Massachusetts Law Enforcement Network

Massachusetts Police News, Information and Discussions on MassCops

Posted by: fscpd907

Employees Slam HUPD


Lamont staff questions slow notification of last week’s alleged assault

Published On 5/13/2008 1:38:55 AM

By JUNE Q. WU

Crimson Staff Writer


After several Harvard staff members raised concerns about not receiving notice of an alleged attack outside Lamont Library early Tuesday, the Harvard University Police Department (HUPD) conceded that a formal advisory e-mail should have been sent.

An alert was sent on Tuesday afternoon to all Harvard undergraduates, while other members of the community were not notified of the incident until Friday.

“It is outrageous that I, or more importantly my friends who work in Cambridge in the Lamont Library, were not informed,” said Wendy M. Brown, a library assistant at the Medical School. “Is Harvard just trying to save face by not telling its employees about this?”

Brown said that she only heard of the incident by word-of-mouth. Her boyfriend, who is also employed at the Medical School, happened to overhear a conversation concerning the attack last week while in Cambridge, she added.

Brown said that she was initially afraid of being dismissed as “paranoid” or “stressed out,” but that the 10 Harvard Library staff members she then contacted told her they had not received an alert from HUPD either.

In response to an e-mail Brown sent to HUPD asking why Harvard employees had not been informed of the incident, HUPD spokesman Steven G. Catalano replied Thursday that the public safety threat was determined to be “minimal” and that alerting undergraduates was deemed “sufficient.”

On her blog, Brown quoted her boyfriend’s reaction to Catalano’s words, asking, “Why was it deemed only necessary to inform students; do violent predators discriminate between undergraduates and employees?”

According to a Harvard Library employee, who requested anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the situation, several of his co-workers were also “pretty upset and confused” as to why HUPD only felt the need to inform undergraduates.

He said that HUPD had not replied to his e-mails as of yesterday afternoon.

But Brown said that the Chief of Police Francis D. Riley sent her a statement through Catalano Friday explaining that, in retrospect, an advisory should have been distributed more broadly to include all students, staff, and faculty.

“We regret the initial judgment not to make the advisory more broadly available,” Riley said. “ We will review our advisory distribution procedures to ensure that future incidents are handled appropriately.”

Catalano declined to add to Riley’s initial statement last Friday.

—Staff writer June Q. Wu can be reached at junewu@fas.harvard.edu.

---

Posted by: Kilvinsky

Now THIS was an entertaining story for reasons I don't want to get into.

---

Posted by: mpd61

1. It's all about the students
2. It's not like the HUPD rank n' file did anything wrong

---

Posted by: Delta784

Who writes for the Crimson; students, faculty, or paid staff?

---

Posted by: mpr4601

Quote:

Originally Posted by fscpd907 HUPD spokesman Steven G. Catalano

How is Catalano doing? I had him as a professor at NU's night program a few years back, he was a good guy.

---

Posted by: galehopeful

The Crimson is the student-run newspaper at Harvard--it's the only daily newspaper to be published in Cambridge.

---

Posted by: Kilvinsky

Quote:

Originally Posted by Delta784 Who writes for the Crimson; students, faculty, or paid staff?

All students. It's the major rival of the Harvard Lampoon. They love to play little pranks on each other. yippee.

We've had good/bad relations with the Crimson over the years, but lately it's mostly been the administration who has been at odds. That works fine for me!

Quote:

Originally Posted by mpr4601 How is Catalano doing? I had him as a professor at NU's night program a few years back, he was a good guy.

Oh, he's WONDERFUL. He's one of the most loved and respected people at the HUPD.

---

Posted by: dgold127

Just another excuse to slam the cops. Gimme a break! These employees that are slamming HUPD are the same ones that will be calling the PD for help next week because their pen ran out of ink or there is a paper jam in their copy machine. All is well that ends well, if a mistake was made by the administration they'll learn from it and move on. Hey Kilv, tell those employees we'll be sending over a box of tissues.

---

vBulletin Copyright ©2000 - 2008, Jelsoft Enterprises Limited.
vB Easy Archive Final ©2000 - 2008 - Created by Stefan "Xenon" Kaeser