Convention gears for top security
US, state, and local officers set for Boston
By Kevin Cullen, Globe Staff | July 11, 2004
After 18 months of planning, and just days before an estimated 35,000 visitors descend on Boston for the Democratic National Convention, federal, state, and local law enforcement officials will roll out the most ambitious security operation ever mounted in New England.
At a cost of about $50 million, or nearly half the convention's budget, an estimated 3,000 local, state, and federal law enforcement officers from nearly 100 departments will be assigned to police the convention, fanning out across a city that officials fear could be an attractive target for extremists.
Officials say they are on the watch not just for Islamic militants but also domestic terrorists, including far-right and antiabortion extremists who consider the Democratic Party especially hostile to their views, and far-left radicals who oppose capitalism.
Officers will be policing what Democratic officials bill as a giant party. They will seal off huge swaths of land and shut down about 40 miles of roadway leading to the FleetCenter, where the convention will be held July 26 to 29. About 5,000 delegates and thousands of others will face strict scrutiny at the first national political convention since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
''The level of security will be unprecedented," said Kathleen M. O'Toole, the Boston police commissioner, who says law enforcement officials have prepared for any possible scenario of violent disruption. Citing security concerns, law enforcement officials would not say exactly when the deployment would begin.
More daunting than protecting the huge, tightly secured FleetCenter, is the task of protecting delegates and thousands of others attending the parties that are part of the formal nomination of the presumptive presidential candidate, John F. Kerry, whose Beacon Hill home, less than a mile from the convention, will be fortified.
No potential risk is considered too small, officials say. Around the convention site, manhole covers will be sealed, surveillance cameras have been installed, and mailboxes and trash bins that could hold a bomb have been removed. Newspaper vending boxes have been ordered removed from about 20 streets, including Boylston and Newbury, a good distance away from the FleetCenter. Uniformed and plainclothes police and security guards will be watching hotel lobbies, corridors, and stairwells.
Boston Police Superintendent Robert Dunford, who is in charge of the department's convention security, said police have advised businesses and residents around the North Station area to prepare for inconveniences. Deliveries, for example, will be restricted to from 2 a.m. to noon. He said restaurants were advised to stock up on nonperishable items. Dunford said hotels have adopted heightened levels of security. In nearby residential areas, such as the Charles River Park apartments, residents will have to show identification to get into garages.
Rich Lucas, regional manager for Equity Residential, which manages Charles River Park, which has about 1,800 residents, said the Secret Service has asked residents to keep their ''eyes and ears open."
Steven Ricciardi, the special agent-in-charge of the Boston office of the US Secret Service, which is the lead agency at the convention site, said officials had prepared for ''all sorts of scenarios."
Ricciardi said the Secret Service, by law, will provide protection for former presidents and their spouses, as well as the presidential and vice presidential candidates.
The US Capitol Police will be sending officers from its dignitary protection unit to guard members of Congress and their families, according to Michael Lauer, a spokesman for the agency.
As they attempt to throw a security blanket over the city, officials must abide by the First Amendment, which gives those determined to protest -- from anarchists looking for a platform to police officers looking for a raise -- the right to gather, creating another potential flashpoint in a 29,000-square-foot ''free-speech zone" near the FleetCenter.
Civil libertarians worry that the intense security could at times be overzealous and arbitrary, leading police to rely on racial and ethnic profiling and prejudice rather than on reasonable suspicion. The American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts says MBTA Police plans to randomly search bags of passengers are unconstitutional and ineffective, ''pretend security," in the words of ACLU executive director Carol Rose. She said she is especially concerned about police from smaller departments who will be under Boston police command as part of larger tactical task forces.
Dunford said members of multiagency tactical forces ''are extremely well trained," and he said all officers working the convention have been trained to engage in ''behavioral profiling" that focuses on how people act, not their race or ethnicity. He said Boston police will not randomly search bags or individuals.
''If you're walking down the street in a full-length jacket in the middle of the summer, or hauling a backpack that looks too heavy, you're going to attract our attention," he said.
As police fan out across the city, so, too, will those determined to deter and report abuses of authority. Urszula Masny-Latos, director of the National Lawyers Guild in Boston, said that by the time the convention starts, her chapter will have trained more than 100 ''legal observers" who will scrutinize the way police interact with demonstrators.
''During the week, there will be about 150 to 160 legal observers on the streets, across the city," she said.
Some terrorism specialists say the intense security makes it highly unlikely that Islamic extremists, such as Al Qaeda members or sympathizers, will attack. But the same sources said that anything is possible and caution against concentrating too heavily on Islamic extremists, given the greater ease with which domestic extremists can move about without attracting attention.
Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge acknowledged Thursday that US officials have no intelligence about a specific threat against either the Democratic convention here or the Republican convention in New York next month.
Jessica Stern, a fellow in the International Security Program at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, who has interviewed Islamic extremists and written extensively about terrorism, said she believes ''New York is a far more attractive target" than Boston.
Vincent Cannistraro, former CIA terrorism chief, said Al Qaeda's history suggests it attacks soft targets when security is lax. ''They hit accessible targets, so with all the focus on security at these conventions, it would be unusual for something to happen," he said.
But Cannistraro, Stern, and other terrorism specialists said the Boston convention could be at risk from white supremacists or antiabortion extremists who fit a profile that accounts for the vast majority of people who will fill the city during the convention: white Americans.
The preconvention scrutiny of delegates is expected to be about the same as at past conventions, where background checks were the norm. Donald W. Anderson, a US Secret Service special agent in Boston, said, ''Our name-checking policy has remained the same. It was thorough before, and it's thorough now."
Some delegates are being warned to expect extra-tight security. Maine delegates were given a long list of objects prohibited inside the FleetCenter, including umbrellas, sealed envelopes, and flashlights, and were told to anticipate possible searches not only at the FleetCenter, but also as they board buses at their hotels.
To guard against violence, police are wheeling out new gadgets, paid for with federal grants specifically targeting terrorism. Boston police have launched a 57-foot harbor patrol boat, while State Police have new hazard suits to ward off chemical and biological weapons. Borrowing from technology that the British Army perfected in Northern Ireland, State Police helicopters now have cameras that can read license plates on moving cars.
Every officer of the 2,032-member Boston Police Department will be working 12-hour shifts, covering not just the convention area but ordinary, everyday policing in the entire city. After what is expected to be an exhausting week, law enforcement officers will find some solace in overtime checks that are expected to total $32 million.
While off-duty, some Boston officers will be walking picket lines to showcase their demands for a new contract. Police officers from out of town are expected to join them, including those traveling with the New York and California delegations.
There will also be the biggest concentration of bomb-sniffing dogs ever assembled in a city, police officials said, among them much of the 100-dog canine unit of the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
On the water, the US Coast Guard will conduct random searches of all boats, commercial and pleasure, before they enter Boston Harbor, or, in the case of the popular Boston Duck Tours, before they enter the Charles River and get near the Fleet.
About 1,300 troopers and officers from the tactical, motorcycle, mounted, air, canine, and marine units of the State Police will operate out of a command center on the Charles. Troopers from other New England states will help patrol Massachusetts highways, freeing Massachusetts troopers to work the convention, Dunford said.
''The overriding threat is terrorism," said Colonel Thomas G. Robbins, superintendent of the State Police. ''We will be extra vigilant in all observations of all comings and goings related to the convention."
Expecting to make an average of 200 to 300 arrests daily during the convention week, officials are preparing for a crush of extra cases and prisoners. Fifteen prosecutors from the office of Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley will handle the cases, while lawyers and volunteers from the Suffolk Lawyers for Justice will represent defendants, according to David Procopio, a spokesman for Conley.
To make room for those arrested during the convention, about 140 prisoners -- federal detainees held on immigration violations -- will be moved to holding cells outside the city, according to Elizabeth Keeley, chief of staff for Suffolk Sheriff Andrea J. Cabral.
Officials seem confident, and realistic. As Edward A. Flynn, Massachusetts secretary of public safety, put it: ''I'm too much of a fatalist and Irish Catholic to say we are ready for anything at any time. We've tried to anticipate as many scenarios as possible."
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US, state, and local officers set for Boston
By Kevin Cullen, Globe Staff | July 11, 2004
After 18 months of planning, and just days before an estimated 35,000 visitors descend on Boston for the Democratic National Convention, federal, state, and local law enforcement officials will roll out the most ambitious security operation ever mounted in New England.
At a cost of about $50 million, or nearly half the convention's budget, an estimated 3,000 local, state, and federal law enforcement officers from nearly 100 departments will be assigned to police the convention, fanning out across a city that officials fear could be an attractive target for extremists.
Officials say they are on the watch not just for Islamic militants but also domestic terrorists, including far-right and antiabortion extremists who consider the Democratic Party especially hostile to their views, and far-left radicals who oppose capitalism.
Officers will be policing what Democratic officials bill as a giant party. They will seal off huge swaths of land and shut down about 40 miles of roadway leading to the FleetCenter, where the convention will be held July 26 to 29. About 5,000 delegates and thousands of others will face strict scrutiny at the first national political convention since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
''The level of security will be unprecedented," said Kathleen M. O'Toole, the Boston police commissioner, who says law enforcement officials have prepared for any possible scenario of violent disruption. Citing security concerns, law enforcement officials would not say exactly when the deployment would begin.
More daunting than protecting the huge, tightly secured FleetCenter, is the task of protecting delegates and thousands of others attending the parties that are part of the formal nomination of the presumptive presidential candidate, John F. Kerry, whose Beacon Hill home, less than a mile from the convention, will be fortified.
No potential risk is considered too small, officials say. Around the convention site, manhole covers will be sealed, surveillance cameras have been installed, and mailboxes and trash bins that could hold a bomb have been removed. Newspaper vending boxes have been ordered removed from about 20 streets, including Boylston and Newbury, a good distance away from the FleetCenter. Uniformed and plainclothes police and security guards will be watching hotel lobbies, corridors, and stairwells.
Boston Police Superintendent Robert Dunford, who is in charge of the department's convention security, said police have advised businesses and residents around the North Station area to prepare for inconveniences. Deliveries, for example, will be restricted to from 2 a.m. to noon. He said restaurants were advised to stock up on nonperishable items. Dunford said hotels have adopted heightened levels of security. In nearby residential areas, such as the Charles River Park apartments, residents will have to show identification to get into garages.
Rich Lucas, regional manager for Equity Residential, which manages Charles River Park, which has about 1,800 residents, said the Secret Service has asked residents to keep their ''eyes and ears open."
Steven Ricciardi, the special agent-in-charge of the Boston office of the US Secret Service, which is the lead agency at the convention site, said officials had prepared for ''all sorts of scenarios."
Ricciardi said the Secret Service, by law, will provide protection for former presidents and their spouses, as well as the presidential and vice presidential candidates.
The US Capitol Police will be sending officers from its dignitary protection unit to guard members of Congress and their families, according to Michael Lauer, a spokesman for the agency.
As they attempt to throw a security blanket over the city, officials must abide by the First Amendment, which gives those determined to protest -- from anarchists looking for a platform to police officers looking for a raise -- the right to gather, creating another potential flashpoint in a 29,000-square-foot ''free-speech zone" near the FleetCenter.
Civil libertarians worry that the intense security could at times be overzealous and arbitrary, leading police to rely on racial and ethnic profiling and prejudice rather than on reasonable suspicion. The American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts says MBTA Police plans to randomly search bags of passengers are unconstitutional and ineffective, ''pretend security," in the words of ACLU executive director Carol Rose. She said she is especially concerned about police from smaller departments who will be under Boston police command as part of larger tactical task forces.
Dunford said members of multiagency tactical forces ''are extremely well trained," and he said all officers working the convention have been trained to engage in ''behavioral profiling" that focuses on how people act, not their race or ethnicity. He said Boston police will not randomly search bags or individuals.
''If you're walking down the street in a full-length jacket in the middle of the summer, or hauling a backpack that looks too heavy, you're going to attract our attention," he said.
As police fan out across the city, so, too, will those determined to deter and report abuses of authority. Urszula Masny-Latos, director of the National Lawyers Guild in Boston, said that by the time the convention starts, her chapter will have trained more than 100 ''legal observers" who will scrutinize the way police interact with demonstrators.
''During the week, there will be about 150 to 160 legal observers on the streets, across the city," she said.
Some terrorism specialists say the intense security makes it highly unlikely that Islamic extremists, such as Al Qaeda members or sympathizers, will attack. But the same sources said that anything is possible and caution against concentrating too heavily on Islamic extremists, given the greater ease with which domestic extremists can move about without attracting attention.
Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge acknowledged Thursday that US officials have no intelligence about a specific threat against either the Democratic convention here or the Republican convention in New York next month.
Jessica Stern, a fellow in the International Security Program at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, who has interviewed Islamic extremists and written extensively about terrorism, said she believes ''New York is a far more attractive target" than Boston.
Vincent Cannistraro, former CIA terrorism chief, said Al Qaeda's history suggests it attacks soft targets when security is lax. ''They hit accessible targets, so with all the focus on security at these conventions, it would be unusual for something to happen," he said.
But Cannistraro, Stern, and other terrorism specialists said the Boston convention could be at risk from white supremacists or antiabortion extremists who fit a profile that accounts for the vast majority of people who will fill the city during the convention: white Americans.
The preconvention scrutiny of delegates is expected to be about the same as at past conventions, where background checks were the norm. Donald W. Anderson, a US Secret Service special agent in Boston, said, ''Our name-checking policy has remained the same. It was thorough before, and it's thorough now."
Some delegates are being warned to expect extra-tight security. Maine delegates were given a long list of objects prohibited inside the FleetCenter, including umbrellas, sealed envelopes, and flashlights, and were told to anticipate possible searches not only at the FleetCenter, but also as they board buses at their hotels.
To guard against violence, police are wheeling out new gadgets, paid for with federal grants specifically targeting terrorism. Boston police have launched a 57-foot harbor patrol boat, while State Police have new hazard suits to ward off chemical and biological weapons. Borrowing from technology that the British Army perfected in Northern Ireland, State Police helicopters now have cameras that can read license plates on moving cars.
Every officer of the 2,032-member Boston Police Department will be working 12-hour shifts, covering not just the convention area but ordinary, everyday policing in the entire city. After what is expected to be an exhausting week, law enforcement officers will find some solace in overtime checks that are expected to total $32 million.
While off-duty, some Boston officers will be walking picket lines to showcase their demands for a new contract. Police officers from out of town are expected to join them, including those traveling with the New York and California delegations.
There will also be the biggest concentration of bomb-sniffing dogs ever assembled in a city, police officials said, among them much of the 100-dog canine unit of the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
On the water, the US Coast Guard will conduct random searches of all boats, commercial and pleasure, before they enter Boston Harbor, or, in the case of the popular Boston Duck Tours, before they enter the Charles River and get near the Fleet.
About 1,300 troopers and officers from the tactical, motorcycle, mounted, air, canine, and marine units of the State Police will operate out of a command center on the Charles. Troopers from other New England states will help patrol Massachusetts highways, freeing Massachusetts troopers to work the convention, Dunford said.
''The overriding threat is terrorism," said Colonel Thomas G. Robbins, superintendent of the State Police. ''We will be extra vigilant in all observations of all comings and goings related to the convention."
Expecting to make an average of 200 to 300 arrests daily during the convention week, officials are preparing for a crush of extra cases and prisoners. Fifteen prosecutors from the office of Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley will handle the cases, while lawyers and volunteers from the Suffolk Lawyers for Justice will represent defendants, according to David Procopio, a spokesman for Conley.
To make room for those arrested during the convention, about 140 prisoners -- federal detainees held on immigration violations -- will be moved to holding cells outside the city, according to Elizabeth Keeley, chief of staff for Suffolk Sheriff Andrea J. Cabral.
Officials seem confident, and realistic. As Edward A. Flynn, Massachusetts secretary of public safety, put it: ''I'm too much of a fatalist and Irish Catholic to say we are ready for anything at any time. We've tried to anticipate as many scenarios as possible."
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