Citizens Assail Police Conduct

The Cambridge Police Department has become the object of distrust and anger within several segments of the community following charges lodged by citizens over the summer of police brutality and racial discrimination.

In recent weeks, members of local tenant groups, black organizations and white neighborhoods have scored the police for failing to enforce the laws uniformly and for engaging in "racist activities."

Antagonism between the Police Department and the community surfaced following these summer developments:

* On July 11, a black man named Clarence Anderson was chased on his motorcycle by two white police officers from Cambridge to Malden and then allegedly punched and kicked by the officers. Anderson suffered a serious injury to his right eye and lost a tooth in the alleged beating. On July 31, a Third District Court judge found Anderson guilty of failing to stop for a uniformed police officer and for operating a motor vehicle in a manner that would endanger the lives of others.

* On July 31, five black patrolmen--the only blacks on the 250-man Cambridge force--filed a class action suit in federal court against Cambridge Mayor Walter J. Sullivan, the city manager, the Cambridge City Council, the State Civil Service Commission and the State Civil Service Division. The police officers said they are being denied promotions "due to the racial practices and policies of the defendants." They seek a court order to have all eligible black patrolmen promoted to sergeant and to force the city to implement an "affirmative action" plan for police recruitment and promotion. A special three-judge panel led by Frank M. Coffin, chief of the First Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, will hear the case before September 30.

* On the night of August 15, two North Cambridge youths, one black and one white, died from gunshot wounds sustained in a neighborhood scuffle. Police arrested and charged a black resident, J. Hugh Price, with murder and manslaughter in the two deaths, but did not file charges against any other persons involved in the melee.

* Two other instances of alleged police abuse occurred this summer involving black victims and white police officers. A maintenance worker at Walden Square said he tried to stop a fight on a July afternoon when a patrolman set his attack dog after him. In another incident an East Cambridge man was assaulted by a gang of white youths and he alleges he was refused aid when he called Cambridge police.

Concern about police abuse groups that confronted Cambridge city councilors July 11 and September 9 to appeal for action to remedy the alleged "racist police behavior."

At the early September council meeting, an ad hoc Coalition to Combat Racism called for the resignations of Police Chief James F. Reagan, City Manager James L. Sullivan and several police officers, saying that "the issue of racism [is] of sufficient importance that there is no one so powerful or so removed that they can stand on the sidelines and watch as some citizens in this city literally go through hell."

The group, representing 12 local organizations, also asked the council to create a citizen investigative unit to study the practices of the Police Department. A plan submitted by the group stipulated that the proposed unit be supported entirely by city money and that all members be chosen from the Coalition to Combat Racism. The council has not yet taken the matter under serious consideration.

The request for an independent investigative unit reflected a growing dissatisfaction many citizens have expressed over the methods now available to clear or indict police officers on charges of abuse and brutality.

The Clarence Anderson case spotlighted the process of "internal investigation" carried out by police. Department investigators recorded testimony from police officers and witnesses to the Anderson incident and stored the tapes in the office of the police planner. Police confirmed later that a person entered the office on August 21 without authorization and apparently listened to the tapes. The Boston Globe reported last month, however, that tape interviews with eight policemen were stolen. The police would neither confirm or deny that story.

Police Capt. Francis Pisani, who headed the police investigation, said last week that his staff is now transcribing some of the tapes for a final report, destined for the police chief's desk. He refused to say what the report will recommend.

Anderson already has been turned away from court twice for failing to produce sufficient evidence to warrant a suit against police officers Francis Burns and James F. Hallice. Anderson's attorney, William P. Homans Jr. '41, said recently, "I think that the denial shows that with certain judges it's impossible to get justice when black people and members of the police force are involved."

Dr. Raymond Liggio, who treated Anderson after the July incident, told The Crimson in August that his examination showed Anderson's eye was struck by a blunt object. He said a pupil defect observed in Anderson's eye may indicate permanent damage to the optic nerve.

The police account of the incident accuses Anderson of struggling with officers Burns and Hallice and resisting arrest. The police also say Anderson injured his eye when he fell off his motorcycle while swerving to avoid hitting a police squad car.

Community dissatisfaction with police intensified with the handling of the black patrolmen's federal court suit. Members of the Coalition to Combat Racism were disturbed when Mayor Sullivan on Aug. 19 denied charges of racial discrimination in police hiring and promotion practices. Sullivan said, "When I was mayor in '68, we gave them [blacks] the opportunity. We provided programs for those minority people, but they never went through with them."

The black patrolmen charged that police officials made an unwarranted reduction in the number of openings for the rank of sergeant and that the reduction was motivated by a desire to keep blacks out of upper-level positions. There has only been one black sergeant in the department's history.

Four of the five patrolmen took civil service tests in April and were among the 73 persons listed as eligible for promotion. The blacks scored 92.38, 90.16, 81 and 89.52 on a 100-point scale. The highest scoring black patrolman, Calvin J. Kantor, ranked twentieth on the civil service eligibility list.

In the suit, the patrolmen argued for promotion under provisions of a state "selective certification" rule that allows civil service positions requiring "special qualities" to be given to persons who may be outranked on a civil service list. Although the rule has been used primarily for women and bilingual persons, the patrolmen said the rule applied to them, since their ability to relate to the Cambridge black community constituted a "special quality" needed by the police force.

The response of some city councilors to the black patrolmen's complaint angered community groups including the local chapter of the NAACP and the Cambridge Tenants Organizing Committee, as well as many white civic leaders. Council independents Daniel Clinton, Walter Sullivan and Thomas Danehy made public statements last month that led one civic group to charge "racism" in the city council.

Danehy has submitted an order, still under council consideration, that would affirm council opposition to the concept of selective certification, have the city pay for an attorney used by police in the federal suit and censor Councilors David A. Wylie and Saundra Graham for "public actions which tend to defame the Cambridge Police Department."

At a July city council session, Danehy said selective certification smacked of "reverse discrimination." He said there is no justification for promoting black patrolmen "who happen to be so low on the list that to appoint them would throw the departmental table of organization out of line."

Danehy's action led the Cambridge Chronicle to publish an unusually strong editorial criticizing city leaders for making "nothing but platitudes and meaningless blanket statements." The paper also called Danehy's order "wholly unconstructive, thoughtless, and inflammatory" and asserted that the city badly needs more minority group representation.

"Where the fault for this situation lies--in Police Department attitudes, civil service structures, the community's disposition as a whole, or all of these--does not matter in the end," the paper said. "What does matter is that it be remedied promptly."

Danehy said there is no justification for promoting black patrolmen 'who happen to be so low on the list...'