Officer Negrón's beat: a voice for Latino cops

Jacobo Negrón couldn't believe his web search hadn't turned anything up.

Last November, the 29-year-old Puerto Rico-born cop wanted to join a local Latino police officers association. After all, Irish-American and Italian-American police officers have their own groups, as do black officers -- why couldn't he find a Massachusetts Latino police association?

To his surprise, the nearest such group was the Connecticut chapter of the National Latino Peace Officers Association, which claims to be the largest Latino law enforcement organization in the United States, with some 25,000 members.

So Negrón, a Harvard University Police officer, decided to join the Connecticut group. He did so aware that the group had once had a Massachusetts chapter. Little did he know, though, that he was soon going to be asked to reactivate it. ``After I joined the Connecticut chapter, the state president there asked me to lead the Massachusetts chapter," said Negrón , who's held his Harvard job for a little more than three years.

Felipe Ortiz, the group's national president, said in a telephone interview that he called Negrón to offer him the job and to explain the association's objective.

``I told him we were looking for people who believed in community work," said Ortiz, a 47-year-old senior US probation officer based in Las Vegas who's headed the group for two years. ``I was a little nervous," said Negrón recently over coffee in Cambridge, ``but they convinced me."

So the Massachusetts Latino Police Officers Association was formally reborn in March -- with eight members.

``For Latinos, having a place or forum to have a dialogue of common concern and an opportunity to discuss issues in a familiar way can only be of benefit," said Boston Police Deputy Superintendent Gladys Aquino-Gaines , who, with Deputy Superintendent Rafael Ruiz, is the city's highest-ranking Latino officer.

By his own admission, though, Negrón has found his task tougher than expected. The number of members has increased to just 15, most recruited from alongside a short stretch of the Charles, from the Cambridge Police Department and Harvard University.

``It's been like an obstacle course," he said, adding that some officers are unenthused about regularly attending the fledgling group's meetings, while others balk at the annual $60 membership fee. ``All I ask," he said, ``is the chance to listen to me to try to convince them to make a difference in Latinos' lives."

So far, Negrón has met with 37 possible recruits in the Lawrence Police Department, and 18 in Chelse a . To date, though, none have signed on as members. Why the hesitation? The biggest factor, Negrón suspects, may be that officers don't trust him yet: They want to see what the young Harvard cop can do first.

The July arrest of three Hispanic Boston officers on corruption and drug charges hasn't helped, he said. Many officers, he said, don't want to belong to a group that identifies them as Latinos, because they ``feel they might be treated differently."

``In the Boston corruption case, I would have held a press conference to offer the authorities investigating our help, had I had any Boston police members," said Negrón. ``I would have told the community that all Latinos shouldn't be punished because the actions of three officers."

The group's local history also hasn't helped his organizing drive. The association had a chapter here back in the 1990s, with a membership, said Negrón, that approached 400, before it was folded by the national headquarters.

Boston, said Ortiz, the current national president, ``thought we were a union and we don't function as a union. We came under attack from a lot of different places. We were being investigated: our activities and our members."

Indeed, according to 1993 newspaper reports, Boston police investigators launched a probe of whether the organization was authorized to hold an event in which money was raised. Eliezer González, a Boston police officer who then headed the local chapter, said in a telephone interview that the organization was misunderstood.

``The climate back then was not to accept any organization that wasn't a union," said González, now a detective in the Boston force. The outcome of that probe is murky today: while González says the group's activities were deemed legal, police spokeswoman Elaine Driscoll said several charges against González were sustained.

Without national backing, local organizers pulled the plug on the chapter in 1995.

The group is open to all law enforcement officials, including chiefs of police, sheriffs, police officers, parole agents, and federal office r s. The fraternal organization was created in 1972 in California to provide its members with training, promotional development, and mentoring.

Among Negrón's plans for the local chapter is to create a scholarship for Latinos; to work with youths; and to develop anti-iolence programs. Last week , he traveled to Las Vegas to attend the association's 33d National Training Institute and Convention, where he took classes on leadership development, investigations, missing and exploited children, homeland security, and recruiting Latinos into law enforcement.

But training and development alone won't be enough to entice Latinos to join the group.

Aquino-Gaines, the Boston deputy superintendent, said the biggest challenge for Negrón will be convincing young police officers of the advantages of belonging to a fraternal organization.

``Members have to have a personal need that would push them to maintain their focus and interest in the association," she said. She, by the way, has yet to join; she said she would do so after hearing more about its mission.

Negrón estimates there are at least 2,000 Latino law enforcement officers in the state. In Boston, the number of Hispanic officers on the force still lags behind the city's Latino population. According to the 2000 US Census, 14.4 percent of Boston's population is Hispanic; as of last month, only 7.91 of its officers were, said police spokeswoman Driscoll.

On a recent morning, Negrón made his way from Taunton, where he lives, to East Boston to meet with several Latino police officers stationed in Boston Police Department's District 7. Only four officers showed up at Mi Rancho , a popular Colombian restaurant near the station, and one wasn't even Latino. ``I'm surprised by their lack of interest," said that officer, Sergeant Arthur McCarthy, who speaks fluent Spanish.

Hugo Alvarez, a Guatemala-born Boston police officer on the force for 13 years, said he doesn't see any obvious benefit in joining.

``I'm already out there providing service to the community. I'd like to stand by and observe how it pans out," said Alvarez, 38. ``When the chapter was dismantled about 10 years ago, it left everybody with a bad taste in their mouth."

Danny Simons, a 42-year-old Boston officer whose mother is from Argentina, largely agreed with Alvarez.

After asking Negrón a lot of questions and comparing his group with the Boston Police Patrolmen 's Association, to which he belongs, Simons said, ``I know you're trying to do a good thing. Good luck running upstream."

``Tenga paciencia," McCarthy advised Negrón . Or: ``Have patience."

``I'm going to keep trying and work with what I have," Negrón said. ``I can't quit; I gave my word to be state president for two years."

Marcela E. García is a reporter for the Spanish-language weekly newspaper El Planeta, which circulates in the Boston area.