Cliffies Tip Off City Police, Help Nab Two Family Men Looking for Pickups

Twice in the past week a Cliffie has provided the clue leading to the questioning of men who were cruising around the Radcliffe quad trying to pick up girls, Cambridge police captain John J. Granger said yesterday.

Granger described the two men involved in two separate incidents as "family men who were pretty embarrassed about the whole thing." In both cases, a man was contacted and brought to the police station after a Cliffie reported the license number of the car he was driving.

"They won't try it again," Granger said. "We scared the hell out of them."

Granger explained that the police had no way of holding the two men. "The girls didn't stop to talk to them, so the guys didn't get a chance to say anything lewd or do anything obscene."

Granger said that the police have an extra car and two additional footmen patrolling the Radcliffe area every night. "But the big problem," he added, "is that the girls don't pull down their shades. You can look into their rooms after dark and see them doing all sorts of indiscreet things."

Blow A Whistle

Girls who get attacked should pound their assailants with a high-heeled shoe, Granger advised. If a girl is plagued by obscene calls, she should blow a police whistle into the receiver. "We know this works. We tried it on one of our own men and he couldn't hear right for two weeks," he added.

Radcliffe officials have expressed concern over problems such as public necking. "The girls just have to learn that this type of public display attracts all the worst kinds of perverts," said Mrs. Deane A. Lord, director of the Radcliffe News Office.

Radcliffe is hiring additional watchmen, according to Ralph P. Gates, director of Radcliffe Buildings and Grounds. Gates said that he is now receiving three or four incident reports a day. In dorm meetings held two weeks ago, Cliffies were requested to file anonymous reports if they were bothered by phone calls or men in the Quad. "I wonder," Gates said, "If these things have just begun to happen or if the girls have just started to report them."