Police union endorses Kerry

Boston's police patrolmen's union yesterday voted overwhelmingly to endorse John F. Kerry for president, months after the Democratic nominee refused to cross a police picket line during the union's bitter contract dispute.

About 50 members of the Boston Police Patrolmen's Association's House of Representatives handed the endorsement to Kerry by voice vote after US Representative William D. Delahunt made a personal appeal. It was the first time the union has endorsed a Democratic presidential candidate, the union officials said.

''This is a significant endorsement, particularly if you go back to 1988," Delahunt said, referring to the union's controversial endorsement of Republican George H.W. Bush over the hometown candidate, Massachusetts Governor Michael S. Dukakis.

The union endorsed Bush again in 1992. The BPPA had previously endorsed Republican Ronald Reagan.

Police leaders said the union endorsed Kerry in large part because he honored their picket line outside a meeting of the US Conference of Mayors meeting in Boston in June.

They said the endorsement also proves false rumors that circulated during the union's contract battle that their threats to disrupt the Democratic National Convention were aimed at helping the Republicans.

A state arbitrator settled the contract on the eve of the convention -- even as union members prepared to picket welcoming parties for the nation's Democratic delegations.

''We remember our friends and those who stand with us," said BPPA official James Barry. ''The rumors that we had another agenda all through this fight were planted and had no basis in reality. This shows there was no truth to them."

Barry said yesterday's closed-door session was animated, but no one suggested endorsing Bush. A few members suggested staying out of politics and endorsing no one, he said.

''They didn't think the union should be involved in presidential politics," said Barry. ''I said, 'Like it or not, we are involved in presidential politics.' We had the spotlight on us during the DNC. He respected our picket line. That was said over and over again."

BPPA president Thomas J. Nee, who was present at the meeting but left before the vote, said the decision to endorse ''was not arrived at easily," but added: ''The Bush administration has not answered the call. Their record speaks for itself. He was absent for the grit, but there for the glory."

The National Association of Police Organizations, of which Nee is the president, endorsed Kerry last month. Campaign spokesman Michael Meehan said Kerry was ''pleased to have the endorsement of the police officers who know him the best.

''They know his record as prosecutor and his record putting 100,000 cops on the street. They know he's the best one to keep America safer and stronger."

''It's particularly pleasing to have him be the first Democratic candidate they've endorsed in decades, if at all," Meehan said.

Barry said the union will contact its 1,400 members and urge them to support Kerry. They will point out his history of supporting police officers, particularly his sponsorship in the early 1990s of a US Justice Department program that allowed for the hiring of 100,000 police officers, he said.

In his 20-minute address to the union, Delahunt said, he talked about Kerry's background as an ''aggressive prosecutor and someone whose priority is ensuring the middle class doesn't go backwards."

''I talked about his not allowing the middle class in this country to disappear," he said. He said he spoke about his own grandfather, a Boston police officer fired for union organizing.

''When he worked as a police officer the work week was 96 hours and there was no vacation or overtime," Delahunt said. ''There weren't any benefits. Today we see them disappearing. The Bush administration wants them to disappear," he charged.

Delahunt has been campaigning and raising funds for Kerry around the country.