Extending Public Records Act to Campus Cops

The Crimson argues, "The case for HUPD transparency has never been founded on a suspicion that Harvard’s police force deserves particularly harsh scrutiny." Because of negligent training of HUPD campus cops, harsh scrutiny is desperately needed. Too often campus cops with loaded weapons are employed for personal and political interests of faculty and administrators. Those abuses are never scrutinized and are clear abuses of privileged state police power. University administrators are unable to regulate and monitor these campus police who often operate out of personal animosity abusing vulnerable citizens. Extending scrutiny through public records will not end all of the abuses, but it will help.

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Being trained by MCJTC does not mean they are trained properly. Cambridge City police are also negligently trained by MCJTC. Some of the MCJTC training modules are nonsensical and unlawful. In addition HUPD promotes the false notion that they have exclusive jurisdiction on Harvard property. They falsely believe along with administrators and faculty that the overpass in front of the Science Center is Harvard property. It is owned by the city of Cambridge. HUPD only has jurisdiction to enforce state laws on Harvard property. The Sheriffs of Middlesex and Suffolk extended the privilege of allowing HUPD to make traffic stops as they travel between Harvard and Boston campuses. They abuse that privilege. They stop traffic closing streets without authority. They are not empowered to enforce and they are not trained in knowing Cambridge and Boston City ordinances. Yet dispatchers arrogantly choose to send HUPD to local events when city ordinances are violated. The dispatchers abuse their power contrary to law, to divert calls to protect Harvard. As for HUPD abuses of power on behalf of faculty and staff you may be unaware of them but they are real and they are pervasive. It is a personal abuse contrary to state and US laws. Finally too many HUPD officers have a cavalier attitude toward security at Harvard buildings. They often leave the doors open for their colleagues so they do not have to wait for them. It is why two Harvard seniors lost their degrees after a homicide at a campus dorm. So much for proper training. They are campus cops and need monitoring when they abuse their power. It is human nature, according to Philip Zimbardo. That applies to HUPD which claims to consist of humans.

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I am sorry to disagree with you. HUPD are special state police officers sworn by the state police commander; and deputies sheriff sworn by the sheriffs of Middlesex and Suffolk. They have power only on Harvard property, with the exception noted previously. If you believe as I do that HUPD officers are human, they are likely to abuse their power. It is the nature of police, according to the Mollen Commission in New York City. But also see Philip Zimbardo's experiments on abuses of power. Police need constant scrutiny because of their power over civilians. In Massachusetts police get no scrutiny. Too much space is needed to describe the abuses of HUPD powers I experienced. I am no longer surprised with the disbelief by civilians who were never targeted by police for personal or for political reasons. There are many books about abuses of police powers. Regarding the competence of HUPD with murder investigations, state police have experienced officers. That is not to say that they always do a proper job. There are many books about sloppy police work also. That often leads to wrongful arrests and wrongful convictions. Do you doubt that happens too? City and state police have jurisdiction on and off the Harvard campus. HUPD tries to create a belief that they have exclusive jurisdiction on Harvard property. They do not. Some Cambridge police officers defer to that false separate jurisdiction. It makes their job easier. The last time I read some of the MCJTC's training modules I learned how they are trained to respond to persons with disabilities. Here's what I found in 1997. If a person complained about the FBI and the CIA targeting them, police are trained to treat that as a symptom of schizophrenia. One problem is that the state empowers police officers to make medical diagnoses based on speech. Second problem is that for 20 years the delightful James Bulger, FBI informant, now on trial in Boston US Court, for 19 homicides was killing people who reported him to the FBI. Some of his victims knew he worked for the FBI. When they went to local or state police, under the MCJTC's training they would be treated as if they were mentally ill, and then ignored before they were killed by Bulger. Are you aware of the egregious abuses of that period? It was similar to how police treated the parents of victims of the Catholic Church priest abuse scandal. The police threatened the parents for reporting such crimes. They did not believe it. Then there was the FBI frame up of four white men for murder. Two of them died in prison and two were released after 30 years. Do you know about that? Compared with those abominations, abuses by HUPD are inconsequential.

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We disagree. Holding police accountable for 40 years of abuses is beyond the capability of the court system, or online comments. John Durham found one FBI agent responsible for 20 years of FBI criminal abuse. Do you believe that? FBI agents from other offices avoided the Boston office. They were known to be corrupt, not just one agent. Consider that in perspective of the Harvard campuses with HUPD asserting exclusive jurisdiction. Do you think the FBI had any interaction with HUPD, or Harvard administrators, or faculty at the law school or the Kennedy School of Government? See recent essay on this news site by ethicists Lawrence Lessig, HLS professor, and the ubiquitous David Gergen of the KSG. They suggest that money is the corrupting influence of government and direct attention to the corrupt US Congress. They join their colleagues in and out of government ignoring a generation of FBI criminal abuses. Are they clever or what? Does HUPD work closely with Cambridge police and other departments or are they like Caesar's wife? You believe that those studies do not apply to HUPD. Is that because HUPD officers are not human? Have their genes, like the genes of US psychiatrists been cleansed of mendacity, greed and sadism? Your demands for evidence of specific HUPD abuses on a student newspaper web site is cute. Is the Crimson now accepting formal complaints about criminal abuse because the DA, the police and the US Attorney cannot be bothered? BTW one Assistant Middlesex DA a few years ago told me that they were so busy with homicides that they were unable to accept complaints about lesser crimes. How charming the way the DA's office works. I'm reminded of Mark Twain's aphorism: "It's not what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you think you know for sure that just ain't so."

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A spokesman for the HUPD explained that Harvard campus officers are highly trained in the most gentle procedures, the latest laws of the Great and General Court of Massachusetts and the US Congress. HUPD employs the best and most expensive, and least invasive technology for preventative surveillance. HUPD officers obey all laws. HUPD officers do not abuse their power and have never abused their power. They are respectful at all times and never target any individuals for personal or political reasons, or as favors for faculty, administrators, graduates, politicians or other police brothers. HUPD maintains the highest standards of safety for the citizens of the Harvard community. Because Harvard employees and students are superior morally and intellectually, HUPD officers know that laws are optional for Harvard affiliates, on campus. Other police brothers are not always cooperative. Any complaints about wrongdoing by HUPD officers are fantasies of racist, mentally ill, disgruntled civilians who have no business on Harvard property, or on the Harvard Crimson web pages. The Harvard community and city officials are aware of the racist, mentally ill, drug addicted critic. We call him, "The Opposition." He is abusing his ability to speak and to write. The First Amendment was not meant for criticism of Harvard. Compassionate Harvard and city officials are trying to get him treatment for his delusions.

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The forty years of police abuses I refer to were not all by the FBI, nor was it all in Massachusetts. But you would be surprised at how extensive the cooperation is between police departments, across political subdivisions, including the HUPD. As for my experiences with the HUPD I do not think truth will prevail online or in court. Courts too are staffed by humans. There is a specific clause in the US Constitution which denies to me rights and privileges extended to others. I haven't seen it but I know it is there. Middlesex County was dissolved due to pervasive corruption. It did not end the crimes of officials. The City of Cambridge was so corrupt in the 1940s that they changed the Charter to a Plan E form of government. It did not end crimes by city officials. The English have a term "rotten borough." It applies to Cambridge and Middlesex. What role does Harvard University play in the quality of government? Forty years ago Harvard had guards without weapons. Now they have an armed police force which I've seen abuse their power repeatedly over 20 years. Maybe it is because of that special Constitutional provision. HUPD does not operate in a vacuum. They operate within the structure of the state which grants them their power and within the department working with the Cambridge and state police and the FBI. So it is not practical to isolate the abuses of HUPD without being aware of the functioning governments which surround Harvard. How many campus cops are former city or state police?

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2011/11/1/HUPD-information-line-circle/

HUPD: About Time For Transparency
Massachusetts should make Harvard finally release police records
By The Harvard Crimson Staff
Published: Tuesday, November 01, 2011