Police Face Charges of Racist Arrests

Despite efforts to improve relations with students and alleviate internal disputes, the Harvard Police Department finished another year mired in controversy.

As rumors grow that he will retire, Police Chief Paul E. Johnson sits atop a department which over the past 12 months has been overwhelmed by internal disarray accused of racism and tarnished by a botched investigation into an alleged theft by two security guards.

In a way, it was a normal year for Johnson. During his 10-year tenure, his department has repeatedly been charged with mistreating Black students and discriminating against certain police officers and security guards.

A general re-ordering of the police administration is expected by some department officials. These officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, feel Johnson's declining health and the department's internal bickering make reform impossible with the existing personnel.

Late this spring, the police made a serious attempt at improving relations with the community, offering a new crime line, participating in an Institute of Politics discussion on racial concerns and playing in a student-cop softball game.

In between the bickering and public relations work, the police made several important arrests over the past academic year. Most notably, Harvard officers apprehended a notorious Faculty Club wallet theif and caught a summer employee who stole tens of thousands of dollars in rare book plates and illustrations.

The department's criminal investigations division also spearheaded an investigation of two area storage companies. The probe found that corrupt business practices had resulted in numerous thefts and losses to undergraduate property.

But the police were less successful in battling bike thieves over the past year.

According to Lt. John F. Rooney, an average of three bikes per day are stolen from the Square, which has the highest bike theft rate in Cambridge. That's a particularly troubling figure in a city recently dubbed the "bike theft capital of Massachusetts" by The Boston Globe.

Racial Tension

But the biggest story in the department came out of the 1992 arrest of a Black student, Inati Ntshanga '95. In April, Ntshanga, who is from South Africa and lives off-campus, charged that the arrest had been racially motivated.

Ntshanga was picked up for trespassing in Matthews Hall at about 6 a.m. on December 29, 1992, as he worked in the Harvard Student Agencies (HSA) linen room while listening to a portable compact disc player.

According to University Attorney Allan A. Ryan Jr., Ntshanga refused to give police his name and would only say that he had a right to be in the room because he worked for HSA.

But Ntshanga says he cooperated fully with the police after they threatened to arrest him.

Police failed to identify Ntshanga--who could not provide identification--as either a student or an HSA worker, and he was taken to Middlesex County Jail. He remained locked in a cell for about two hours before being released into the custody of Dean of Students Archie C. Epps III.

Harvard later acknowledged Ntshanga's student status, and in a brief trial he was acquitted. Last spring, his attorney, former Massachusetts Civil Liberties Union president Harvey A. Silverglate, asked Vice President and General Counsel Margaret H. Marshall to conduct an investigation.

The probe found no wrongdoing on the part of police.

But Silverglate says the "in house" nature of the investigation, which was conducted by Harvard attorney Ryan, biased the result in favor of the University.

Administrators are divided over the controversy. Epps expresses support for Ntshanga's claims of racial harassment while Johnson and Ryan main tain that officers acted in a professional manner.

But Black students have been virtually unanimous in their condemnation of the incident. Several Black undergraduates say campus cops routinely stop them without provocation.

Alvin L. Bragg '95, who recently stepped down as president of the Black Student Association (BSA), criticizes what he calls the "illegal" arrest of Ntshanga.

"The BSA has tended to publicize in the past the overt discrimination that is practiced by the Harvard University police force and almost every police force in this nation," Bragg says.

Ntshanga's arrest--Which will remain on his record despite his acquittal--has encouraged several Black students to publicize their negative experiences with Harvard police.

"There is a serious problem with regards to how some members of the police department treat Black Students on campus," says Zaheer R. Ali '94, a former BSA President.

The worst part about the alleged police harassment, Ali and other students say, is that many Black students have come to accept such treatment as a fact of life on campus.

According to Bragg, the Ntshanga case was the most significant racial incident on campus since the BSA distributed the "On the Harvard Plantation" flyer in the spring of 1992. That document charged campus police with discrimination in four other specific cases. Then as with Ntshanga, Johnson denied the allegations.

Internal Conflict

As its relations with minority communities have worsened, internal divisions within the department have also grown, sources say.

Some officers report that the department has become split into camps, with one group backing Police Lt. Lawrence J. Murphy and another loyal to Rooney, head of the criminal investigations division. The two camps have accused one another of orchestrating damaging leaks to The Crimson to discredit Rooney or Murphy.

In what police sources termed a move to bring a fresh perspective to the department, Herbert J. Vallier, a former associate director of personnel services for the Faculty, took over the post of Brian D. Sinclair--who had been the department's assistant director for finance and administration--last month. Vallier is known as a sensitive, but tough administrator.

In addition, Johnson may be on his way out. The chief had told friends for years that he wanted to retire after completing his tenth year of Harvard service in December 1993.

He eventually decided against retirement at that time, but health problems have kept him out for much of this academic year.

It is widely rumored that Johnson will step down after Commencement.