At a meeting in Cambridge, Massachusetts, called in response to a series of rapes in the Cambridgeport neighborhood, police Sgt. Joseph McSweeny was publicly upbraided for circulating a picture of a suspect named Santiago Grenados, who was wanted in connection with one of the rapes, and who was later indicted.

While women in the neighborhood demanded that the police pour resources into investigating the sexual attacks, some felt that police were racist in giving out information about Grenados, a Latino man of dark complexion who is from El Salvador. Although police had issued a warrant for his arrest, some were outraged that police would pass around his picture in connection with a crime for which he hadn't been convicted. Cathy Hoffman, who serves the city as the Commissioner of Peace and Nuclear Disarmament [$51,000 salary], complained that "to pass around a picture of a man of color doesn't speak to the problem and can promote racial fear or racism."

Police spokesman Frank Pasquarello commented that McSweeny was right to show pictures of the suspect to neighborhood residents. "If we were looking for a black or a white man we would have circulated their pictures too," said Pasquarello. "We were looking for a Hispanic man from El Salvador."

†