Police guidelines posted online, fuel concern
Critics say access may imperil safety
The instructions, posted for all to see, list the minimum number of officers who must respond to a school shooting. They describe how far an officer should keep the public back from a live bomb, then list the places where police should go to destroy the device. They provide a detailed example of the kind of identification card critical personnel might need to access a crime scene.
All 87 of the Boston Police Department's policies for handling different kinds of law enforcement scenarios are on the city's website, available to the public and ready to download.
Some of the rules are as mundane as who may peddle wares on public streets. Others, some police officers say, reveal inner workings of the department that could put their lives at risk if the wrong people should learn about them.
Officials said the rules are a matter of public record and were posted online six months ago in response to numerous requests from attorneys and reporters to view them.
"In the spirit of being open and transparent, we felt that it would be a good idea to provide ours rules and regulations in a forum that community members could easily access," said Elaine Driscoll, spokeswoman for the Boston Police Department.
But one union leader said the department has been too open.
"There is transparency and then there's foolishness," said Miller Thomas, president of the Boston Police Detectives Benevolent Society, who e-mailed Commissioner Edward F. Davis last week objecting to the posting. "A worst-case scenario is some terrorist group will see this and say OK, 'This is how the Boston Police Department is going to respond.' "
Thomas said he learned on April 1 that the rules had been posted when one of his members called him to complain. He fired off the e-mail, telling Davis that posting such rules on a public forum "flies in the face of any consideration for officer safety."
He said he has not received a response from Davis, but since then has heard from other detectives concerned about the wide dissemination of the information.
After Davis read the e-mail, Driscoll said, he assigned a command staff member to review the rules to see whether there is anything that should not be posted. But, she said, none of the regulations reveals tactical responses or specific strategies.
"That said, the police commissioner fully understands Mr. Thomas's concerns and agrees that it is something we need to review and look closely at to see if we need to make some changes," she said.
Thomas Nolan, a retired Boston police lieutenant who teaches criminal justice at Boston University, said the information detailed in the regulations is dangerously specific. For example, the regulations list the name of the principal place to detonate a bomb and every alternate site for police to dispose of a live bomb.
"What it does is create the potential for someone who wants to build an explosive to thwart law enforcement and its response to it," Nolan said.
But Howard Friedman, a civil rights attorney in Boston who has helped the American Civil Liberties Union with cases, said such information does not reveal anything that would harm police.
A criminal interested enough in learning police strategy can simply watch them respond to emergency situations.
Friedman said other departments, including Minneapolis and Portland, Ore., post such information online.
"I think it's a very good idea, a very progressive idea," Friedman said. "To me it shows a good decision by the Police Department . . . So putting it out there, if it's a public record, it makes a lot of sense."
Maria Cramer can be reached at mcramer@globe.com. 