Police say press mistreats them

While University Police officers say they sympathize with black students' perceptions of police harassment, officers said yesterday that they know what it feels like to be "targeted." Many University Police officers said they think they have been taking "a real beating" from the press in recent weeks. The most recent "beating," they said, was an article in yesterday's Daily Pennsylvanian detailing the fears some black students have of University Police. University Police Officer Gary Heller said last night that he thinks the newspaper is biased toward bad news. "It is my opinion that when we do good things, the DP is not there," Heller said. "But when there's bad news, they're all over us." Heller added that he thinks this "bad press" is unwarranted and sends the wrong messages to the University community. "If you continually get bad press, then people you don't know well will believe what they read," he said. "If they could only see us when we're on the job, then they would see that we're not insensitive racists." Officer Bill Kane, president of the fraternal order of police, said last night that many officers in the department share his feelings. "We try and do a good job here," Kane said. "But it seems like we've been getting only bad press." Kane added that while he can sympathize with the students who feel they are being hassled, he also believes that most officers do the best jobs they can. "If students have complaints, then we want to know about it, of course," he said. "But we need the backing of the community. We put our lives on the line, we really do." Kane added that officers get few "rewards" for their services and that many feel that most of the time people "just point fingers" at them. "Personally, I've been here 12 years and I think our department has come around 100 percent," he said. "It is so much better [now] than eight years ago and I don't think it's the management. I think it's the officers -- they really want to do a good job." Kane added that he thinks that if the community continues to ignore the merits of the University Police department, then he fears there will be a "mass exodus" of younger officers. Another officer said yesterday that he feels the article concerning minorities and University Police was "accurate." "We can't dismiss these perceptions [black students have]," University Police officer David Ball said. "We have to find out what's causing them." Ball added that there have been several incidents involving police that he thinks "send out the wrong message to the community." He said he knows of several occasions in which University Police have been asked to monitor black student functions but not those involving white students. For example, Ball cited wrestling matches at the Civic Center sponsored by Kappa Alpha Psi, a black fraternity, in which University Police officers are "held over" to monitor crowds that he said were "predominately black." Ball said that he did not know of officers being "held over" for events involving mainly white audiences. He added that such actions build "expectations and tensions" in the community and are really a "waste of time" for officers.