Boston College Student Paper Will Sue B.C. Campus Police

Boston College's daily student paper, The Heights, will file suit against the campus police in Middlesex County Superior Court Monday, charging that police refusal to release their daily logs violates two Massachusetts laws.

Police logs are closed "to protect confidentiality" of victims and their assailants, whose names are included with details of the crimes in the logs, Kevin P. Duffy, vice president for student affairs at B.C., said yesterday.

Police regularly give reporters "a complete report minus the names" of the information in the log, he added.

However, Stephen H. Reynolds, an editor of The Heights, said that reports from students and from confidential sources in the police department suggest that there is more violent crime, including rape, at B.C. than official police statistics indicate.

The college presents itself as a "safe, idyllic, pretty campus," Reynolds said, adding that The Heights feels a responsibility to report "the severity, frequency, and circumstances" of campus crime "as accurately as possible" so that students will not put themselves in dangerous situations out of ignorance.

The Heights is filing suit under the Massachusetts Freedom of Information Act and the Daily Logs/Public Records Act, which state that police logs are a matter of public record, Reynolds said.

But Duffy said that the police are not obliged to release their logs because B.C. is a private institution.

The Acts "have not been interpreted in the case of a police force which is part of a private institution," Reynolds said, adding that B.C. students' knowledge of whether the campus is safe or not hinges on public information.

At Harvard, reporters are allowed free access to University Police logs, which record every incident the police are involved in, Saul L. Chafin, chief of police, said yesterday. "I like the way we do it because I think it is a good press relation between us and the students," he added.