"Police ordinarily would not inspect a student's room without first obtaining a search warrant from the court," Lewis says. "In order to obtain the warrant, the police have to demonstrate probable cause to believe that the room contains evidence of criminal activity. These situations are very rare."

University Attorney Allan A. Ryan Jr. refuses to comment on either University policy regarding the undercover investigation of students or the legal rights of students under investigations, saying that this information does not belong in the press.

HUPD Chief Francis D. "Bud" Riley says he acknowledges student concern surrounding the incident, but says that his officers did not pose as Harvard students.

Riley says the undercover HUPD officer posed as the friend of a student and never claimed to be from Harvard.

He says student fears about sting operations and constant undercover monitoring of the houses are based on false rumors.

"It's certainly not a type of a use of our resources that I would consider productive," Riley says.

Policing Techniques

The CID was formed as a formal HUPD department roughly 20 years ago, but current HUPD officials could not recall its exact roots.

Before the establishment of the CID, individual HUPD officers often took it upon themselves to conduct follow-up investigations of crimes on campus, Sgt. Richard W. Mederos says.

The department is made up of four detectives and a department head.

Mederos, a former CID detective, was promoted to the post of department head by Riley this year after the chief removed former CID heads Lt. John Rooney and Sgt. Kathleen Stanford.

Currently, the department has three detectives--Richard DeCruz, Dennis Maloney and Paul Westlund--while Riley looks to find a replacement for Mederos as detective.

The purpose of the CID, Mederos says, is to "follow up and investigate crimes that have already happened" as well as to investigate known criminals in the area.

"The CID is a preventative, proactive form of crime prevention," Mederos says.

The detectives in the CID are constantly investigating a variety of cases, the most common type being larceny.

They generally work on cases involving petty theft, tracking down Harvard students' and employees' stolen wallets and handbags, Mederos says.