Black teenagers' perceptions of the police are founded on the belief that they are harassed because officers are guided by racist stereotypes of young Black men.

"They see Blacks as no-good savages in baggy denim jeans," says Romel Augustin, a senior at Rindge and Latin.

While "there are some parasitic brothers out there," police have come to believe that all Black men are criminals, Augustin adds.

"If they see Black kids hanging out, they think we're all bad kids," says Kevin Dunkley, who every night sees police cars and wagons cruise Western Avenue, the site of a high amount of drug-related crime.

But police maintain that the majority of encounters cited by the teens as incidents of harassment are mislabeled.

"I firmly believe it's an easy out. I don't believe any one is specifically targeted," says Vice/Narcotics Detective Stanley J. Gedaminsky, Known to many Cambridge youth as "Pac Man."

Routine police work is characterized as "harassment" by teenagers because they do not understand the full extent of the police's legal power, Gedaminsky says.

They don't understand that it's the duty of an officer to clear a public thoroughfare when "15 kids are blocking the sidewalk in front of Church's or Hi-Fi Pizza" in Central Square, says Juvenile Detective Spencer Franklin, a 14-year veteran of the force.

"The police officer says 'pick up your bike and get out of here;' they're calling that harassment," says Franklin, who is Black.

Officers have the right to perform "threshold inquiries"--to stop and question citizens--when they suspect a crime about to happen, Gedaminsky says.

While some teens understand that the policy may be routine, they say that police often go beyond questioning to baiting them.

"When they stare at you, you stare back. They want us to get suspicious. If you stand there and look at them, often they say you have a personal problem," says Steve O. Moore, 17.

But police say their "stop and asks" and dispersions of groups of kids occur only in neighborhoods where there is known drug activity or when they are called to the scene by suspicious or annoyed neighbors.

"We don't go around bullying kids. Anytime we go on a call, it's because we're sent there. We don't go for nothing," says Officer Edward Jillett, Jr.

Asking kids to leave sidewalks is just another way of crime prevention. "If you stand on a corner and it's a corner for selling drugs, [you'll be moved off.]" Franklin says.