the wrong time can only worsen the already shaky relations between police and the community.

"Police come from low income and low middle class groups in most instances," he said. "They have a different set of values, and as a result, their responses are often very different. For many violence is just another way to settle a dispute."

ONE solution is education. Under funds supplied by a federal grant, more than 40 Cambridge policemenare now attending Northeastern University on a part-time basis, and 22 lieutenants are enrolled at Boston College. College credits and degrees are subsequently rewarded with corresponding pay increments.

"Most police aren't educated in social psychology," Cochran, one of the 40 now attending Northeastern, said. "But police are becoming more educated overall. It used to be that policemen learned by experience only, and they did a beautiful job. But now there are more well trained officers, and there is more competition within the department to excel. Education can have an enormous effect as far as changing viewpoints is concerned."

Cambridge is unusual in that it has no problem recruiting policemen. More and more people are beginning to fed that they would not want to enter police work, especially the group that is most important to the upgrading of police standards- college students. Most police departments are experiencing ??? acute shortage of qualified trainees, and Cambridge is one of the few that can concentrate on ???? men from minority ?? ????.

While there are only live blacks on the Cambridge force at present. Powers said that a conscious effort- an effort that can do much for improving community relations- is being made to recruit black and Spanish policemen. There are ??? instance ??? blacks in the present academy class that ??? ??? ??. This is despite the fact that ?? all those taking the civil service examination required for admittance into the police academy, only 10 per cent are black. Powers said that ??? the Cambridge department will approach the distribution in New ???-where ??? third of the force is black-in the ???? future.

An ??? to the ???? of a ???? black to white ??? is that the Cambridge department has an extremely small annual turnover. In fact, there are presently 20 men on the Cambridge auxiliary force, a figure that most other departments look up-on with unabashed ????. Powers accounted for the permanency of the force by saying. "We have a small turnover because the pay is excellent and Cambridge is a nice place to work." It is true: Cambridge policemen have been the highest paid in Massachusetts until this year, when Boston's starting salary of $10300 surpassed by $100 that of Cambridge. And yet. Boston has an ??? personnel problem.

THIS, however, is not hard to explain. "Cambridge is attractive because it's in the middle." Powers continued. "That is, as opposed to Boston, where it can be really rough in certain areas, or a small town, where there is no action at all." A further advantage is that new policemen in Boston are usually assigned to the ghettos- a policy that is in itself questionable because new policemen, being inexperienced, are least well-equipped to handle highly-tense situations- while there are no particularly "tough" areas in Cambridge. The worst project in Cambridge- Columbia Point- is mild compared to most Boston ghettos.

Many, if not most, Cambridge policemen are Cambridge residents, and are content with the opportunities provided by the department. They are reluctant to leave the department, and few in fact do. As we dwelled on this point, I suddenly realized that Cochran was trying to recruit me. "Have you ever considered police work?" he asked, half jokingly, but three-quarters seriously. He had hit on an interesting, and vital point. "Can you imagine the impact if, instead of going into the Peace Corps or VISTA, Harvard graduates put in two years in a patrol car. Or they could circumvent civil service and join other departments as consultants or specialists. What would you think of patrolling Harvard Square from midnight to 8 a.m.?"

Because of the constant movement in and out of Cambridge, auto theft and breaking and entering are the highest incidence crimes. At the same time, major crimes such as robbery, assault, rape, and murder are scarce. Anvone who has been mugged while walking by the Charles or strolling through the Common will immediately realize that these figures are relative to a sky-rocketing national crime rate: but as an example, on March 12, there were 84 auto thefts and five cases of breaking and entering reported in Cambridge, and no major crimes. Such a record would be highly unusual for most cities of comparable size. A government Youth Resources Grant is now being applied specifically to auto theft and "breaks" in Cambridge.

Not surprisingly, one of Cambridge's greatest problems is controlling the tremendous daily influx of automobiles into the city. A survey two years ago revealed that Cambridge is 15 miles short of curb space necessary to accommodate the parking needs of these autos. While moving violations pose only a slight problem- how fast can you go in Cambridge anyway:-five sergeants in the Traffic Bureau dole out over 250,000 parking tickets within the city limits every year. Many of the violations are flagrant- double-parking, triple-parking, parking by fire hydrants- and habitual offenders, figuring that they will pay less for parking tickets over a 12-month period than they would for garage space, are not hard to find.

Sooner or later, the conversation had to turn to University Hall. (I suppose that was one of the main reasons for my being there in the first place.) What was it like pouring into the Yard at 5 a.m.? "Most of the guys didn't want to go in, period," Powers said. "The police would rather have the administration take care of the students, have them resolve their differences among themselves. But when they do call the police in, the police have to respond."

THE eviction at University Hall last April was the classic example of unregimented riot control. The Cambridge police that were involved in the raid, unlike the State Troopers present, had not been adequately trained in crowd control, and that most important of qualities when dealing with crowds, restraint, was absent in their conduct. This, however, was not entirely their fault. Because they were not well-trained, the Cambridge policemen were not psychologically prepared to deal with the students that confronted them at University Hall. They did not remain in a unit- one of the basic tenets of riot control- and when isolated against a group of students, they responded in the only way they knew- with their billy clubs. As Powers pointed out, many think of violence as another means to an end Cambridge policemen come in great part from "low income, low middle class groups" where arguments are settled in the traditional way of violence. And again, the lack of higher education is of immeasurable importance.

This, precisely, is why a total of 78 Cambridge policemen are presently attending Northeastern and B.C., and it is why last summer, Cambridge followed the lead of many other police departments throughout the United States by creating a "Tactical Force." The men on the Tactical Force are selected for their even temperament and for their ability to relate to other people. They are trained in crowd control- to stay in a unit at all costs; they are taught restraint under pressure, and they are shown the limits of tolerance before response. The success of a Tactical Force. Powers conjectured, is embodied in the striking contrast between the University Hall incident and the SDS sit-in at M.I.T. last November. At M.I.T., the Tactical Force responded to the demonstrators as a disciplined unit, and consequently a major outbreak of violence was averted.

"Sure we're more conscious of riot training now," Powers said. "Severe repression scares me; people getting hurt worries me. It's better to be trained. Just look at Chicago- groups of police with all sorts of hang-ups were going after isolated people. It should have never happened. Both groups were wrong."

Just as the conversation had turned to University Hall, so did it drift to drug use. "Everywhere drugs are a problem," Cochran began. "Our main concern here is not so much the college kids as the outsiders who are selling hard drugs to high school kids and some that are even younger. These kids have no idea what they are taking; at least at the colleges, there are juniors and seniors who know what these drugs will do to you, and can tell freshmen about dosages and effects before they start experimenting."

"Hard" drugs and impure drugs have begun to infiltrate the high school market with greater frequencyin recent months, and drug raids in Cambridge are now averaging more than two a month. Most busts are directed at dealers, and not at high school users. The thrust of the raids is to stifle the flow of impure and addictive drugs- especially heroin- to small children. The number of heroin addicts of high school age and under has risen rapidly during the past year and a half throughout the country, and as Cochran put it, "It's a sad situation when eight- and ten-year-olds are dying of overdoses of heroin. And it is not hard to imagine what lengths these kids that are addicted will go to get a fix."

A BUST at Harvard is hard to imagine, but this does not necessarily mean that the Cambridge police are unaware of the drug traffic within the Harvard community. But they are wary of any involvement here for two reasons. One is that, theoretically. Harvard property is under the jurisdiction of the Harvard police; the other stems from a passage in the General Laws known as Section 120, Chapter 266- the same one that applied at the University Hall bust- that outlines "trespass after notice" on private property. In other words, the Cambridge police cannot enter a Harvard dormitory or evict students from a Harvard building without first being called in by the Harvard administration. Even then, in the case of a building occupation, they cannot act until a Harvard official orders the students out of the building in the presence of the police.

I thought it was funny when, after I had evaded any discussion of the morality of drug use, Cochran looked at me with perfect frankness and asked. "Well, what do you know about drugs at Harvard." "Not much." I replied, and went on to the next point.

"A gun has a very psychological effect." Cochran said. "I don't think that the average policeman in the street will walk without a gun. And anyway, most officers have shot their weapon only in practice." I was wondering if either he or Powers foresaw the day when policemen in Cambridge, or anywhere in America, would no longer carry guns. Obviously, it is not likely that that day will ever come. But what changes are forthcoming in police departments within the next decade?

The main emphasis will be on education. "We can't underestimate the importance of community relations." Powers said. "And the best way to insure good relations is to establish participatory community relations programs and to educate the police. To a great degree, we are all social workers, and to be effective, we need more men with backgrounds in social relations and sociology."

Policemen in upcoming years will have to be increasingly adept at adjusting rapidly to changing social values and standards. And they will have to be more diplomatic. "There are some policemen today." Powers explained, "who will see a group of kids congregating on a street corner, and will go up to them and say 'Get the fuck off the cornerl'All this does is destroy any rapport the police might have with these kids, and in areas like that around Harvard Square, it would be disastrous. Others would be gentle, but firm, with the kids. Through education and training programs, we have to make sure that something like the first case never happens."

Respect for police authority- and policemen- is at a low ebb among the young people in Cambridge, not unlike most communities throughout the country. Cochran conjectured that participation in demonstrations and disregard for the police is "fashionable." "Too many people think that because a man puts on a uniform, he doesn't have a personality or feelings." he said.

"It's funny, though, how rapidly a person's viewpoint changes when he's in danger and needs the help of the police. But most kids are against the police these days. All they think is, 'For Chrissakes, will they ever leave us alone?'"

As I walked out of the station after a tour of the building and the first floor jail, I could not help but wonder how representative of American policemen Powers and Cochran are. Obviously, they are both in the Training and Planning Bureau- of which community service is a sub- unit- because they are articulate, they recognize the shortcomings of police departments as they are today, and they want to improve the lot of these same departments. I think probably that they are fairly typical of Cambridge policemen, but I am hesitant to enlarge this generalization to police in cities like Chicago where the term "pig" first came into use. This duality poses a difficult problem: there is a barrier between police and young people that has to be dissolved, and soon. But if there was one thing that I learned from Powers and Cochran, it was that police at least deserve the benefit of the doubt.