Convention security effort wins positive reviews

There's a saying that no battle plan survives contact with the enemy, but as the 2004 Democratic National Convention got under way on Monday evening, the security effort, led by the Secret Service, was getting favorable reviews from convention attendees.

Delegates began arriving by bus at the FleetCenter site around 3 p.m. to make their way through "Mag Village," the tent-covered security checkpoint where magnetometers and hand-held wands examine persons and pocketbooks. For the next four hours, most breezed through the lines in 15 minutes or less, as convention Security Director Ed McNelley, a former Boston Police captain, monitored the area to ensure smooth operations.

"It was described as a nightmare, but it's been like a dream," said Tim Reese, a delegate from Oklahoma who estimated it took him 45 seconds to get through security at 4 p.m.

Delegates also said that the security personnel -- primarily Secret Service Uniformed Division officers and Transportation Security Administration screeners -- were polite and thorough. Some delegates even reported that their lipstick tubes were opened and their cigarettes individually pinched before being allowed through. Janine Selendy, the Democratic candidate for Congress in New York's 19th District, said her hair-spray bottle and "Veterans for Kerry" poster were confiscated, but she didn't mind. "They did a thorough job," she said.

Several attendees blamed President Bush for the need for such heavy security. "It's too bad we've made ourselves a pariah in the world," said James Cromwell, an actor on the HBO series Six Feet Under. "This is why we need to elect John Kerry."

Authorities reported that the opening days of convention week have gone smoothly from a security standpoint. One arrest Sunday of a woman lighting a small paper fire, originally thought to be convention-related, turned out not to be, so there had been no event-related arrests as of Monday at 7:30 p.m.

Boston Police Commissioner Kathleen O'Toole said that when she attended a security steering committee meeting on Monday morning at Secret Service headquarters in Boston, all authorities were reporting relative quiet. Bomb squads did regular sweeps of convention facilities on Sunday and Monday; as of 5 p.m. on Monday night, they had responded to 14 reports of suspicious packages, none of which were bombs. A package found in a porta-potty on Sunday night turned out to contain food.

The most bizarre false alarm came just after 12:00 a.m. on Monday, when a national guardsman reported that he thought he saw a parachutist landing on the O'Neill Federal Building next door to the FleetCenter. Helicopters beamed spotlights on the building, and law enforcement officers did extensive searches, but no one was found, O'Toole said at a Monday afternoon press briefing. Officials think the guardsman probably saw a domed basketball facility in the distance and mistook it in the dark of night.

Delegates getting off their buses were greeted by speeches about Palestinian rights from the "free-speech zone," a fenced-in, net-and-barbed-wire-covered area in which protesters have been allowed to make their views known to delegates. Most delegates went nowhere near the protesters. One who did, Mary Jo Kilroy of Ohio, said the fencing and barbed wire disturbed her. "I think we could use a little free speech at the convention," she said. "That pen, it looks like a prison."

Most delegates, though, had only positive comments about the security they've encountered at the FleetCenter and throughout the city. Theresa Formyduval, a North Carolina delegate who went through security in a few minutes, said, "This is probably the safest place in the world, don't you think?"