Despite efforts to improve relations with students and alleviate internal disputes, the Harvard Police Department finished another year mired in controversy.

As rumors grow that he will retire, Police Chief Paul E. Johnson sits atop a department which over the past 12 months has been overwhelmed by internal disarray accused of racism and tarnished by a botched investigation into an alleged theft by two security guards.

In a way, it was a normal year for Johnson. During his 10-year tenure, his department has repeatedly been charged with mistreating Black students and discriminating against certain police officers and security guards.

A general re-ordering of the police administration is expected by some department officials. These officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, feel Johnson's declining health and the department's internal bickering make reform impossible with the existing personnel.

Late this spring, the police made a serious attempt at improving relations with the community, offering a new crime line, participating in an Institute of Politics discussion on racial concerns and playing in a student-cop softball game.

In between the bickering and public relations work, the police made several important arrests over the past academic year. Most notably, Harvard officers apprehended a notorious Faculty Club wallet theif and caught a summer employee who stole tens of thousands of dollars in rare book plates and illustrations.

The department's criminal investigations division also spearheaded an investigation of two area storage companies. The probe found that corrupt business practices had resulted in numerous thefts and losses to undergraduate property.

But the police were less successful in battling bike thieves over the past year.

According to Lt. John F. Rooney, an average of three bikes per day are stolen from the Square, which has the highest bike theft rate in Cambridge. That's a particularly troubling figure in a city recently dubbed the "bike theft capital of Massachusetts" by The Boston Globe.

Racial Tension

But the biggest story in the department came out of the 1992 arrest of a Black student, Inati Ntshanga '95. In April, Ntshanga, who is from South Africa and lives off-campus, charged that the arrest had been racially motivated.

Ntshanga was picked up for trespassing in Matthews Hall at about 6 a.m. on December 29, 1992, as he worked in the Harvard Student Agencies (HSA) linen room while listening to a portable compact disc player.

According to University Attorney Allan A. Ryan Jr., Ntshanga refused to give police his name and would only say that he had a right to be in the room because he worked for HSA.

But Ntshanga says he cooperated fully with the police after they threatened to arrest him.

Police failed to identify Ntshanga--who could not provide identification--as either a student or an HSA worker, and he was taken to Middlesex County Jail. He remained locked in a cell for about two hours before being released into the custody of Dean of Students Archie C. Epps III.