Joseph would not generalize about thedepartment, but said he his personal experiencewith the police department was negative.

Ignored Cries

Stacey R. Carter '93 and another students,speaking on the condition of anonymity, describedanother incident, on April 13, in which policeallegedly acted inappropriately

The two Black women said a University securityguard ignored their cries after five half-clothedwhite men made sexually harassing comments andgestures at them outside Claverly Hall.

They both said the guard ignored them becausethey are Black.

"I yelled to the guard who was across thestreet," one of the women said. "He said he couldnot hear me. I don't understand why he did notcross the street to see what I was screamingabout."

"I'm hard pressed to believe that if five Blackmales had flashed two white women the situationwould have turned out the same way," she said.

But Operations Manager Robert J. Dowling, whooversees Harvard security guards, said the guarddid not ignore the women because of their skincolor. He said the guard did not see the incident.

"He didn't think anything happened," Dowlingsaid. "It was not be cause they were Black. If hehad come out five minutes earlier, you can betyour life he would have done something about it."

Dowling could not explain why the guard did notinvestigate the situation. "I thought he shouldhave, but I'm playing Monday morning quarterback,"he said.

Police officers who responded to the call askedeveryone inside the Phoenix Club to step outside,police said. The women then identified one of thefive men, police said.

At that point, a club member accused one of thewomen of theatening him with a knife, police said.

Sgt. Stanford, the supervising officer at thescene, told the man that his charge was "frivolousand vindictive" and continued with interviewingclub members.

After completing the field interviews, the manrepeated the charge and Stanford frisked thewomen. She told the women that she frisked them toindicate on the police record that the charge wasfalse.

The women said they were upset that they werefrisked in front of the men, but said theyunderstood why they were frisked.