MIT suspends 2 police officers
Newspaper copies with arrest story were dumped
Two MIT police officers, apparently unhappy with the student newspaper's coverage of a fellow officer's recent arrest for drug trafficking, did the only thing they could think of to block the bad news: They trashed it.
Under the cover of darkness last Tuesday, the officers emptied several hundred copies of The Tech from its campus newsstands. The twice-weekly paper, which was published earlier that day, featured a large mug shot of Officer Joseph D'Amelio on the front page, above the fold. D'Amelio was arrested in a sting earlier this month, accused of distributing prescription painkillers.
A passerby observed two campus police officers throwing out the papers and alerted the student newspaper staff shortly before midnight, said Michael McGraw-Herdeg, executive editor of The Tech, who was at the paper that night.
McGraw-Herdeg discovered about 300 copies of the paper in a recycling bin behind the student center. A staff photographer found another 100 copies elsewhere on campus.
"They put it in paper recycling," McGraw-Herdeg said. "They were kind. It seems pretty polite."
He reported the incident to campus police, fished the papers out of recycling, and put them back on the stands. The officers, whose names have not been released, came forward the following day through their union.
"Newspaper theft is the closest one can get to censorship without actually barring publication, so we take it pretty seriously," McGraw-Herdeg said.
The officers have been suspended without pay, and their employment at the university is being reviewed, said Patti Richards, a university spokeswoman.
"As a university committed to free and open publishing, we are very unhappy that the distribution of The Tech was interfered with," Richards said.
McGraw-Herdeg said he does not think the officers' actions should end their careers at MIT.
"I think it would be unfortunate if these folks ended up being fired for this," he said. "In this environment especially, the career prospects for a campus police officer who violated someone's First Amendment rights is not good."
Tracy Jan can be reached at tjan@globe.com. 
