The Cambridge cop prominent Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. claims is a racist gave a dying Reggie Lewis mouth-to-mouth resuscitation in a desperate bid to save the Celtics superstar’s life 16 years ago Monday.And The Smoking Gun has the police report, so Crowley's version of the incident is easily read. (It's detailed and well written.)
“I wasn’t working on Reggie Lewis the basketball star. I wasn’t working on a black man. I was working on another human being,” Sgt. James Crowley, in an exclusive interview with the Herald, said of the forward’s fatal heart attack July 27, 1993, at age 27 during an off-season practice at Brandeis University, where Crowley was a campus police officer.
It’s a date Crowley still can recite by rote — and he still recalls the pain he suffered when people back then questioned whether he had done enough to save the black athlete.
“Some people were saying ‘There’s the guy who killed Reggie Lewis’ afterward. I was broken-hearted. I cried for many nights,” he said.
Crowley, 42, said he’s not a racist, despite how some have cast his actions in the Gates case. “Those who know me know I’m not,” he said....
Though he harbors no “ill feelings toward the professor,” a calm, resolute Crowley said no mea culpa will be forthcoming.
“I just have nothing to apologize for,” he said. “It will never happen.”
And now we know the name of the woman who called the police. I suppose her life will be ruined now, as she'll be portrayed as a racist. Lesson learned: If you think you're witnessing a crime, mind your own business. Somewhere, the new Kitty Genovese walks into the alleyway.
ADDED: Wow! Matt Yglesias abysmally misreads the Boston Herald article:
Now we see the Officer Crowley edition of the saga, as he explains that he once tried to save the life of a black man, so he must not be a racist.Come on, Matt! Crowley was talking about how he was accused of racism for not doing enough to save that man. Incredible!
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287 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 287 of 287I'm sure the cops love Jeremy, knowing how he supports police officers. I hope Jeremy wears a t-shirt saying "I HATE FUCKING COPS" loud & proud. Why not Jeremy?
Oh and another thing he said all of these countries pay something like $6,000 less per capita than us but are healthier than us because they got their donuts filled all the way...or somethin'.
I mean couldn't we just be unhealthier for other reasons?
MacDonalds...
Or drive by shootings?
I mean bullet holes do cost somethin'.
Which leads me to this wisdom taught to me by my dear old pa-survivor of three wars, and government health care-
Never go to the Doctor unless you are bleeding from five holes and one of them better be a bullet hole...
By 1970, when sundown towns were at their peak,
At their peak? In 1970? Give me a break. Brown was 16 years old by then, and the Civil Rights Act was passed for 6 years by then.
I grew up not far from that area, if 1970 was their peak, I'm sure there would have seen a few still around by the time I was old enough to notice them.
Sundown Towns did exist, but not in 1970.
Next time I get pulled over I'm gonna just berate the cop, his mother, his manhood, call him a racist. Appearantly, that's cool now. Hey let's all do it. It's not illegal and helps us all get along and have a nice civil society.
Alex - You can bet that when Jeremy encounters a real cop it's all "Yes sir, no sir, no problem, sir, have a good day, sir".
Then he goes home, puts on his Rage Against the Machine CD and types on the intertubes about how much he hates the cops.
Invisible Man wrote (3:25pm) "we should all have training to learn how to diffuse a situation with a police officer", and several others have quoted his words.
I think Prof. Gates knows very well how to 'diffuse' (spread around) this situation. It would be better if he were to try to 'defuse' it instead, i.e. remove the fuse from it so it won't explode.
Sorry about the pedantry. Sometimes linguistic ignorance is amusing and even instructive.
So do not misbehave when the police officer warns you to behave.
I agree with that. These crazy cops are not to be messed with. We have one cop in Cleveland who calls himself "Supercop Jim Simone", because he's shot and killed the most people. When you're dealing with a cop, stay calm and don't escalate the situation no matter how much the cop is trying to provoke you. No matter how many of your rights are being violated. No matter how many unprofessional things he says to you to get a rise out of you.
Some of these cops are crazy. Don't let them ruin your life.
Don't make their day.
Then he goes home, puts on his Rage Against the Machine CD and types on the intertubes about how much he hates the cops.
Ah, that is a perfect image! They are such weasel hypocrites! No true courage of their convictions.
My county seat in northern Indiana had a sundown law until the 1980s. However, no one knew it existed, it was never enforced, and was blatantly unconstitutional.
City officials discovered it while doing a recodification of city ordinances, which hadn't been done in several decades. Naturally, it was repealed as part of the process.
It was an interesting but disturbing bit of historical discovery, though.
Yep, this cop was a racist alright.
"CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) - The white police sergeant criticized by President Barack Obama for arresting black scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. in his Massachusetts home is a police academy expert on racial profiling.
Cambridge Sgt. James Crowley has taught a class on racial profiling for five years at the Lowell Police Academy after being hand-picked for the job by former police Commissioner Ronny Watson, who is black, said Academy Director Thomas Fleming.
"I have nothing but the highest respect for him as a police officer. He is very professional and he is a good role model for the young recruits in the police academy," Fleming told The Associated Press on Thursday.
The course, called "Racial Profiling," teaches about different cultures that officers could encounter in their community "and how you don't want to single people out because of their ethnic background or the culture they come from," Fleming said."
"I clerk for a federal judge, and have seen well over 50 civil rights cases involving the police. As a general rule, police officers hate when their authority is questioned."
And how many of those cases actually went anywhere?
Because I can see Gates or someone else filing one on this deal and it won't go anywhere.
Loafing Oaf, I'd agree. The officer should have continued to back off. There seemed no reason to push. Maybe that's one of the lessons here - the Cambridge police reviewing and tweeking some of their procedures about people 'who appear to be residents'. The officer expresses confusion about Gates' reaction - he could have paid more attention to that.
Maybe another of the lessons is to not presume to tell a black man how to react to a situation like this. And finally, maybe it's a lesson (and Lucia did nothing wrong in calling) for all of us to learn more about our neighbors, so that we can better recognize when something's amiss.
I am walking around Cambridge with large Prada sunglasses with my head down. And no I do not want to be interviewed about this situation.
Please, I beg of you, allow me and the very rare clumbers our privacy.
Now shoo.
UWS guy:
I should think you would know that fathers sometimes embellish stories to impress their children. Especially if they are from Missouri and are spinning the tales from Berkeley, CA where I can assure you it is perfectly safe to make up stories about the racist south. Perhaps even encouraged.
But, as our President is wont to say, let me be clear: No such official signs existed in the south. Had someone attempted to place something so offensive on the outskirts of any town in the south of my youth, it would have been taken down immediately by the town's good people who existed, and still exist, in every hamlet. Stereotypes are evil in all their guises and I would recommend you not deal in them even when they make you feel a bit better about yourself.
We are a wonderful community that has been disrupted by all of this media. We are rich, well educated, dress well and are very private.
We don't want anyone to know anything about how we conduct ourselves or how we "feel".
Now please I am begging you, enough.
No pictures either, thank you very much.
jeremy,the market is up because Obama's agenda is imploding,get a grip boy...
I want my city back and I want my country back.
"I have to say I am surprised by the controversy surrounding my statement, because I think it was a pretty straightforward commentary that you probably don't need to handcuff a guy, a middle-aged man who uses a cane, who's in his own home," Obama said.
But Obama will get attacked for this for years to come.
But I'd rather live in an America where police officers do not arrest someone in a situation like this. I understand the right wing commenters of Althouse disagree.
When they're not getting a hard on over cops making America feel like a police state, they go into frenzies about how Obama is already a compleely failed president (see the worthless comment thread below the health care press conference item, below). Which is funny coming from a crowd that still defends the previous Bush administration....)
LoafingOaf - Obama will get hell for throwing a cop under the bus who was just doing his job. Spin, spin, spin is ALL you guys ever do!
Alex, his job is to handcuff and arrest a man after finding out he wasn't burglarizing his own home?
The cop was leaving. He should have kept on leaving.
LoafingOaf - he was arrested for disturbing the peace. If I'd been cussing out an office I'd be frog-marched too.
Gates overreacted.
The cop overreacted.
The President overreacted.
Because he's pissed that his plan is failing.
bingo
Oh the cop ordered Gates to calm down while he was pulling out his handcuffs and deciding that his best exercise of his police discretion was to turn this into a silly, waste of time arrest. Why didn't the cop calm down himself, and LEAVE?
Cops love that "disorderly conduct" catch-all charge. Just like they love "distubing the peace" and "obsctructing official business." They can use those to arrest anyone they like for anything they feel like. Who cares if it doesn't hold up in court -- even if the charges are dismissed it has already upset the person's life quite a bit.
A better police officer would've walked away.
Jeremy wrote:
That's the point of police training: to deal with people who act like assholes without allowing it to escalate or making more of it than it already is.
[/quote]And police arrest people all the time who are belligerent. What's the issue? Gates, is a grown man. Nothing in this cops behavior suggested that he was targeting Gates because he was a black man. He was there because the police got a complaint that there was a potential crime in progress and they were called to the house to investigate. He doesn't know Gates from Adam he's just there to assess the situation. SHould he have not gone and simply assumed that Gates was the owner? What if he was a robber? If he's there though and doing his job then Gates is responsible as much as he for not escalating the situation. He could simply have said something along the lines of "Sorry officer, there must have been a misunderstanding. I'm the owner of the house. Here's my id"Bingo bango bongo, end of story. Instead HE escalated the confrontation continuously even when the cop decided to bring it outside. So he is responsible for himself being hauled off to jail.
If Americans can't dispute or even scream at a police officer when we feel we're being wronged, without being arrested or attacked in some way, we would be living in a police state.
You can, and cops can arrest you for it.
Many here act as if a police officer has the full authority to handle such matters any way they want. You seem to think that your freedom of speech has no consequences. If you are actually like a crazy freak cops are sometimes authorized to detain you, arrest you and even taze you and shoot you. So the first rule is there are ways to deal with cops. Treat them civilly, hopefully they treat you civilly. COps though are not obligated to take any amount of abuse simply because you feel like hurling it.
That is not true, and the millions and millions of dollars paid out by cities all over the country are evidence of police who do handle situations correctly.
Professor Gates overreacted.
Officer Crowley overreacted.
But Crowley is the person trained to deal with such matters.
And he did. He arrested a belligernet person who was going off the deep end and couldn't keep his cool.
And he is trained to arrest people who warrant being arrested.
Gates is still calling this guy a rogue policeman. Screw him.
Obama gives a major presentation on health care and all we can talk about is how racist he is. This is one of the worst public relation disasters since Sarah Palin's Katie Couric interview.
But he has no experience, so what do you expect?
This is all about health care. That's what the political news cast/press conference was all about. The question is this, would you trust a president who had for a friend, a man like Henry Louis Gates Jr. (Skippy)? These are the people that Bark Obama hangs out with, trusts with their judgment, and listens to their life experiences. Kinda like Rev. Wright, back there in Chicago.
jr565: He IS a rogue cop. He maliciously arrested someone for no good reason. Just because he didn't like that onlookers were hearing Gates yell things at him. Gates was in his own home and the cop had already determined that no one was breaking into it.
How many others have had this cop handfucc and arrest them for no good reason? Some of us are tired of the police state mentality of our cops.
But, hey, you guys probably wanna build a thousand more jails and prisons so we can lock up anyone who sneezes wrong.
Remember when Obama was going to cure all the hard feelings in this country that developed after years of racism?
Clearly, that's not going to happen.
Sarah Palin 2012.
Allen: The question is this, would you trust a president who had for a friend, a man like Henry Louis Gates Jr. (Skippy)? These are the people that Bark Obama hangs out with, trusts with their judgment
Actually, Gates has a very good reputation at Harvard. I suppose you wanna paint him as some kind of terrorist now?
I don't approve of the way Gates behaved in this incident. But he lost his cool because he thought (rightly or wrongly) he was being racially profiled. The cop should've understood this and not escalated the situation. The uy was, after all, IN HIS OWN HOME and quite obviously did not want a cop up in there. The cop should have LEFT AND GONE AFTER REAL CRIMINALS.
A black man can only get angry when he perceives he's being racially mistreated if he's a conservative black man yelling at a liberal politician (Alford vs. Boxer).
Sarah Palin 2012.
Oh, you mean that woman who runs around the country calling you a "sexist" if you criticize her?
"The uy was, after all, IN HIS OWN HOME and quite obviously did not want a cop up in there."
Unless Gates is senile and is loosing his memory, he had to have had the experience of breaking down his own front door still in his mind. With the giant brain on this Harvard University professor, maybe he could in his wildest imagination conjure-up a reason why that might be suspicious to a cop.
But then maybe Gates is loosing his marbles: He broke down his front door AFTER letting himself in to the house by the back door with a key. Once you break the front door, now you can't leave until it is fixed.
BTW. Gates has the use of the house, but it belongs to Harvard. It is one thing to break your own front door--that you will pay to fix, it is another thing to break University property that they will have to fix.
Sgt. Crowley may have made a bad call, I think this is a debatable point. Is it even a question that this Harvard professor behaved any better than a deranged wino?
Yes, we should all have training to learn how to diffuse a situation with a police officer.
Were you raised by wolves or what?
At about 8 years old my parents told me not to cry/panic, to be polite, speak clearly, give my name and ask the police to call my parents.
Still sound advice, except now I'd ask to call my lawyer.
knox said...
Gates overreacted.
The cop overreacted.
The President overreacted.
Because he's pissed that his plan is failing.
bingo.
I am disturbed by the constant effort to somehow find moral equivalency, then pronounce any issue over because "all parties are equally at fault."
That's the infantile knee-jerk reaction of "blame-spreading" usually by someone at fault, someone sympathetic to someone at fault, or authorities seeking to avoid the hassle of dealing with it --all seeking to avoid responsibility. (if Everyone is at fault, than no one can "legitimately" be held at fault and own up to it.)
Or sililar to the tactic to take any incident back to "root causes".
Pearl Harbor was bad. But it was precipitated by the oil and metal embargo slapped on Japan due to it's depredations in China. But Japan only invaded China because it felt left out of earlier white imperialism that got colonies, while Japan didn't..Ergo, everything is the fault of white imperialism - the root cause!.
Full Harvard Professor Gates mouthed off. But he was innocent and black. And reacting to a white cop after centuries of race persecution had scarred, scarred his soul! And that was all De White Man!
Therefore, the root cause of Gates arrest is slavery and 'scrimination. The cop not apologetic for the sins of all white people was contributory. And Gates, innocent and never responsible for his own behavior by reason of being a proud black man.
==============
LoafingOaf said...
Alex, his job is to handcuff and arrest a man after finding out he wasn't burglarizing his own home?
Perhaps the biggest use of disorderly conduct arrests, outside drunks&bars --is arresting people in their own home while investigating a domestic violence report, doing a warrant or probation check. They may be "innocent" of what is being investigated, but belligerance, cussing at, obstructing authorized officers acting under color of law - does get one arrested.
In quite a few cases, the disorderly conduct charged is dropped. Not because the party is innocent, but because an arrest for breach of peace/disorderly conduct is an effective way for cops to gain control of a situation - and once everything is settled down, there is little interest in prosecutors extending the situation by taking it through the whole court rigamorole. (And judges have vigorously opined at times that they don't want to see lawyers showing up in their court who are paid by assholes who said their 1st Amendment rights were violated when they told a cop in official duties to go fuck off and fuck their mother while they were at it. And they don't want drunks and jerks hammered by the legal system and tying the system up - past being held long enough to calm down or sober up.)
"elHombre-- why must you add to the distortions? Obama spokesman denys that Obama called the cop stupid. Stop lying. He said the cop "acted stupidly" which isn't the same thing."
That's what they call in the law, Montage, "a distinction without a difference.
Also, Obama was wrong (as are you, Montagne), when you say Crowley arrested Gates "in his own house." He only arrested Gates when Gates followed him out the front door and continued to shout at him as he stood in the front yard (he had been on his way back to his patrol car, until Gates decided he was too important a racial persona just to let it rest.)
What a fine, dignified fellow this Harvard professor is. The school must be so proud.
The woman who called in the break-in is a Harvard professor too.
Boy is she in trouble.
Loafing oaf...I am concerned by the point you make over and over that a Police officer's duty is to remember your right of free speech always trumps the police officers duty to keep the peace among confusing facts and hostile people in public places. That is the ideal, but it will not work among real Police doing a real job when a crime has been reported to them. If you let the policeman do his duty without testing your power against his power, then he will be on your side. Do you feel a need to be punished? A common crazyness today is suicide by police officers. Gates asked to test Sgt. Crowley's authority outside in public. He got punished for it and has learned a lesson he asked to learn. Case closed.
The Intl Brotherhood of Big Shots is lining up behind Gates. He is one of their own and above criticism. What bothers me is that this big shot millionaire is portraying himself as the oppressed underdog in this situation. Give me a break. He is rich and famous and his outburst was as self indulgent as a fart in a crowded elevator. He has done a lot of reporting from Africa. Does anyone believe that he would negotiate a bribe seeking traffic stop in Kenya with the same high dudgeon that he negotiated this conflict?....There's no downside for Gates. His next book will sell better, and he will be considered an outspoken champion of poor black men everywhere. He will consider himself a brave man in the tradition of Mandela. ....Crowley? His moral betters will tell him to consider the deep sources of this incident and reflect upon his character flaws. There will be an unspoken assumption that he is a racist. Unlike Gates, he will have no reserves of wealth and privilege to buffer the unkind glances. And God help him if he ever does anything wrong again. If he should ever, for example, taser his step child don't expect the liberals to guarantee his job security.
Cops love that "disorderly conduct" catch-all charge.
As stated above by Cedarford, cops quite frequently use disorderly conduct to gain/maintain control over situations involving highly emotional and/or belligerent people.
Are the arrests sometimes unnecessary? Probably. Are they always unnecessary? Doubtful.
It is up to each officer to use their professional judgment.
Given the professor's belligerent tone from the very beginning; the professor's decision to escalate the confrontation by following the officer out the front door; and then the professor's decision to ignore the officer's warnings while continuing to escalate, I say the arrest was appropriate in this case.
http://www.reason.com/news/show/134987.html
John Stossel make the point - "How can you trust people who have never even run a small business to take over 15% of the economy"? How come plain, simple common sense aka "folksy values" have been driven out of us? Somehow I don't think those Harvard-degrees are worth shit.
Every time I encounter a Harvard professor, I think of Bill Buckley.
Oh and the typical leftist canard about "health care causes most bankruptcies".
How many of those bankrupt households where the medical bill tipped things over the edge because they were already maxed out on credit cards and bought too much house? Why nobody is doing studies of important things like this? Instead Jeremy and his ilk simply tell us:
WE MUST GET SINGLE PAYER NOW OR DOOM!!!!
Cedarford:
Many thanks for the amusing dissection of what Knox must have been thinking.
Actually, the first two phrases, Gates overreacted, and the cop overreacted, were first put together by Jeremy, I suspect to conflate the actions of the cop and the scholar, perhaps for reasons you hit upon in your analysis.
I put the third phrase into the mix: the President overreacted, as a retort to Jeremy to remind him that this whole business was the President's fault (a President whom I recall you avidly supported in the last presidental election as a candidate). I added the phrase: Because he's pissed that his plan is failing, only to provide possible motivation for the otherwise bizarre and inexplicable behavior on the part of President Obama. In a sense, I was giving the President a pass because it must be tough to see something one has worked so hard one disappear on account of acting stupidly at a press conference.
SukieTawdry - Buckley did lose a bit of his reputation when he lost it in a debate with Gore Vidal. He should have kept his cool. Otherwise, an impeccable mind.
Dear Montagne Mointaigne,
It wasn't, just then, "his own house."
Until the situation was calm, the neighbor back on her porch, and everybody about his business it was a potential crime scene.
Also, I like it that Gates appeared repeatedly to appeal to bystanders to get involved with his "This is what happens ..." That's the sort of behavior that gets people hurt.
Reuven nailed it. The officer did his job with no prejudice whatsoever, and did it according to the book. Obama then blamed the entire Cambridge police for acting stupidly.
But actually the one officer acted intelligently in light of the facts as he knew them. Obama owes him an apology, and should give him a raise.
Or at least give the Hispanic officer who was with him a raise.
After reading the arrest report, my guess is that they probably could have gotten a conviction, and the police would win any civil law suit filed against it or the officer.
Gates' problem, should it ever get to litigation (and it won't), is that by the time he was arrested, it appears that a decent number of people had congregated, including other police, including from Cambridge and Harvard. And that crowd is indicia that Gates was, indeed, disturbing the peace.
Crowley comes across as doing everything by the book (but then, what police report doesn't read that way?), step by step. And, I have no doubt that the other cops on the scene would back him up 100%, regardless of their color (or, as someone pointed out, they are all the same color - blue).
chickenlittle - I put the third phrase into the mix: the President overreacted, as a retort to Jeremy to remind him that this whole business was the President's fault (a President whom I recall you avidly supported in the last presidental election as a candidate). I added the phrase: Because he's pissed that his plan is failing, only to provide possible motivation for the otherwise bizarre and inexplicable behavior on the part of President Obama.
1. Added Obama to it just fluffed it up to "triple moral equivalency". Perhaps that was your attempt at humor with Jeremy.
2. My support of Obama was tepid. And generally fell on the same lines and Alhouses...erraticm incoherent, clueless on the economic catastrophy. Plus two other factors...(1)McCain calling for near war with Russia over the Georgian "freedom lovers", and eventual war with Iran to "save Israel". (2)McCain is old and has had 2 serious bouts with one of the most deadly cancers - curable if caught in time, but also infamous for appearing to be cured but hiding out then coming back. It wasn't just that, but my conclusion that his backup, Palin, was also erratic..and clearly not intellectually ready for the job.
After 6 months, watching Obama run his mouth...watching McCain up to his usual Senate treachery and watching the babbling Palin quit the Governorship, I believe it was the right call.
3. Obama added his Gates comments not because he is pissed on his healthcare...but because he favors the black race over whites. He just couldn't leave the matter alone...he had to run his mouth on.
Cedarford - you have my respect!
I can't imagine how much bravery it would take to be a police officer and show up on someone's porch not knowing if you're dealing with Jack the Ripper or a Good Samaritan. I think Gates thought that he was so famous for his literary criticism that the officer should somehow be able to define that he was not only the owner of the residence but also an important literary critic who works at Hahvard.
But there must be a fog of judgement in such a crisis for even the most cool-minded police officer and those who aren't guilty should give the officer a break and do whatever they say because if you were in their shoes you'd want people to calm you down by acting properly.
Gates just showed immaturity by acting like this and by making such a big deal out of it.
Nobody cares about him.
The officer was just trying to make sure that persons and property were safe. Gates tried to make it all about him, and his importance at Harvard, using a class cudgel to beat down the police officer who was just doing his duty.
Kirby - good points. Why isn't this a class issue? The elite Harvard prof berating the working-class cop? I thought the Democrats were for the working class, no?
I'm sure the officer won't be at all affected by the bad behavior of Gates and will continue to perform well at other residences. I feel sorry for him that Gates called him those bad names and had the president second guess his intentions and performance without knowing the facts. It should make police work harder for all the police to have this kind of dumb feedback, but I'm sure they will all still do as well as they can. It's how they're made, thank goodness.
Nixon caught nine kinds of hell from the press when he dared venture the opinion that Charles Manson was guilty before his trial had been concluded. It will be interesting to see if this matches that.
black man tells a cop off he gets shot or if lucky, arrested.
UWS, when did a black guy get shot for telling a cop off?
Yeah, this appears to be a very "tragic" situation that was fortunately avoided due to the call by the woman and of course, the terrific follow up work of the police officer.
Once he got to the home, just think of what might have happened if he hadn't cuffed, arrested and booked the professor.
If there is any justice, Gates house will be broken into and the police won't be terribly responsive.
This was the best thing that has happened to Gates in years. He'll get 100's of interviews and will be able to play himself as the poor victim for years off of this. Plus, most blacks with an interest in racial politics can say what they have been saying since a minute after Obama got elected: Just because we elected a Black President it doesn't mean that we aren't a totally racist society. In fact, we still have many mor eyears. (Which I am sure was news to Sandra Day O'Connor)
If Obama wants to speak out for a Black man who is getting a raw deal, how about this one?
Exclusion of Blacks from cities and even entire states was primarily a Northern practice, not Southern.
Why here's one from good old Wisconsin from the same author as the UWSguy quote:
"Sundown towns are communities that for decades—formally or informally—kept out African Americans or other groups. They are so named because some marked their city limits with placards like the one a former resident of Manitowoc, Wisconsin, remembers from the early 1960s: “Nigger, Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On You In Our Town.” The term itself was rarely used east of Ohio, but intentionally white communities were common in the East, indeed throughout the nation—except in the traditional South, where they were rare."
Gates shouldn't have yelled so much. True.
The officer should not have actually arrested him. True
Obama should have taken a higher road. True.
The officer should have known it was Gates' house and made the connection when he saw the ID. How can an officer in Cambridge - who is familiar with racial profiling no less - not know who Prof Gates is? Odd.
There is just something really strange about this whole thing. Obama making the commentary that he did though was even wierder.
Gates was a still a young man when the signs outside of cities in the south read, "Nigger don't let the sun set on you here."
That couldn't possibly effect the way he views the police could it?
------------------------------------
Yeah, like nothing has changed in the US in 60 years.
Professional racists stirring the pot to keep Americans in conflict with each other...
"Alex, his job is to handcuff and arrest a man after finding out he wasn't burglarizing his own home?
The cop was leaving. He should have kept on leaving."
And he should NEVER go back. Not for anything.
And neither should any other police officer respond to that address for ANYTHING.
A couple people here have said that a police officer has no right to do anything but accept verbal abuse.
Those of you who say that cops are often bullies should consider that all police officers are volunteers and if they can not expect respect and good treatment the bullies are the only ones who will consider it worth the bother.
Anyone would be a moron to stay in that job.
And that's what will be in that job.
Why is it that liberals, those of you so certain that us "right wingers" just love the idea of a police state, who lecture because these "servants" have no right but to allow themselves to be abused...
Do you treat all of your "servants" like shit?
Why would a woman getting killed automatically make anyone think "black man?"---
Clearly this poster is unaware of the societal impact of the Kitty Genovese killing where a woman's killing was heard by many nearby but no one went to her aid. The comment was how our interest in aiding each other when under criminal attack is diluted. Would you call the police for your neighbor's benefit if you suspected that your action would result in your name being publicized in a national controversy?
Imagine him overreacting in matters of greater importance.
I am holding my breath.
Which reminds me -- isn't there a war in Afghanistan or something?
I'm trying to sort this out, but I'm not getting very far . . .
1. Liberals don't want us to have guns. We must dutifully call 911 when we are afraid of someone inside or outside the house and then try to hide.
2. When the cops come, liberals think the best practice is to scream at them.
Borderline personality disorder? "I Hate You, Don't Leave Me?"
"I hope you remember that if you ever need one. Call someone who isn't a dick to come help you."
When seconds count, cops are only minutes away.
So a neighbor or citizen of Mr. Gates calls the police because two people are brazenly breaking into a house. She is concerned. She does the right thing, calls the police, who respond appropriately...
If it had been a break in, and she hadn't of called, would she be labeled a racist for not calling police to protect a black man's property?
Anyway, Obama is melting down. Hope people don't get hurt in the process of his self induced deconstruction.
I don't think the cop is a racist. I think he's an asshole who ran into another asshole.
I think we have a winner.
I know Cambridge is a "city" -- but I think it's interesting that the neighbor didn't know Gates by sigth, and Gates didn't know the neighbor.
And Gates needs to learn something about gratitude.
Wonder when someone is going to "leak" info on Sgt. Crowley. Maybe JTP should give him a call?
Sure does seem stupid to diss someone you don't know anything about except that he probably voted for you ....
Every black man has a story about the cops. Ask. I'm sure it's all a big coincidence and they're being oversensitive... barf.
And every cop I know has at least 20 stories about dealing with belligerent black men. Just ask them. In most major cities it's practically their main function.
and UWS guy? While you are googling let us know what the average crime rate was in all those minority free southern cities. I'm guessing it was slightly lower than what every major city has experienced for the last 40 years. What do you think there Mr. Racial Conscience of the Internet?
Madison Man: "Disturbing the peace. Try it sometime and see how that works for you.
Were the neighbors complaining? Whose peace was being disturbed?"
According to the police report, neighbors were coming outside to see what was going on. I think that it's safe to say that they wouldn't be doing that unless their peace had been disturbed.
No such official signs existed in the south
Because white Southerners knew most blacks couldn't read them 80 years ago since the black schools were so rotten. And neither could many of the poor whites.
Alex, I believe Sukie Tawdry was referring to Buckley's claim that he'd rather be governed by the first 2,000 people in the Boston phone book than the Harvard faculty.
How many others have had this cop handfucc
Titus volunteers.
I'm 67 years old and have NEVER considered myself a racist. Now I'm beginning to wonder. Every single time something happens the word RACIST pops up. The cop was doing his job, protecting both himself and Gates. He didn't know where the ID came from, if Gates was alone, and what was going to happen so he did what he was trained to do and asked Gates outside. Gates had a right to be upset but not abusive. Makes me wonder if Gates was looking for that RACIST angle. If he figures he was singled out. His 10 minutes of fame so to speak. The fact that he started in with the "you don't know who you're dealing with" shows he had a bad attitude to begin with.
What nonsense here from Althouse and others. A man is arrested in his own home and handcuffed, thrown in jail for four hours.
FOR WHAT? Who was made safer or protected by this?
I don't know if it's racism or a cop on a power trip who sees citizens as subjects who must obey him. Racist or asshole, we was wrong.
So any citizen who is not obsequious to the police deserves to be locked up? Or just the black men??
"Matt Yglesias abysmally misreads the Boston Herald article"
Now, there's a shocker.
I think that it's safe to say that they wouldn't be doing that unless their peace had been disturbed. .
Or because of the police cruisers, possibly with flashing lights, outside the home.
Really, conservatives are such hypocrites. You yammer on and on about freedom and then (most of) you make excuses for a man being arrested and shackled in his own home.
Really, liberals are such hypocrites. You yammer on and on about freedom and then (most of) you make excuses for a man being arrested and shackled in his own home.
Now Jonah will think you are TOTALLY cool Ann.
Matt Yglesias? Misread something in a convenient manner?
What're the odds of that?
There is speculation that Gates lost it when the cop asked if anyone else was in the house because he was on the down low and didn't want to be exposed.
Race hucksters wreaked havoc in the community college system in my state. Highly rated communication adjunct professor Ken Hardy was teaching interpersonal communication in the summer of 1998, and to teach about the uses of language to marginalize people, they discussed in class the use of words like girl, nigger, bitch, faggot, etc. One student in this very diverse class was upset about the use of nigger and bitch, and went to a race huckster, who threatened to stage an African American boycott of the college and drive down enrollment. Mr. Hardy made it clear that he was not calling anyone these names, and what he was teaching advocated against doing such. The use of icky words to illustrate content of what was being taught was protected by the First Amendment and academic freedom. All the other students in the class did not take offense, including many African American students. They understood the point the instructor was trying to make.
The academic dean had verbally notified Mr. Hardy that he was on the schedule to teach three classes that Fall 1998, and his name was printed in the schedule of classes for those classes; no contract existed because at the time there were no such thing as adjunct contracts. However, at the end of the summer course, Mr. Hardy was notified that there were no courses on the schedule for him to teach that fall and he was never hired again.
During the dispute, the dean told him that if he weren't a white male, this wouldn't have been a problem.
There is a BIG PROBLEM when the race hucksters attack the very people who are TRYING TO HELP THEM. Mr. Hardy was trying to teach this class that calling people nigger (among other things) was wrong; and Officer Crowley was trying to prevent a break-in at Gates' house, not initially realizing the suspect was the occupant. The neighbor, whose name is out there now, since the police reports are posted online, will also probably be vilified and branded a racist for caring about the neighborhood enough to call the police about suspicious activity going on.
http://www.nacua.org/documents/HardyVJeffersonCommunityCollege.html
Eff the idiots. Gates deserved to be arrested for a little behavior management purposes. The ordinary person knows not to act like an asshole towards the police. That's what criminals do. You don't even have to watch COPS to know that--Reno 9-1-1 will teach you the same lesson.
I hope Crowley sues Gates and Obama for defamation and walks away with multimillions. That would smack down the crowd that flings that allegation loosely and destroys people in the process.
BTW this wasn't profiling. He wasn't pulled over for DWB--a neighbor called in the report!
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