Tweet
UPDATE: Gates has released a statement through his attorney, Charles Ogletree. It's at the link and also below the fold.
Ah, yes, post-racial America…it was only a dream, wasn't it? Welcome to a black homeowner's nightmare.
Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., one of the nation's pre-eminent African-American scholars, was arrested Thursday afternoon at his home by Cambridge police investigating a possible break-in. The incident raised concerns among some Harvard faculty that Gates was a victim of racial profiling.
Police arrived at Gates’s Ware Street home near Harvard Square at 12:44 p.m. to question him. Gates, director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard, had trouble unlocking his door after it became jammed.
Here is the police report. The Harvard professor was inside his home when the cop arrived, and he showed them his driver's license and university ID. Apparently the officer was offended by Gates's anger at being treated like a criminal for trying to unjam his front door, so he arrested the professor. 
From the report:
As I reached the [Gates's front] door, a female voice called out to me. I turned and looked in the direction of the voice and saw a white female, later identified as Lucia Whalen. Whalen, who was standing on the sidewalk in front of the residence, held a wireless phone in her hand and told me that it was she who called. She went on to tell me that she observed what appeared to be two black males with backpacks on the porch of __ Ware Street. She told me that her suspicions were aroused when she observed one of the men wedging his shoulder into the door as if he was trying to force entry.
After this, Gates was in his foyer watching what was occurring on the sidewalk. The cop asked him to step outside. Gates said no, and asked the officer to identify himself. The officer did, then said he was investigating a break-in in progress. At this point, the officer's report says “Gates exclaimed “why, because I'm a black man in America?” It escalated from there, with Gates apparently calling the police department to get the chief on the line to report a “racist police officer.” At this point the whole thing turns into chaos, with the officer contending whether gates was lawfully in the residence by his behavior, asked Gates to come outside (he didn't), so the officer went inside and the yelling continued and the officer eventually decided to arrest the academic.
Now this incident raises a few questions to discuss:
- Would a white professor have been subject to the same suspicion by the woman who called in the report of a break-in?
- While a white prof wouldn't have yelled “I'm a black man in America”, say he had said something to the effect of “is there some reason you're standing in front of my home?” and proceeded to engage angrily in the same manner. Would he be arrested?
- Would a white prof react as strongly to the police officer's initial inquiry since he would not be a victim of racial profiling?
- Did Dr. Gates's explosion of anger in his own home warrant an arrest? Is this a manifestation of the “angry black man” phenomenon, where the lower threshold of public anger by black men is seen as more threatening than it would be for a white man?
- Was the fact that Gates threw down the “don't you know who I am?” card a mitigating factor?
OK, while ruminating on the above, here's a comment from one of Gates's colleagues.
[Harvard Medical School professor S. Allen] Counter, who had called Gates from the Nobel Institute in Sweden, where Counter is on sabbatical, said that Gates was “shaken” and “horrified” by his arrest.
Counter has faced a similar situation himself. The well-known neuroscience professor, who is also black, was stopped by two Harvard police officers in 2004 after being mistaken for a robbery suspect as he crossed Harvard Yard. They threatened to arrest him when he could not produce identification.
Does that change any of your answers to the above questions?
Gates is the editor of The Root, which obtained the statement.
This brief statement is being submitted on behalf of my client, friend, and colleague, Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. This is a statement concerning the arrest of Professor Gates. On July 16th, 2009, Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., 58, the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor of Harvard University, was headed from Logan airport to his home [in] Cambridge after spending a week in China, where he was filming his new PBS documentary entitled “Faces of America”. Professor Gates was driven to his home by a driver for a local car company. Professor Gates attempted to enter his front door, but the door was damaged. Professor Gates then entered his rear door with his key, turned off his alarm, and again attempted to open the front door. With the help of his driver they were able to force the front door open, and then the driver carried Professor Gates’s luggage into his home.
Professor Gates immediately called the Harvard Real Estate office to report the damage to his door and requested that it be repaired immediately. As he was talking to the Harvard Real Estate office on his portable phone in his house, he observed a uniformed officer on his front porch. When Professor Gates opened the door, the officer immediately asked him to step outside. Professor Gates remained inside his home and asked the officer why he was there. The officer indicated that he was responding to a 911 call about a breaking and entering in progress at this address. Professor Gates informed the officer that he lived there and was a faculty member at Harvard University. The officer then asked Professor Gates whether he could prove that he lived there and taught at Harvard. Professor Gates said that he could, and turned to walk into his kitchen, where he had left his wallet. The officer followed him. Professor Gates handed both his Harvard University identification and his valid Massachusetts driver’s license to the officer. Both include Professor Gates’s photograph, and the license includes his address.
Professor Gates then asked the police officer if he would give him his name and his badge number. He made this request several times. The officer did not produce any identification nor did he respond to Professor Gates’s request for this information. After an additional request by Professor Gates for the officer’s name and badge number, the officer then turned and left the kitchen of Professor Gates’s home without ever acknowledging who he was or if there were charges against Professor Gates. As Professor Gates followed the officer to his own front door, he was astonished to see several police officers gathered on his front porch. Professor Gates asked the officer’s colleagues for his name and badge number. As Professo
r Gates stepped onto his front porch, the officer who had been inside and who had examined his identification, said to him, “Thank you for accommodating my earlier request,” and then placed Professor Gates under arrest. He was handcuffed on his own front porch.Professor Gates was taken to the Cambridge Police Station where he remained for approximately 4 hours before being released that evening. Professor Gates’s counsel has been cooperating with the Middlesex District Attorneys Office, and the City of Cambridge, and is hopeful that this matter will be resolved promptly. Professor Gates will not be making any other statements concerning this matter at this time.
56 Comments
Clearly the caller has a problemBut my (admittedly caucasion) response would have UP FRONT involved exclaiming that I was opening the front door to my own damn house! If the cop was a jackass after that, we can talk impropriety.
It would be very easy for any cop to call HQ & see who owns the house thru tax & phone records, then double check the guy’s ID, apologize & point out that some wacko neighbor called, and be done with it.
We’ll see how this one shakes out….I hope the doors on the Whitehouse are well lubed!
A white home owner would probably have been arrested, too…
…in those circumstances. The issue is less race than the fact that too many police officers have a perpetual, advanced case of what I call Judge Judy Syndrome aka “I’m the one with the authority so don’t fuck with [get uppity with] me.”
But, OF COURSE, CCWB [Challenging A Cop While Black] only angered the local fascisti more.
I hope Gates pursues this until he has their jobs.
Henry Gates, meet Gerald Early….Our local eminent professor/ public intellectual Gerald Early had some similar thing happen about 10 years ago.
Speaking for myselfI hope that Gates pursues this until the PD institutes some reforms that will help all of the people who will be similarly abused but who aren’t famous enough for the abuse to become a story.
Okay. You say Skip Gates arrested in own home, I gasp.Then I read some more. First, you raise suspicions about the woman who called the cops when she witnessed what appeared to her to be a break in. Puhleeze. You should be so lucky to have a dozen of her sort in your neighborhood. That’s exactly how my house was broken into – right through the front door. Are you saying you think she wouldn’t have called 911 if she thought a white person were trying to break in?
Gates sounds like he was caught totally unawares, but he also sounds like he was being a royal prick.
The arrest once the cf continued on outside the house sounds completely bogus – a cop using the disorderly conduct tag to show a mouthy person who’s boss. Essentially, he busted a homeowner on his own property for not being nice to him. I hope he gets some sort of slap down put in his folder.
I look forward to hearing Gates’ side of this story. I’m not understanding yet where his first charge of racism comes in after he was asked for identification.
I didn’t raise suspicions about the woman You should be so lucky to have a dozen of her sort in your neighborhood.
I agree with you — neighborhood watch is the best way to deter crime. However, this woman obviously didn’t know too much about her own neighbor if she called 911 on him.
Re: Gates — I’m not sure I would have opened the door and charged racism off the bat myself, that wouldn’t be my style. But reading the report, it sounds like the officer was intimidated by Gates’s tirade and misused his authority to “teach him a lesson.” How much race played into it really depends on a lot of factors — I would like to know how much institutional racism is in the Boston PD, by looking at bias incidents. Behavior by law enforcement in this arena is usually fostered from the top, for good or ill.
exactlyOnce Mr. Gates identity was established why wasn’t there a check with HQ? The officer was a bit quick with the cuffs all because Mr. Gates (in his hometown he’s Skip) was verbally confrontational. Training, procedure – it doesn’t matter what demeanor the maybe-perp exhibits, the professionalism of the officer is in question.
We’re talking about a TIME magazine most influential American and the local cop doesn’t recognize or even try to follow up on who he is !!??
“I didn’t raise suspicions about the woman”Perhaps your question was more innocent than I thought:
You make a couple of pointed assumptions which are not entirely warranted by saying
Do you know she lives on that block? Might she have been taking a walk and wasn’t from that immediate area? After all, she apparently wasn’t calling from inside a house.
As to being able to recognize one’s neighbors at a glance from behind while they’re putting their shoulder to their doors – I would fail spectacularly. YMMV.
I’d like to know the incidence of daytime residential burglaries in that area.
Gates is not exactly a large guy; he’s got obvious physical problems; and at 58 he was hardly a big threat. It’s too bad the cop couldn’t restrain himself and just walk away once he’d figured out that there was no “crime in progress.”
Pre-Anger is probably an issue, too…
It’s easy to imagine that Gates was already upset with the fact that he was having to force his own door, that he’d been the victim of an earlier break-in, etc., and along comes Boston’s Barney Fife.
So the situation was already close to “kindling temperature” when the cop’s TOTALLY inappropriate behavior set him off.
How was it inappropriate? Because he immediately pushed the envelope of assuming that 58-yr. old Gates fit the profile [regardless of race] of someone deserving of being treated as guilty of something until GATES proved he wasn’t.
While I displayed no anger at all at the time, I was put in that Guilty Until Proven Innocent position myself while visiting TexASS to see a cousin who was dying of cancer. My crime? Standing under a shade tree on a sidewalk in a 110 degree suburb of Dallas waiting for a ride to the airport by another cousin that, according to the Caucasian policewoman who pulled up, has “a lot of drug activity” and someone had called saying I looked suspicious.
Though the area looked like no “high drug activity” area I’d imagine, my problem was less with the call and her arrival than her immediately, if calmly, going into suspicion mode herself. She immediately asked me to take my hands out of my pockets because it “made her nervous.”
Then instead of simply asking why I was standing there in this Invisible Drug Trafficking Ground Zero and THEN deciding based on my answer what to do next, she mentioned the IDTGZ WHILE asking for my identification. After taking my wallet, she told me to PUT MY HANDS BEHIND MY BACK and STARTED PATTING ME DOWN…all while I was explaining about my cousin who had, in fact, died the afternoon before, my simply waiting for a ride there under the tree after going to get something to eat beyond the motel down the street which was visible from where we stood.
Finding nothing, she still told me to keep standing there while she called in my name to the station apparently to confirm that I wasn’t on the FBI’s or Texas Ranjerks’ Most Wanted List.
She returned asked if there was anything in my soft-sided travel bag, sitting on the sidewalk, that she’d be interested in. I thought, “OK, if I keep cooperating this silliness will end sooner.” I said, “No, you’re free to check it out.” As she was, I said, “Watch out for the melted chocolate” that had died under the TexASS sun just as she pulled her sticky hand out.
A SECOND cop arrived, this time Caucasian male, who, not content with the summary of what she knew, also began questioning me, even asking what color the car was that was supposed to be picking me up as if THAT would trip up the person clearly guilty of more than first degree shade standing and assaulting a police officer with a melted Hershey kiss.
Finding nothing illegal on my person or in my bag, the woman cop said they were sorry to have to have questioned me but they had to because of the IDTGZ, were sorry about my cousin, gave me back my wallet and I started to walk back to the motel to call my cousin to see why he was late…and scream, “GET ME THE FUCK OUT OF THIS HOLE!”
BUT she stopped me, saying that they STILL had to wait on the reponse on my identity check from the dispatcher! It was at that point that my earlier urges to scream “CRETINOUS FASCIST ASSHOLES!” approached critcial mass but, fortunately, before I lost my self-control, the radio informed them that I was not a Mexican drug lord disguised as a very pale white guy from San Francisco, and I was allowed to walk away.
I am convinced to this day that had I been black or Latino the ridiculous procedure would have automatically included at least being put on the ground while the rest of it proceeded.
There are many great cops out there, but there are too many who are dangerously incompetent and/or abusing their power. SO WHAT if Gates got pissed and started yelling??? The authority to arrest, the authority to use lethal force, should only be given to people who have the ability to rise above someone armed only with outrage and assaulting them only with words even if it’s NOT on HIS OWN PROPERTY!!!
REPEAT: TERMINATION FOR BOTH CAMBRIDGE COPS!
I agree….and then someI experienced an incident with law enforcement brutality when I was younger and out with friends (none of whom were african american but me). One of the vehicles in our party had an accident. Since I worked in the fire department at the time, my first instinct was to leave the scene to call for paramedics. When I returned I was approached by a paramedic who happened to be african american. He questioned me then proceeded with his tasks. Shortly after that, a white sheriff officer approached me to ask what I was doing in the area. When I explained to him that I was with friends, he insisted I leave. I went and sat down. Shortly after, another sheriff officer, who happened to be white, approached the area. The first officer told the second officer that I was a problem person. When I went over to the second officer to explain the situation, he too demanded I leave the area. I then asked for his badge number and supervisor and at that point I was punched and arrested. The second officer then goes to the first, “what he be arrested fo? He be arrested fo obstructing un offisa.” I feared for my life given an african american student died the year before while in local police custody. Later, while traveling home for the holidays, I witnessed an accident. I chose not to get involve and later found out the driver died. While my feelings towards law enforcement officers has approved considerably, I don’t blame Gates for acting the way he did. He is a constitutionally protected property owner and once he offered ID, the officers should have apologized and left. period. The neighbor should have known their neighbor(s) well enough to not have called the police in the first place (the point of neighborhood watches is to know who does and does not belong in the area).
From reading the statement…it kind of sounds as though Gates was already inside the house, having entered through the back, and the driver was at the front door, trying to get it open. So if the woman was a neighbor who did know who lived there, she still may have seen a man she didn’t know trying to get into Dr. Gates’s house.
But, regardless of whether she was a neighbor or a passerby, it may have looked as though someone was trying to break in. I probably would not call the police in a situation like that, but I bet my partner would. She’s a “what if that were my house and someone was trying to break in” kind of gal.
But the arrest sounds absolutely bogus any way you spin it.
My perspective on this is biased by the fact that I’ve been stopped twice by policeon suspicion of buying drugs just because I was in what they considered the “wrong” part of town. I’m anglo. I’ve been pulled over by police officers twice just because I was in what they considered to be “black” parts of town. The first cop flat-out told me that he suspected I was in the neighborhood to buy drugs. The fact that my infant son was strapped into a car seat in the back didn’t deter the cop. He actually escorted me to the house of the friend I was visiting. I was furious but if I’d caused a fuss it probably would have come back on my friend.
The second time I was pulled over for – get this – turning left at a green light arrow because, according to the cop, this meant that I was driving through a red light after I made the turn. I’m not making this up. The same son was in the backseat(now a teenager). The cop asked me what I was doing “in this neighborhood” after dark. Picking up my son from football practice, I replied. Cop shines flashlight in my terrified son’s face. Then he goes and calls HQ to confirm that there was a football practice in the park there that night (yes) and finally lets me go with a warning to “be careful about turning left when you have the light.”
So, yeah, I can kinda see why Professor Gates might have gotten a little angry.
No kidding, right?I mean, person in house with photo ID that matches the person, and an address that matches the address of the house? There’s no reason for the cop to say anything other than “I’m sorry about the misunderstanding, sir. Have a nice day.”
What aggravates me the most about these cases isn’t so much that they happen, though that’s bad enough. It’s the way the police department immediately closes ranks to defend the bad apple, and there’s never any meaningful consequence to the officer. Abuse of power should be treated more harshly than a comparable civilian crime, not less. Don’t they realize this is why people don’t trust the police?
Sadly, I’m not the least bit surprised by any part of this.I grew up in a small town, where the local college boasted a ground-breaking AA Studies program in the 70s when I was a child.
The first tenure-track professor for that program, who had a PhD and was married to another PhD, had to buy a home across the street from my family. I’m from what is now called ‘a lower socioeconomic status’, so the professor and Mrs. probably raised the average years of education on our block by about 4. I was delighted, despite the remarks of many adults about the new family, because they had a kid my age to play with.
I still remember how frightened I was when the police came one day, bringing home their teenage son in the backseat with the lights running. I was about 8, and we were playing in the backyard when there was the loudest yelling I had ever heard from adult men.
They came right through the family’s front door dragging their 14 year old by the collar, and proceeded to demand that Dr. and Mrs. come to the family diversion intake at the PD, or else their son would be taken to the juvenile lockup overnight. The kid had done nothing, based on their description of the storekeeper’s complaint, other than be black and act like he had a right to walk into a bookstore.
I thought Dr. [Redacted] was going to have a stroke, or else clobber a cop. He threw them out and told them to send the chief on over after his shift ended, and indeed the chief came…and left again with his hat in his hand.
I have never again spoken of this incident, but over 30 years later I’m shaking thinking about it–imagine how Dr. Gates must have felt.
I hope he sues them til they can’t see straight.
Chris Rock: How not to get your ass kicked by the police!Yes, this is probably completely inappropriate here but….
We need more Minority PoliceHopefully Professor Gates will receive a large monetary compensation for this, and he will use that money to set up a scholarship for Minority Police officers.
Either way I do hope the two police officers in question loose their jobs or at least receive harsh punishments. I’m fairly sure that regardless of the outcome their future professional progression inside that department is over.
The only way to really end this form of embarrassment is to increase the numbers of minority police men and institute strict accountability for all officers.
Ironically the caller worked for Harvard magazine.http://harvardmagazine.com/donate
Actually looks like this is already getting some play:
http://gawker.com/5318918/blac…
I think the cops reacted badly and I hope Dr. Gates gets justice.
Did anybody else notice…That the police report (by Crowley) says that when asked to come out on the porch to speak to him, Gates replied, “Ya, I’ll speak with your mama outside”?
Now, I don’t know Dr.Gates, but personally, I don’t know any professors who would have piped up with any variation of “Yo’ mama” at that point. But I sure can picture some idiot cop trying to cover his own butt thinking that African Americans “all talk like that” because he picked up the phrase from 1970s TV shows or something.
Also, I love that Figueroa (the campus cop) missed his typo of “your” instead of “you’re” on his official report. Real professional law enforcement officer, there.
What makes it worse are all the Americans trying to claim that we have a post-racial society, that, especially with Obama in the White House, racism isn’t a problem any more. The hell it isn’t. Americans need to get their heads out of the sand about racism, wake up and confront it.
Whatever happened to“a man’s home is his castle”?
Color me highly amused!I know I shall have to endure a few weeks of poorly educated individuals in the plight of African Americans in this country attempting to justify and/or possibly excuse the actions of both the officers involved as well as the “concerned citizen”. However in the defense of Miss Whalen, I can see how easily she could mistake two African-Americans attempting to force a door open with excess luggage on the porch and a Lincoln Town car in the driveway as “Two black guys with backpacks”. Mus have seemed even more suspicious when one of them just left in the car and the other stayed in the house!
As to Mr Gates’ attitude I just do not understand why a man in his own house would become so irate and the willingness of the police to come out so quickly to check up on the possibility of danger to his property. he should be well versed by now given all of his experience and history with the civil rights movement on how to deal with the police by now. Besides how would he know if someone is acting racist toward him with so many other circumstances involved, After all its not like he is the director of the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard University and one of the foremost experts on African American racism in the world today! I mean maybe its just all one big mistake! ROFLOL
I’m not sure I can take Professor Gates side…It was reasonable for a citizen to call the police in that circumstance, regardless of the color of the person’s skin. Two men slammed themselves against a front door is suspicious.
Mr. Gates was belligerent from the initial confrontation with the officer until his subsequent arrest. Had he not continued to escalate the situation with screams of racism, this would be a non-story.
I also find it interesting that Mr. Gates version of the incident leaves out every outburst that he made. Because of this, his version makes no sense. The officer thanks him for providing the information he asked for, then he proceeds to arrest him. He conveniently left out the ‘real’ reason for his arrest. He was uncooperative and belligerent with the police officer.
Under normal circumstances the officer would not have arrested Mr. Gates. These were not normal circumstances. It seems clear that Mr. Gates had a large chip on his shoulders, and the random officer that arrived was going to receive the fallout, regardless of how he treated Mr. Gates. I’m curious if the same tirade would have taken place had the officer been African American?
You know what upset the cop?Skippy didn’t bow and scrape to him like a good little nigger. As a result he was cuffed on a BWB — BREATHING WHILE BLACK
Here’s my storyYOU tell me what I did to deserve this!
Honestly!There is nothing in this story that says Mr. Gates escalated the situation with “screams of racism” from the beginning. Besides if you are going to play up Mr. Gates belligerency then you certainly need to explain how allowing the officer to enter his home and follow him to the kitchen and allowing him to see both his state driver’s license and his Havard ID constitute belligerency. The way I read the story they where not on friendly terms from the beginning but everyone has had experience with the kind of false “professionalism” that includes a belligerent attitude which is down played by polite conversation. it is police staple. But if the cop was being so polite and conversational why did he not give his name and badge number or attempt to deescalate the situation which cops are especially trained to do. regardless of all of that how do you justify arresting a guy for being angry at you if he is not calling you names or making threats. There is no justification for this arrest besides police overstepping their authority and thinking they can get away with it because they don’t think the person they are arresting has the influence or where where with all to make them regret it. Every racial claim is not African American insanity. What is insane is that even in the face of this expert on racism people still refuse to that black people go through this frequently.
HonestlyI react about the same way when the local PD shows up at my place, which seems to happen far too often. Obviously, I don’t bring up race, being a white man, but I’ve received too much unwarranted crap from idiots with badges over the years. I know there are “Good Cops” out there, but somehow I’ve never run into one, whether I’ve done anything wrong or not, every officer I’ve personally have had to deal with over the years has been a sanctimonious prick, and as a consequence, I generally keep my anger in check when dealing with them, but I know I come across as very terse, and very angry when they’re talking with me, as I’m usually just waiting for those little hamster wheels in their head to come up with some valid reason to either write me more tickets, or arrest me.
I can certainly empathise with Professor Gates here, and can’t say I wouldn’t have reacted the same way.
Lessons of HistoryMy sister dated a guy years ago whose uncle was on the Wellesley, MA police force when they arrested Dee Brown, a newly-signed Boston Celtic, who was looking for a new home in that very upscale suburb. In that case, the police said Brown, who was pretty tall, matched the description of a robbery suspect, who was thought to be about 5’8.” This was in 1990-1991. You would think the Boston-area police would have learned something from that incident.
Just for contrast, let me describe what happened to me about a year after I got my alarm system. I had inadvertantly left a window open when I went out on an errand, and came back to discover the alarm had gone off, and the alarm company had already alerted the police. I quickly realized the alarm must have gone off after a gust of wind blew something off a table, right in line with a motion detector.
The police arrived within 10 minutes of my arriving home. They asked for my ID, waiting on my porch while I retrieved my wallet from the table to show them my ID, and left once they confirmed I was the resident. No fuss, no muss. Then again, I am a white guy living in a predominantly black neighborhood, and the police were a mixed pair – one white and one black.
I will grant you I gave no lip to the officers, but I was also in a position where they knew an alarm had gone off. I can’t see why the same thing didn’t happen with Professor Gates.
I’m a little shocked……that so many Blenders here, confronted with a shocking example of casual racism, are busy taking the side of the cops and quick to assume Gates must have done something to deserve this outrageous treatment.
Disappointing.
I’m pleasedI’m very happy that not everyone is jumping on a bandwagon — either exclusively pro-cop or pro-complainant.
My takeaway is that many people here (not all, but many) are saying whoa, something’s not right here, there is too much of the story we don’t know.
That’s not disappointing to me — that’s mature and respectful.
I disagree…I read the police report. It was very straightforward, and anyone reading it would find it to be a reasonable account of what transpired. The police officer did give his name and badge number multiple times. At the very beginning, Gates opened the front door he exclaimed, “Why, because I’m a black man in America?” Later he yells at the police officer, accusing him of being racist. At one point he says to the cop, “Ya, I’ll speak with your mama outside. That is belligerent. As the officer descended the stairs Mr. Gates continued to accuse him of racial bias. It seems clear that Gates was predisposed to distrust the police. In other words, any white police officer is assumed to be racist.
I am not saying that the officer should have arrested Mr. Gates. On the contrary, I don’t think he should have been arrested. But I do think the officer was within his authority to arrest him for disorderly conduct. I am also not saying that Mr. Gates distrust of police is not warranted. I am sure he has experienced racism at the hands of the police. But I think in this case, Mr. Gates instant reaction was WAY over the top. IMO, had he kept his emotions in check the situation would have been resolved in a few minutes.
Of course every racial claim is not African American insanity. Most of the time the claim is true. But in this particular case, I don’t think the claim of racism applies. There was nothing in either version of the story to indicate racial profiling or that the police officer was racist.
So what?The fact of the matter is that Gates was in his own home, and despite the manner in which he may or may not have responded to the officer, he committed no crime.
From my vantage point, it doesn’t matter if Gates was sitting there calling the cop and his sister and his mother every profane name under the sun in such a loud tone that the cloud of profanity will float over the Atlantic Ocean for years. There was no crime.
No where is it suggested that Gates assaulted the officer, or that he brandished a weapon, or anything of that nature. It was his house, period, end of story. Why this cop decided that arresting the legal homeowner that had committed no crime and provided proof that he had legitimate business being there is beyond me, and I hope any cop involved with this has their chops busted hard.
Driving a sketchy-looking car does it tooA few years ago, I was, shall we say, a bit down on my luck. I had an old Buick Riviera that I bought for $400. It had been smashed up a bit and had some rust and stuff. Of course, it was February and the snow was melting off the car, and it had accumulated in the license plate frame because of the slope of the trunk (look at the rear of an ’89 Riviera and you’ll know what I mean).
I was just driving down a neighborhood street so I could get to the freeway, and of course, I got stopped. Even after providing registration, license, and proof-of-insurance, the cop STILL gave me crap about a “stolen” car and driving through gasp “this” neighborhood. Of course, it was an upper-middle-class white neighborhood, so the cops were just harassing me because I was taking a direct through street and was driving a sketchy looking car.
Three days later, I got pulled over again a block from home for “a license plate light out” in that same car. Of course, at this point, I was pissed, so I said to the cop in a very snarky tone, “Show me!” He stammered a bit and said, “Trust me, it’s out.” I looked right at him and told him I didn’t believe him, and that I was getting out of the car to look. Before he had a chance to say no, I was getting out of the car. Loe and behold, the light was working. I looked at the cop, called him a “fucking liar!” and bade him good night. I still can’t believe I didn’t go to jail on some stupid made up charge that night.
Actually, last weekend my boyfriend and I got pulled over for the same thing. I have an old van that I’m driving as my second vehicle (I’ve had several surgeries on my leg and the van has an automatic), and the cop flat-out told us that he pulled us over because “you don’t look like you belong here.”
For the record, we’re both white and were driving through a white neighborhood. Had we been black, we probably would have both been in jail.
Update: Charges Against Gates Droppedhttp://www.chicagotribune.com/…
CNN reporting prosecuters have dropped charges against GatesHere is the story:
“didn’t know too much about her own neighbor”I agree. I live in an apartment complex, and my particular building has like 20 living people in it, and I feel like I could recognize them if they were trying to get into their own place.
I tried to get this conversation going a little more broadly in NC by sharing it on a message board that I frequent for NCSU (the biggest college in NC, located in Raleigh – NC’s capital & another triangle area city & neighbor to Durham for those not familiar with NC).
http://www.thewolfweb.com/mess…
It has about 30,000 registered users I believe, although its a little less active during the summer time. But its grown beyond a NCSU student message board, and has faculty that participate sometimes as well, as well as students & young people from other colleges across the state.
I went there for undergrad & am returning in the Fall semester for grad school.
The NeighborAlso, there’s a WaPo article ( http://www.washingtonpost.com/… ) that quotes Gates as saying that he and the driver were trying to force the door for fifteen minutes before they got it open:
If I were the neighbor and saw someone trying to force a door for fifteen minutes, and I didn’t recognize them, I’d call the cops too. I mean, they were breaking into a house. It was his own house, so that’s not illegal, but I can see how it would look sketchy.
The part that gets indefensible is when the cop didn’t drop the issue and apologize for the confusion after seeing proof that Mr. Gates lived in the house.
A badge does notautomatically entitle anyone to respect, deference, or even basic civility. It is my right to be an obnoxious asshole, if that’s what I choose to be, and there are no laws against that. I hope he nails them to a wall.
CNN is now covering thisRick Sanchez is airing a report on this story right now. CNN reports that the officer allegedly did not provide a name and badge number, and that Gates allegedly made comments about the cop being racist and the plight of blacks in America.
This should be fun to see how this goes now that CNN has got it.
Don’t be shocked. This appears to be a great example of how in real life things aren’t always exactly black and white.
Reasonable AccountA police report is the observation of the police in their own (ungrammatical, in this case) words. It is an entirely one-sided representation of how any event happened, and by nature slanted to paint the police in the most favorable light.
And even still, what the report in this case shows is an officer who couldn’t de-escalate a situation with an elderly man in poor health for love or money and chose to lure the man out of the privacy of his home as a pretense for arrest for nothing more than yelling political thoughts. Not threats, not personal invective, not exhortations to the public to create a scene.
And if you don’t see how this entire situation is a reflection of a racist society (a woman sees two black men working on a stuck door and despite the fact that one is her famous neighbor she calls police) I don’t know how you can be helped.
Boston area policeNo one in law enforcement in the Boston area seems to have learned anything about chasing phantom black men from the Charles Stuart incident, so why would they learn from anything less egregious?
Cambridge’s black lesbian mayor’s comments, anyone?This was in the Boston Globe’s piece:
I’d like to hear more from her.
And from http://www.boston.com/news/loc… comes this Joint Statement:
So does driving with the windows down on a cool night at bar-closing timeI carpooled to an event that ran quite late, and so ended up driving home from my office at around 2 AM. I was pulled over almost immediately after I got on the freeway. The officer shone a flashlight in my face, then played it around the interior of my little truck, told me quite candidly that he thought I might be drunk because drunks frequently use the cold air to “sober up,” and then just let me go without all of the usual license-and-registration stuff.
Having seen the damage drunk drivers can do, though, this is one kind of profiling that I don’t object too strongly to. I wonder, though, if I was black, had a heap of bondage equipment on the seat next to me, or otherwise stood out as a member of a frequently-targeted group, whether I would have been waved on my way quite that quickly or politely.
“Teaching him a lesson” is it exactly.This looks to me like a case of two jackasses, but only one in a position of authority.
I think there’s little to no doubt that Gates cried police racism when it wasn’t warranted. Someone was seen forcing their way into a home, police were called. Was the officer supposed to not respond, or just turn around when he saw that Gates was obviously not a burglar? The reasonable thing for Gates to do would have been to say, “Oh, it’s my house, I forgot the key, here’s my ID.” Screaming about the endless torment suffered by an up-scale Harvard professor, “For being a black man in America” was absolutely absurd. And his behavior thereafter (according to a no-doubt biased police report,) was deplorable.
But here’s where I have to call abuse of power: There are photographs clearly showing that he was arrested on his own front porch. This seriously implies that police are lying when they tell the press that he “followed them down the street” screaming. If he did indeed follow them shouting, that still wouldn’t be cause for arrest, as law enforcement officers aren’t legally “disturbable” persons. The guy obviously didn’t do anything wrong, except for being rude to a cop in his own damn home.
Interesting interview.I notice that Gates doesn’t bother to dispute any of the things the police officer has him saying in his report. I’ve lost just a little of the huge amount of respect I had for him over the years. His putting what happened to him on a par with the oppressed masses in prison is kind of laughable.
Gates’ main excuse for what followed is essentially that he didn’t like the cop’s “threatening” tone when he was first approached. A cop investigating a reported burglary didn’t speak nice enough to the first person he finds in the house?
All this hoopla would have never happened if, when the officer identified himself and said he was investigating a possible break in, Gates had said, “This is my residence; here’s my driver’s license.” Instead it was, no, he wouldn’t come out to talk to the cop; do you know who you’re messing with; I’m calling the chief; black man in amerika blah blah blah; you’re a racist; yo mamma, etc. lol.
On the other hand, if this is the quality of policing Cambridge gets from a sergeant, I’d hate to see what the beat cops consider probable cause for a disorderly conduct arrest.
As someone who has been arrested more than once and has been mistreated by cops, I’m not feeling much solidarity with Gates. The cop, of course, deserves some sort of discipline for the bogus arrest.
Nothing much to see here folks, move on. But I’m sure lots of people, including Gates, will be milking this for all it’s worth.
Dr. Gates was returning to his home after an 18-hour (or so) flight,finding that his front-door latch had been damaged, and was confronted by an apparently racist Cambridge cop. I’m on Dr. Gates’ side in this one. He said himself he was physically incapable of yelling due to a bronchial infection.
I’ve seen police reports that had outright lies in them.I was in an automobile accident a little over 11 years ago in which the police report had obvious lies included.
From all reportsshe was his next-door neighbor. Wouldn’t you recognize your next-door neighbor?
And let me say on thisthat I’m a white female. The bimbette that hit me had a boyfriend who was a buddy of the MP that responded to the scene.
Plus, when we lived in SCwe had to contend with a neighbor who was related to one of the Sheriffs’ deputies and would call them on us on a whim.
Well, she thought she was witnessing a break-inSo if she truly thought she was observing robbers, she probably did not want to get too close. She may also not have noticed his face because of the way he was trying to force the door.
I think it’s unfortunate that the neighbor’s actions are being called into question. It’s a lot like the “Stop Snitching” “movement” that happened a few years ago here in Boston (and possibly elsewhere).
She did the right thing based on the info she had at the time. With adrenaline flowing all around, she may very well not have recognized her own mother in the context of a break-in.
“From all reports”1.) Can you link to just one of those reports, please?
2.) No, I would not recognize all of my next door neighbors – from the front or the rear.
3.) Indeed, the witness obviously didn’t recognize Dr Gates or the other man. Had she, she wouldn’t have called police, right? So – and I hate it when people say this, but it really applies here – what is your point?
Common senseHow would an intelligent person think this were a break-in? As described it would have been recognizable that it is not. And therefore the racism charge is correct.
Gates 911 tape released: Guess this is as good a place as any to pointout to all the folks screaming RACIST about the caller – she didn’t mention backpacks, she volunteered that they might be residents because she saw two SUITCASES. ”And what do the suitcases have to do with anything?” says the idiot 911 operator.
She didn’t mention black or African-American. She said one of men she saw forcing their way into the house might have been Hispanic.
But, but, but..
That’s what my Mom thoughtthat even if the caller did mention race, that doesn’t factor into the decision of whether a 911 operator should dispatch the police to the residence for a B&E.
The one factor that my Mom is still not clear on is excatly what did Gates say. She did state that no matter what he said, however, the police officier is supposed to be professional at all times, even in the face of verbal abuse.
I did ask her that if Crowley had indeed taught racial sensitivity within the PD, could it have made him angry if Gates played the race card. She conceded that it was possible (though not likely) but that it doen’t absolve him from being a professional. And that even though that might be a good time for a partner to step in simply to cool hot tempers, they almost never do.
She also stated that simply because Crowley taught about racial sensitivity, that doesn’t mean that he wouldn’t act in a racist manner (though she suspects that racism had nothing to do with this incident). She gave me an example of another cop who had taught such courses in another non-race related subject yet reacted differently when actually faced with the very situation he was taught.