<p>Crowley did tell Gates why he was there. His first words to Gates were that he was Sgt Crowley of the Cambridge Police Department repsonding to a report of a break-in in progress at this address. He then asked Gates if he would step out on the porch and talk to him (because Crowley didn’t want to walk inside with no back-up - he was alone - and get shot by intruders. Gates refused loudly and started screaming that this was because Gates was a black man – accusations of racism that begain immediately and never stopped. Crowley then asked him if there was anyone else in the house (because the 911 call had reported TWO intruders). Gates replied, “That’s none of your business”. At that point, Gates picked up a cordless phone dialed a number, asked for the Chief, and started yelling about a racist policeman.</p>
<p>While a number of posters here are seeing signs of opportunities to learn from incidents such as the Gates vs the authorities, I also see a bigger danger. The danger that a message that seems to condone the irrational behavior of an extremely well educated person who occupies one of the highest rungs in our society ladder permeates the much lower levels of society where police brutality, abject racism, and extreme violence are daily fodder. </p>
<p>After all, how do we expect the youth in many blighted and dangerous urbans areas to react when the POTUS declares that it is OK to yell at the police and the police MUST have acted stupidly, and this based solely on his perception of what MIGHT have happened? </p>
<p>The reality is that we should not be naive to think that there aren’t rogue cops, and that minorities don’t face different standards and expectations. However, sordid incidents such at the Cambridge one do not carry “teachable” moments; they do carry regrettable and forgettable moments. </p>
<p>A small incident that will be exploited ad nauseam by the same elements who only see opportunities for self-promotion and could not care less for the plight of the people who are REALLY discriminated against and suffer from racist behavior.</p>
<p>For me the teachable moment is to reiterate to my sons how to act when approached by police. Which is to FULLY, RESPECTFULLY, COOPERATE, keeping their EMPTY hands in PLAIN VIEW, assuming they are dead ringers for the murdering rapist who just fled the scene a block away.</p>
<p>So, if I say I’ve been mugged by black guys on several occasions, and I reach to clutch my purse to my body every time a black guy walks by me, that’s ok, because I see blacks through a very different prism? Is that acceptable?</p>
<p>pizzagirl- I think you would be shocked at how many whites use even one mugging or even a “friend or relative” was mugged to see blacks through a different prism. That is one reason they support the police even when it was obvious that driving while black was the norm to stop someone.</p>
<p>I would assume it’s another one of those stories that goes, “Well, first we got really, really drunk and then… it ended badly.”</p>
<p>Actually, the facts of the Gates case make me wonder if he hadn’t been drinking. I don’t know the man from Adam so I have no idea, but certainly he wouldn’t be the first Harvard professor with a drinking problem. Or, it could be just as simple as the guy is a world-class jerk. He probably wouldn’t be the first Harvard professor in that category, either.</p>
<p>“Outrageous. Apparently he was inside his own house and produced ID! I don’t care if he pursued the cop down his walk yelling all the way. I don’t blame him in the least. The cop was completely out of line and should have simply left after apologizing profusely.”</p>
<p>“Apparently” you don’t know the facts…taking cues from your prez?</p>
<p>“@zoosermom, when the facts come out, and all the apologies are made, there will hopefully be a greater degree of understanding between police officers and African Americans. Both the police department and black citizens will learn from this example. Officers will learn how to approach a black man in a similar situation, and African Americans will learn to hold their assumptions/emotions until the situation is diffused.”</p>
<p>I agree. I think the fact that the event happened and was so widely publicized is leading to discussions that will end up resulting in more empathy and understanding between blacks and whites and between people who are and are not members of the police force.</p>
<p>I particularly like the fact that Obama, Gates and Crowley will meet at the White House to discuss this in a calm, thoughtful manner. Typically, this doesn’t happen in such incidents. </p>
<p>Race is a touchy issue in our country, and often people avoid talking about it, talk about such issues only with people who agree with them, or talk about it only in threatening ways or by not discussing their real thoughts on the manner.</p>
<p>Perhaps what is going on now and will happen at the White House will lead to the kind of open, polite discussions that Clinton tried to start, and also will help continue the healing of the legacy of slavery and its aftermath in this country.</p>
<p>Ah. So it’s awful if whites use the mugging of a friend or relative to paint all blacks with the “they must be criminals” meme.</p>
<p>But, it’s perfectly understandable and in fact to be expected if blacks use the existence of white-cops-who-are-jerks to paint all white cops with the “they must be out to get me” meme. </p>
<p>It’s racist if I pull my purse closer to me when a black man passes by, because I’m assuming – without any evidence – that he is likely to steal it.</p>
<p>But it’s not racist at all if a black man mouths off to a white cop, because he’s assuming – without any evidence – that the white cop is out to get him.</p>
<p>I agree. It would be great if this ended with the two of them issuing a joint statement that they have each learned from walking in each others’ shoes. And, I like the idea of Obama being a mediator, because it plays to his strengths of having that cool, let’s-find-common-ground-here demeanor.</p>
<p>More to the point, he had proved that it was HIS OWN HOME. Therefore it didn’t make any difference WHO he was. If he were a 23-yr-old meth dealer with gang tats he still would not be guilty of breaking into HIS OWN HOME to burgle.</p>
<p>Starting with stats about how many Harvard professors are guilty of B&E is starting down the path of profiling. Don’t go there.</p>
<p>Crowley was called to a possible B&E. He was perfectly right to demand ID of whomever he found in the house to esstablish whether a B&E had indeed happened. </p>
<p>He was not, IMHO, right to handcuff, arrest, and book a person for yelling at him–if Gates did indeed yell–on the porch of his own home. AFTER the person had cooperated and AFTER it had been determined that there was no crime in progress. </p>
<p>Crowley should have obeyed his initial instinct and left after determining that there was no crime. </p>
<p>I agree with Zoosermom: ultimately, this turned into a battle between two inflamed male egos.</p>
It would be great if Professor Gates were willing to be taught what happens to lone officers walking into crimes in progress in unsecured residences. But if this turns out to be an opportunity for him to continue to condescend to Sgt. Crowley or humiliate him further, then the officer shouldn’t go. They both have information to share and both should be open to learning.</p>
He hadn’t proved that the other guy wasn’t somewhere in the house with a gun at that point.</p>
<p>He also assumed he was being treated as a suspect based on historical context, not anything done by the officer.</p>
<p>The officer could have come to that house looking for two “big black men” and seen this little man with a cane and been concerned that there were two “big black men” actually in that house somewhere and that the professor wasn’t free to tell him. If the officer says to the Professor that he approached him thinking he was a crime victim to be protected and that the professor’s assumption was wrong, I wonder if he’d learn something.</p>
<p>Actually, I think it likely that Gates was guilty of “profiling” Crowley: making the same kind of assumption about him that he doesn’t want people to make about black men.</p>
<p>It may be that Crowley invited this by the way he initially spoke to or approached Gates. Or Crowley may have been completely professional and disarming and it may have happened simply because Gates a) knows all too well the history of interactions between white cops and black men in America, and b) was not at his best physically or emotionally due to all of the things we have heard previously. For that matter, we have no idea what kind of day or week Crowley had had and whether HE was at his best in this encounter.</p>
<p>What is indubitably the case is that Crowley ultimately decided to arrest a man who had committed no crime for being obstreperous on his own porch.</p>
What, in his words words to Gates which were that “he was Sgt Crowley of the Cambridge Police Department repsonding to a report of a break-in in progress at this address” would lead you to that conclusion?</p>