“I’ve heard about five different reports [on the details of the arrest]. If I’m the President of the United States, I don’t care how much pressure people want to put on it about race, I’m keeping my mouth shut.”-Bill Cosby on Boston’s WZLX
I first chimed in on Henry Louis Gates, Jr and the Cambridge police matter on Tuesday. You can read what I wrote here This Guy Sounds Like a Real Dick.
This thing has really blown up since then, with everyone giving their two cents’ worth, including our President, who claimed that the Cambridge police acted “stupidly” on this issue.
Well, Mr President, you said you didn’t know all the facts in this case, so I will say that your response to the question was answered ’stupidly’.
The more we find out about the confrontation between the arresting officer, Sgt. James Crowley, and Professor Henry Gates, the more it appears that I was exactly right in my comment that, basically, Gates is a pompous ass.
Gates accused the 11-year police veteran of being an inflexible, race-baiting tyrant after Sgt Crowley arrested and charged him with disorderly conduct last week. What really happened is that Prof Gates was pi**ed that this cop didn’t know who the distinguished African-American scholar was.
Prof Gates didn't know who he was messing with!!
Supporters, both black and white, are rallying behind Sgt Crowley, who was hand-picked by a black police commissioner to teach recruits about avoiding racial profiling.
“If people are looking for a guy who’s abusive or arrogant, they got the wrong guy,” said Andy Meyer of Natick, Mass., a friend of Sgt Crowley who has vacationed with him, coached sports with him and is a teammate on a softball team with him. “This is not a racist, rogue cop.”
Sgt Crowley is an exemplary cop who once administered CPR to a dying Boston Celtic Reggie Lewis, who collapsed of a heart attack during a Celtic practice. Mr Lewis was black.
Obama should have done a “no comment” when asked about the incident, but instead has given this issue legs.
Sgt Crowley said on radio station WBZ-AM Thursday, “I support the president of the United States 110 percent. I think he was way off base wading into a local issue without knowing all the facts, as he himself stated before he made that comment.”
AMEN
Cambridge Police Commissioner Robert Haas has also spoken up for his officer saying, “Sgt. Crowley is a stellar member of this department. I rely on his judgment every day. … I think he basically did the best in the situation that was presented to him.”
There are also tapes of the police radio transmissions that may be released.
Crowley said that he hasn’t heard the tapes yet, but that, “One of my first transmissions was to slow the units down and I’m in the residence with somebody I believe resides here, but he’s being very uncooperative. So, that’s in real time,” Crowley told the sports-talk hosts of WEEI.
If the release of the tapes shows that Prof Gates is in the wrong it will not solve anything in a lot of people’s minds. There will always be a bit of denial and conspiracy to it.
However, one fact can’t be denied. By speaking out on this matter President Obama has exhibited his “stupidly” made remarks.
Prof Gates has demanded an apology from Sgt Crowley. My question is this. Will Gates and Obama apologize to Sgt Crowley and the Cambridge Police Department when all the facts are out, and Sgt Crowley is shown to have been in the right for arresting Prof Gates?
Mr Gates reportedly told Officer Crowley, “You don’t know who you are messing with.”
Perhaps it is you, Prof Gates, who didn’t know who they were messing with!!
Methinks not.
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At the end of the day it is underlying behavior that makes history and verifies truth, not words. Everyone keeps missing this subtle but indelible fact. You want to know what actually happened? Run the episode in your mind, like a silent movie, carefully observing the reactions and movements of both actors, and the true motives and solution will appear before your eyes.
They were both acting out a game of upmansip, that we all lost, including the audience…for obvious reasons.
I have several questions about this issue. First, why did Ms. Sweet ask a question that dealt with a local issue at a press conference on the issue of health care? Why did Obama answer the question at all, since it had nothing to do with the subject of health care?
Was the question planted? Obama volunteered the information that Mr. Gates was a friend of his which came as a total surprise to the reporters. This causes me to wonder did he WANT to have the question introduced? Why didn’t Ms. Sweet do a follow up question, “Why do you say the officer acted stupidly, since you admit you don’t know the facts?”
And one more question I would like to have seen asked is “Have you spoken to Mr. Gates since the incident? If so, how did he describe it?”
I’m sure all these questions will go unanswered. Will Obama apologize? Your guess is as good as mine.
PS I love your cartoon!
Again, many LEOs wear a very small digital recording device during their shifts, using it like an audio extension of their dashcams. This enables an officer to defend themselves against a false ‘officer said/citizen said’ complaint. It is not something the officer advertises right away when a situation blows up, but is often kept back until a later date in the timeline of a complaint. The fact that the Cambridge Police Department is reacting so assertively to the allegations against the officer makes me wonder if Sgt. Crowley or his partner were wearing such a device and the audio recording proves the police officers acted appropriately during the call. Also, depending on how the responding units parked, all or part of the incident could have been captured on dashcam equipment. Maybe Skip should have used the “Be courteous to everyone, but friendly to no one” attitude. It never makes a situation worse, and makes any complaint you have later more credible.
God help this country now that our POTUS has let us know that he spoke before he knew all the facts of what he was speaking about. Also I want to know if the Harvard professor were a white,indian,asian etc professor who is very well know. Would the press be labeling them as the asia scholar John Doe Jr. or would they just be call professor John Doe…I am so sick of everything you read about on this story it starts with BLACK…it makes me sick that this country is still going on and on about this issure…we all breath the same air bleed the same color of blood and eat most of the same things….can someone take that black card out of the deck and thow it away just like the did the white card….please this is getting old.
God help this country now that our President has let us know that he spoke before he knew all the facts of what he was speaking about. Also I want to know if the Harvard professor were a white,indian,asian etc professor who is very well know. Would the press be labeling them as the asia scholar John Doe Jr. or would they just be call professor John Doe…I am so sick of everything you read about on this story it starts with BLACK…it makes me sick that this country is still going on and on about this issure…we all breath the same air bleed the same color of blood and eat most of the same things….can someone take that black card out of the deck and thow it away just like the did the white card….please this is getting old.
Ed . . . Dude, what a breath of fresh air. I was beginning to think that I was the only one that got it. Great site man. I added a link and when I get off the rails ( I work for the railroad) I intend to write an article about your site. No need to reciprocate. I just enjoy sending my traffic to sites that are sorta like mine.
Regards,
John De Gennaro
I have now had the benefit of listening to Obama’s non-apology apology and must admit that I am impressed. Who knew that this was a teachable moment in race relations. Lets shake hands and drink a brewski at the White House. I wonder if this approach will work on the North Koreans or Iranians (of course the latter would be served a non-alcoholic beverage). Community organizing at its finest. Cheers.
“The more we find out about the confrontation between the arresting officer, Sgt. James Crowley, and Professor Henry Gates, the more it appears that I was exactly right in my comment that, basically, Gates is a pompous ass.” When did being a pompous ass become an arrestable offense? In fact, I thought having the right to be a pompous ass is what makes us Americans.
Also, to nancy’s comments, Gates is being called a ‘black scholar’ because he conducts scholarly research in Black/African-American culture and history. I assume if a white person was conducting similar research, he could be called a black scholar as well, just as a person who does scholarly work in the mathematical field could be called a mathematics scholar.
P.S: That guy in the cartoon should be able to say much worser things to the cop than what he is saying, and still not be arrested.
Once Gates took the “debate” outside it became a public disturbance. Should there be no level of verbal abuse that an officer should have to take?
If Gates took the ‘debate’ outside and was causing a public disturbance, then clearly he should have been arrested and prosecuted. However, since the DA decided not to prosecute, I am going to assume Gates is innocent of those charges. After all, guilt or innocence is determined in the court of law, which has standards for evidence, procedures for accusers to face each other, etc., and not in the court of public opinion.
Since when does the President EVER inject his thoughts(on TV!)about a local (minor)criminal event!! He has lowered the Office…Please let the next 31/2 yrs go by faster!!
Mr. Gates hasn’t helped his “cause”…but I bet lots of people who voted for Mr.Bo might be wishing they could get their vote back!
You are doing what much of the media is doing: blurring Obama’s remarks in terms of the reason for the arrest and for race, and ignoring the important issue here–not racism, but the “Contempt of Cop” arrest that was, in fact, an abuse of authority on Crowley’s part. While Gates may have identified the cop as racist, Obama did not do so in any fashion, and his characterization of the *arrest*–NOT the 911 call, not the reason for stopping by, not the discussion, but the arrest itself and only that–as “stupid” was 100% spot-on.
In cases like this, the truth is often in between the two different accounts, but it seems that the media and everyone else so far have been accepting everything the officer said and little if anything that Gates said. Fine, let’s work on that assumption. Even taking Crowley’s word 100%, was the arrest warranted? Absolutely not. Gates was a 58-year-old man who felt aggrieved in his own home, and did nothing worse than act like a pompous ass. That is *not* an arrestable offense. Crowley could simply have walked away, leaving Gates to shout at them from his porch, no harm done. Arresting Gates served no purpose save possibly for satisfying Crowley’s personal feelings; it certainly did not “protect and defend” the public. A 58-year-old man with a cane was not about to go ninja on half a dozen officers, and federal courts have ruled specifically that criticizing a police officer is not an arrestable offense.
However, there are reasons to doubt some of Crowley’s report. His use of the words “tumultuous” and “alarmed” raised flags with everyone who read the police report; it became clear why when it was shown that these words are directly part of the legal code defining disorderly conduct–in short, Crowley was characterizing Gates’ actions to justify the arrest, not to accurately describe him.
What Crowley almost certainly did was let himself get offended by this guy, and then decided to teach him a lesson by putting him through the ordeal of arrest–a common practice called “Contempt of Cop,” which, as much as it might satisfy the baser instincts among us, is nonetheless is an abuse of authority and was unwarranted in Gates’ case.
THAT was the “stupid” action Obama was referring to, and this key issue of the arrest has nothing to do with racism. Bringing up Crowley’s history with Reggie Lewis is completely irrelevant. And Crowley’s history of training recruits should, if anything, make it worse–how come someone with so stellar a record and so cognizant of civil rights make a rookie move like arresting a 58-year-old man in his own home for Contempt of Cop? How come an experienced officer so sensitive to racial profiling did not realize from the start that a black man in an upscale white neighborhood might possibly take offense at being accused of breaking into his own home? That’s a no-brainer. How come someone who is allegedly an expert on interracial relations completely unaware that black citizens will recognize being asked to step out on the porch as a prelude to an arrest, and begin making assumptions that race are involved? If Crowley has the credentials that everyone is highlighting, he should not have made these gross misjudgments, or at the very least should have completely recognized the context of Gates’ anger, and should have either had the skills to defuse that (which he did not seem to try very hard to do) or he should have been able to understand it and so not be bothered by it.
Note carefully that I am not saying that Crowley is racist or was being racist in any way here; however, your allegation is that he was the reverse–a example of someone versed in racial sensitivity who knew exactly how not to do racial profiling. He certainly did not exhibit that expertise even according to his own report.
And even if you give him everything else, really, how likely is it that a 58-year-old professor, someone who is quite literate and by copious public example capable of expressing himself eloquently, especially in the midst of a complaint *against* what he considers racism, would actually shout out. “Ya, I’ll see your mama outside!” It’s possible, but frankly, I don’t think it’s the kind of thing a man like that would say in a situation like that; like some of Gates’ account, this part of Crowley’s does not ring true.
Both accounts by Crowley and by Gates bear the marks of selective editing.
But the key point here is that racism is not the issue, however much Gates might want to make it so. Obama certainly did not–he went to great lengths to do exactly the opposite, stating clearly that the history of racial profiling was separate and apart from this incident.
The media, however, does not pay much attention to facts when there is a spectacle to be made on baser grounds.
This story really has only one relevant social impact: “Contempt of Cop” arrests. And in that context, Crowley screwed up. All the accolades for his experience only emphasize how he should not have made that error.
Since you kindly left a link (now published) on my blog, here are the references to my own blog posts on the topic, which include links to all relevant documentation on the Gates arrest and a rundown on how Obama’s comments were appropriate, if completely unnecessary.
I am so sick and tired of these black racists. Here you have some rich Haavaaad snob quickly playing the race card on some poor hard working stiff just because he can. The prof is now talking about suing the cop. Do you think he could possibly think the trial would be fair after Obama labeled the police actions as “stupid?” Being a Harvard law grad Obama should know better than to taint any potential jury pool in this way. Do you think that Crowley will keep trying to teach fellow officers not to profile by race? My guess is that this incident has planted a seed of resentment toward the blacks Crowley was previously trying to protect. What a colossal slap in the face for this poor officer.
This is a typical Marxist tactic: cause race/class division. Obama is a master at this but his timing in this case, stinks. He has effectively taken healthcare off the front page for the last week by making his stupid comments on this incident. Healthcare destruction has been the hallmark of his first regime and now, he’s sabotaged it.