By Jason Hoppin
The St. Paul Pioneer Press
ST. PAUL, Minn. — Think about the complexity of what Matt Bostrom is trying to pull off.
St. Paul’s assistant police chief, who is in charge of security for the Republican National Convention, oversees a budget that approaches the annual budget of the entire St. Paul Police Department. He is assembling and training thousands of officers, a force the size of which has never been seen in Minnesota.
And he doing it under the pressure of making make sure the convention, to be held in a midsize Midwestern city in the midst of an unpopular war, comes off without a major incident. (Led by the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office, police launched a series of raids over the weekend aimed at anarchists who pledged to disrupt the convention.)
“What’s exciting for me is the knowledge that a community such as ours can host an international event. We could set a new standard in how this could be done,” Bostrom said.
The convention starts today at the Xcel Energy Center, giving St. Paul a coveted turn in the international spotlight. Tens of thousands of delegates and media members are expected, along with several protests -- one of which could draw 50,000 or more.
The man charged with making sure it all happens safely -- making sure bombs or riots don’t give St. Paul a black eye when it can least afford it -- is a 47-year-old second-generation cop with deep St. Paul roots who happens to be one of the best-educated officers in the state.
Bostrom grew up on the East Side, a working-class area of St. Paul where generations raised families by holding down industrial jobs at companies that have long-since departed -- Whirlpool, Hamm’s Brewery and Seeger Refrigeration make up part of a long list.
He’s got two brothers, one a minister and another who runs a waste management company. His father, Dan Bostrom, is the son of Swedish immigrants; a well-known retired cop; and St. Paul’s current longest-serving council member, prone to telling yarns about the St. Paul of yore.
With a daughter and two sons now out of the house, Bostrom and his wife live in a downtown condo. But he maintains ties to the East Side. He still coaches football there and helped found the Cross-Cultural Evangelical Free Church, which meets at an East Side middle school.
Small churches started closing their doors as the neighborhood took on a harder edge and congregations flocked to large suburban churches. Bostrom said he wanted a place that ministered to the needs of locals, a place where everyone knew each other’s name. A cop, he said, can only do so much.
“You don’t get lost at our church, that’s for sure,” Bostrom said.
While he has roots in St. Paul’s blue-collar past, Bostrom also represents the changing face of the police force. He is one of numerous St. Paul officers with postsecondary degrees, though the only one with a doctorate.
Since he was tapped to lead convention security shortly after the Twin Cities were awarded the event in September 2006, he’s been overseeing a complex, high-pressure planning process by dividing security into roughly 20 areas and assigning people to work on each area.
“There’re a lot of moving parts. Look at it as if you’re putting together an engine. Independently, the parts don’t have a lot of use. But you put them all together and the engine fires, suddenly you have a lot of horsepower,” Bostrom said.
He said the region is ready -- ready for the convention, ready for the protesters and ready even for X-factors such as self-described anarchists who say they want to disrupt not just the event but also the city. (But is it ready for a hurricane?)
“I feel great. Here’s where my confidence comes from -- each time I’ve checked with (my personnel), they’ve been further along than I need them at that point in time ... and the quality exceeds what I ask,” Bostrom said.
He started at the police force more than two decades ago as a civilian community service officer. Later, he abandoned his plans for an engineering career and became a sworn officer. After getting a taste of policing, he couldn’t imagine working in a cubicle for the rest of his life.
Bostrom has come up through the ranks, working midnight shifts and spending time as a D.A.R.E. officer, all while continuing his education. He is known as an even-keeled, plainspoken cop with an easy manner.
“There have been meetings that have been very pleasant and meetings that have been very contentious. Matt has been steady through all of this,” Police Chief John Harrington said.
During former Chief Bill Finney’s tenure, Bostrom was assigned as a liaison to the St. Paul Fire Department. There, he learned the ropes of emergency management, tools that will serve him well should anything happen at the RNC.
When Harrington took over as chief -- Bostrom was a candidate for the job -- he brought Bostrom back into the fold. Harrington made him his chief of staff.
That was another valuable experience. Harrington said the position requires someone who can solve unusual or unexpected problems -- whatever didn’t fit into a neat box wound up on Bostrom’s lap.
“If it’s controversial, if it’s political, if it’s sensitive; all those things end up in the chief’s office,” Harrington said.
To prepare for the event, Bostrom has led small delegations to Boston and New York, sites of the 2004 conventions. He even traveled to Oslo, Norway, to observe security at the 2007 NATO summit.
There has been controversy surrounding the number of police officers St. Paul has put together for the event. Bostrom said early that he wanted 3,500 officers but now says putting that figure out there was a mistake. People are suggesting catastrophe is imminent if St. Paul falls a few officers short, and that’s just not true, Bostrom said.
“This is shaping up to be the second-largest law enforcement force at a major political convention in the history of the United States. When people say there aren’t enough officers, I really don’t know what they’re talking about,” Bostrom said.
Harrington seconded that the department is ready. “All of the major items that we wanted taken care of have been taken care of,” he said.
Dan Bostrom also knows his son is ready. As a police officer in the mid-'60s, he saw plenty of marches and protesters and large crowds. He knows how their moods can switch.
“It’s with that background that I look at this, and I pray for him,” the elder Bostrom said.
Copyright 2008 The St. Paul Pioneer Press