The Turnaround: How America's Top Cop Reversed the Crime Epidemic (25 page)

For the next week, I agonized over what to do. Then one morning, while reading the
Boston Herald
at my desk, I came upon a blurb in one of the gossip columns that said that the MBTA Police were in a terrible way and suggested I was being looked at to take it over.

I had heard stories of thunderbolts from the sky, lights going on above people's heads. This was that dramatic. I knew instinctively what I should do. I decided while reading the
Herald
that I wanted to do this. With Joe Jordan and his crew around, I'd never run the show. At the MBTA, I could.

I interviewed for the MBTA chief, and in the process I found that my old friend Al Sweeney had also applied and was a finalist as well. At the time, Sweeney was working at the Boston Police Academy and had been bypassed twice for deputy superintendent; he was my friend, which was going to be held against him at the BPD, and he was outspoken and thus had his own set of enemies. It was ironic that he was applying to become a chief; his father, Dan Sweeney, had been the much-loved and respected second president of the Boston police union.

There wasn't a captain's test on the horizon. Back in the seventies, in a very public dispute with the Superior Officers Federation, Joe Jordan had refused to promote anyone to the rank of captain. Instead, he relied on the commissioner's ability to promote anyone he wished to the higher rank of deputy superintendent. Over the years, through attrition, the number of captains plummeted. (This grudge was carried for sixteen years. By 1993, the date of the next captains’ civil-service exam, there were only three captains in the BPD, down from twenty-six in the seventies.) This “grudge match” had a critical impact on countless careers. If you wanted to advance in the BPD, the only opportunity was to get promoted politically.

Sweeney considered himself politically dead in the organization. I called him at home and said, “I got a deal for you.”

“What's the deal?”

“Jim O'Leary wants to hire us both.”

“Two chiefs?”

“No. I'll be the chief, you be the deputy chief. I'm going to work on special projects, you run the day-to-day operations.”

“I'll take it.”

In May 1983, I took a leave of absence and was appointed chief of the MBTA Police.

I was sworn in on Boston Common, at the Park Street MBTA station kiosk by Governor Dukakis. For the governor to swear in the MBTA chief of police was very significant. The power of the state was being placed behind my small department.

Dukakis was a great believer in mass transit and had campaigned on the issue of rebuilding it, making it safe and efficient. His transportation secretary, Fred Salvucci, was mandated to rebuild the infrastructure of the whole state. Salvucci lay the groundwork for the new Ted Williams Tunnel under Boston harbor, reengineered the Central Artery that went through the center of the city so the ugly elevated structure could be put below ground, and coupled it with the significantly modernized and expanded MBTA. These are Dukakis's legacies. Boston's fast, clean, and efficient commuter rail and subway systems are the result of the leadership of Dukakis, Salvucci, and O'Leary.

I had apprenticed under Steve Dunleavy and so was able to help design the swearing-in ceremony for maximum effect. Such occasions develop momentum within an organization. They build pride and morale in people who might otherwise just put in their hours and go home.

When Joe Jordan was sworn in as police commissioner, Dunleavy had orchestrated a huge celebration, in part to trumpet the significance of Jordan's being the first commissioner appointed to his own term ever to have come up through the ranks, but also to move the organization forward. Most police ceremonies are small affairs held in conference rooms at headquarters. We held Jordan's at the bandstand on Boston Common. Hundreds of people were invited, bands were playing, bunting hung everywhere; it looked like an inauguration. I had helped design that event and now used it as a model.

When I was sworn in, it was front-page news in all the papers. Television stations from around the region sent crews to follow me onto the subway, where I was photographed straphanging with the president of the police union.

My wife, Mary, was not happy with any of this. She never took to public life and had not been particularly excited when I was made executive superintendent. She remained a very private person. She was extremely loyal and supportive during my ouster from the Boston Police.

Mary brought her mother to my swearing-in ceremony along with the rest of my family. I was center stage on Boston Common, surrounded by cameras and microphones and politicians, and I was pretty happy. Mary was not. “Bill,” she told me, “I don't feel good about this. I think this is going to end our marriage.” She could see us drawing apart. I was in the spotlight; she preferred us to be together in the shadows. That was a problem.

The job itself was great. Dukakis committed six million dollars to a
seven-point anticrime plan, and Bob Wasserman worked with me on its development. Sweeney and I worked as a team. I created goals and asked him, “How can we get this done?” He offered three options, each with assets and debits. I chose one, he asked me to consider another; we went back and forth amiably. Sweeney was easy to work with, and ultimately we came away with a plan. I wasn't too proud to listen to his advice, or to anybody else for that matter, or to change my mind; I cared very much about making things happen. We built that small organization into a real force.

The MBTA Police had received nothing but negative publicity for many years, mainly because no one seemed to be in charge. Ranking officers arrived at a crime scene wearing sport coats and asking quietly, “What's going on?” I changed that. I arrived at crime scenes in full uniform and expected to be approached by the officer in charge and given a complete briefing.

Al Sweeney and I were riding the subway in full uniform the day he was hired. An inspector came walking down the train shouting to everyone, “You have to get off, we're changing cars. The next train is going to take you all the way through. This car is going out of service!”

We stood there.

“Gentlemen, you're going to have to exit the vehicle.” He came closer and looked at us.

“Jesus Christ, I thought you were admirals! You're the chief of police? We've never seen the chief of police or a deputy chief down here. What's wrong?”

You can't overstate the effect of the chief of police showing up in a subway station. Symbolically, it means that every station is going to be policed, and every station will have to be policed correctly. Cops think the brass is out of touch, that we're too old and don't know the streets. I wanted to let them know we were there. This was where we were going to be from now on, on the scene with the troops.

An officer was standing inside the station with a cigarette in his hand. I turned to Sweeney, half in jest. “How long are you going to allow that officer to stand there and embarrass your chief?”

Sweeney walked over. “Officer, what's the story?”

“What is it?”

“You know the rules, there's no smoking. There's no smoking in the subway, and there's no smoking on the job.” The officer put out the cigarette and got to work. Word was going to get out fast.

But I didn't simply want to be some lurking manager walking the system, waiting to catch and punish bad cops. I like cops, I understand them, their hopes, aspirations, and frustrations. I wanted them to do well, and I found it very important to support my troops. Transit is every bit as tough as the street, only in an enclosed area, and I understood what my people needed. From weapons to vehicles to equipment to sweaters and jackets, I provided for them so they felt good about coming to work. That was one key. Another, most important, was to provide leadership.

When I arrived at the MBTA, there were sixty-five transit cops, seven vehicles, and two motorcycles. The vehicles were junk, all beat to hell. It was demoralizing just to sit in one of them. We needed new wheels. The good news was, we could get some. The bad news was, they were going to be crummy cars. During the early-eighties gas shortage, rather than purchase the larger and more roomy Ford Crown Victoria or Chevrolet Caprice, the MBTA had bought the more economical Ford Fairlane. The prototype arrived, and it was small and uncomfortable. Our six-foot cops sat scrunched up in the front seat, their knees on the dashboard. Prisoner cages severely limited seat maneuverability. The union was hollering. I told them, “We're going to get bigger cars.” I went to Jim O'Leary, who told me, “As a matter of policy, we're not buying the bigger cars, we're going to stay with the smaller ones.”

Okay. I had been encouraging O'Leary to come out on the system, ride the trains with me, see the cops in action, and also take a ride-along in our cars. “Why don't you come down Friday night,” I said to him, “do that ride-along we've been talking about and get some hands-on experience with some of the issues we're facing.”

After riding the trains, we went back to headquarters and got into one of the Ford Fairlanes. I had already had the front seat pushed up as far as it would go and then rigged so you couldn't push it back. I put O'Leary in the front seat; I was driving. O'Leary was up against the dashboard with his knees banging. He said, “Jeez, this thing's cramped.”

“Jim, this is a cop's office for eight hours. This is where we put our police officers every day, three shifts.”

I purposely hit every bump I could find, and each time O'Leary hit his head on the roof and his knees on the dashboard. Finally, he said, “Okay, okay, I get the point. What's the difference in cost between a Ford Fairlane and a Crown Vic?”

It's one thing to sit up in the general manager's office and say, “I can save $4,000 per car by buying this smaller car. I drive a small car, what the
hell's the difference?” But then you get in as a cop with all this gear on, and there are prisoners in the backseat, and the difference is clear. Also, the image was clear. All the other police departments were riding around in bigger cars, and we were putt-putting in our Fairlanes.

Over three years, we increased the MBTA police force to a 110-person department with fifty-five vehicles. You might ask why vehicles were so important in a transit system; we were a multicounty, seventy-nine-city-and-town transit system, and while we used police on the subway cars, it was critical that we had the ability to move quickly around our territory.

Equipment helps cops do their jobs, and it makes them feel good. I fought for these resources, and it worked. If people feel you'll fight for them, they'll work for you. If you work for them, they'll take risks to move the organization forward. “He's meeting me halfway, so I'll do it for him.” And once your people see that your ideas work, and they are praised and rewarded for carrying them out, their work becomes easier and gets done better. If you earn their loyalty, not demand it, you'll get results.

When I first arrived at the MBTA, their operational plan was just to go out on patrol. I asked the officers, “Where are you going? What's your assignment?”

“Out.”

“Where?”

“Out in the system.”

“How do we get in touch with you?”

“We'll call in.”

But their radios were so old and beat-up, they didn't reach into or out of the subways. As a result, once they entered the subway system, they were totally out of touch with headquarters. That had a strong impact on their safety as well as our operational control of our resources. As part of our seven-point plan, we spent four million dollars on the most comprehensive subway radio network in the country. For the first time, MBTA officers could reach their dispatchers, they could relay information, get backup, call for help. Their lives became safer, their jobs more manageable. We coordinated the system with the Boston, Cambridge, and Somerville police so their cops could enter the subways and communicate directly with our dispatchers, facilitating joint policing efforts.

There is a strong link between looking good and feeling good. I wanted my cops to have pride in their uniforms and I went about improving their look: new uniform items, new markings and logos on the cruisers, and a new identity to go with their newfound success.

The cops worked, the crime rate in the subways dropped, and an obscure, backwater police department that for years had received nothing but negative publicity began to receive a series of very positive stories. We also got some breaks. During my time at the MBTA, we became aware of the largest corruption scandal in the organization's history.

All the revenue coming into the MBTA went to a money room in Charlestown. Our special investigation unit was approached by a person who worked in that room who described an ongoing scheme and said most of the people who worked in the money room were stealing. We put people in undercover, and the information checked out.

Working with the state's attorney general, we put together a comprehensive, yearlong investigation involving dozens of hidden cameras throughout the system. We wired up the money rooms in all the bus depots and train yards, we put cameras into the central money room itself, and we caught these guys, on camera, stealing. A joint force of seventy-five state police and seventy-five of my people—the state police wanted to do it all themselves, but I insisted on our involvement in cleaning our own house—raided the money room while simultaneously arresting money-truck crews out on their routes and off-duty employees at their homes. Of the seventy people working in the money room, we arrested thirty-eight. Some of the people we locked up had money stuffed into their pockets and boots.

It was a TV bonanza.
The Boston Globe
's lead story centered on how the MBTA had investigated and cracked the twin problems of crime and corruption, and I wasn't too disappointed to find my picture on the front page, hands on hips, stone-faced, watching handcuffed money-room employees being loaded into police wagons.

Unlike many chiefs, I enjoyed interacting with the media. It's one of the ways a leader can move his organization. I've always believed that an organization is a reflection of its leader, and if that leader is well respected, his organization will be well respected. I like being known in a positive way. The MBTA Police was a relatively obscure department, and I was able to increase both its visibility and mine as we became more successful. I might have been accused of having a big ego or a desire for publicity, but I don't see how you can move an organization forward quickly without capitalizing on your own persona and attracting attention. The media enjoys and needs a focal point, and a good manager gives it to them. Lee Iacocca almost single-handedly, through his persona, resurrected Chrysler. He told its story; he was its story. Who ever heard of
Perdue chickens before Frank Perdue got on the screen and told us about them? I came from the Steve Dunleavy school of marketing. I was able to link my organization with my persona, and we both moved forward.