Police look to past for unified strategy

While the Boston Police Department contends that it has been meticulously planning for the Democratic National Convention for 18 months, its best lessons have come from studying the department's woeful performance in quelling riots after the Patriots' Super Bowl victory in February and the tactics used by police in Northern Ireland to calm violent protesters.

The Secret Service oversees security inside the FleetCenter; the Boston Police Department -- with assistance from about a dozen federal, state, and local law enforcement and public safety agencies -- is in charge of keeping the rest of the city safe.

''We've done all the necessary planning. We've equipped and trained our people to face any challenge," Police Commissioner Kathleen M. O'Toole said yesterday in briefing Mayor Thomas M. Menino and other top officials on the security plan.

State Public Safety Secretary Edward A. Flynn credited an ''unprecedented level" of cooperation among Boston police, State Police, and other law enforcement.

''With this being the first national political convention since 9/11, we needed to achieve a security plan with utmost coordination, and we did," Flynn said.

Federal authorities say they have received no specific threat against the convention from any terrorist groups. Boston police commanders say their major security concerns are keeping the delegates safe, preventing protesters from storming the security fence at Canal and Causeway streets in front of the FleetCenter, and keeping order at the more than 1,000 parties and other events planned throughout the city during the four days of the convention.

While police say they have sufficient law enforcement personnel to deal with the expected 300 to 500 protesters who may engage in violence, Superintendent Robert P. Dunford, responsible for drawing up the security plan, said he is concerned that some protesters will persuade otherwise peaceful demonstrators to cause trouble. That's what turned the post-Super Bowl celebration into a riot, when a handful of troublemakers started trash fires, overturned cars, and showered officers with rocks and bottles -- and other revelers joined in. One young man was killed when run over by a vehicle, and another was severely injured.

''It was an aberration for this department, but it's generally agreed that we performed badly that night," said Superintendent James M. Claiborne, head of the department's Bureau of Field Services. ''But we have learned what we did wrong, and have applied those lessons to the challenge ahead."

Claiborne made his comments outside a room at Boston Police Headquarters that will serve as the Unified Command Center, which he will direct, for the array of law enforcement and emergency response agencies that have helped Boston police draw up the convention security plan.

The center represents the first time the department will decide on policing an event from a remote site, and its existence came about because of police lapses during the riots in Kenmore Square and elsewhere. The department's own review concluded that Boston police had failed to prepare for the possibility of a violent celebration and did not have sufficient officers available to respond.

Because of those lapses, the investigation found that Dunford, the senior Boston police commander in charge that night, was issuing commands in the middle of a major riot in Kenmore Square and was unable to hear several calls from other police officials.

''I'll be the first to admit that being in the middle was not a good place to be," said Dunford.

Lined with flat-screened television sets and computers, the Unified Command Center will provide officials with the most up-to-date information on occurrences throughout the city. If traffic needs to be diverted to accommodate an event that has become larger than expected, or if police in ''soft hats" should be replaced by those in riot gear because a protest has turned violent, the decision can be made and instantly relayed to commanders in the field.

To prepare for the convention, Dunford spent a week last summer in Northern Ireland studying how police there handled parades during the marching season, when Protestant groups insist on walking through Catholic neighborhoods.

One lesson, learned from Brendan McAllister, civilian director of Mediation Northern Ireland, was that police should not arrive at potential flashpoints dressed in riot gear.

''As Brendan put it, that's almost a self-fulfilling prophecy," said O'Toole, who was a member of the commission that helped bring reforms to the Northern Ireland police force.

''Brendan talked the cops into coming out in soft hats, rather than riot helmets," Dunford added. ''It had the effect of ratcheting things down."

So, as in Northern Ireland, police at the convention will show up in their regular uniforms to not provoke demonstrators.

Dunford's experiences at both the Super Bowl and in Northern Ireland also motivated him to implement a process for the department to evaluate its commanders' decision-making, as well as its overall performance.

If a commander recommends a change in the deployment plan, he or she must justify the change in writing. The decision audit logs encourage commanders to think scenarios through, and justify tactical changes.

''In the end we want to make sure we are making decisions based on the best possible information available to us at the time," Dunford said. ''It may ultimately turn out to have been the wrong decision, but if it was made with the best information available then it was the right decision at the time."

Stephen Kurkjian can be reached via kurkjian@globe.com. Kevin Cullen can be reached via cullen@globe.com.