<p>Yes. I agree with this. Hey Dross, notice the first sentence? “Overreacted and sensed danger where none initially existed.” In other words, made an assumption that the white cop was out to get him. Which is just as racist as assuming that all black men are criminals or that a black man couldn’t be living in a nice house. </p>
<p>You strike me as the type who would equally jump the gun as Gates, to be honest. You also appear to sense danger even where none may exist, and ascribe ulterior motive where none may exist.</p>
<p>It is quite possible that Crowley’s subsequent overreaction was not motivated by racism, but excessive zeal in pursuing someone who had gotten unruly.</p>
<p>Drosselmeier, you are making a subtle argument, and a lot of people here just don’t get it. It’s not that you haven’t been clear; it’s that you’re talking about cultural interpretations and histories that lie beneath the surface of all social interactions, and this is an unfamiliar mode of analysis to many people. I appreciate the work you’ve done here and think that it has been useful.</p>
<p>Others may recall as I do, that the late Charles Stuart (of Boston) and the incarcerated Susan Smith in South Carolina were quite confident that the world would believe their tales of malevolent acts committed against them by African-Americans, despite the fact that those lies were told to cover up their own henious acts. Sadly, Stuart and Smith were both right, as their lies accomplished their purposes for a good while, until the stories unraveled when skeptical folks began to examine the respective situations with a bit more objective scrutiny.</p>
<p>You know, Drosselmeier, that there is a great danger of making unfounded assumptions about people! So far, your argument has been that nothing can explain the actions of the Cambridge police except abject racism, and a further argument that Skip Gates was totally in his right to be uncooperative and obnoxious, especially since a white policeman HAD to represent a threat to his security. Yours is an overly simplistic argument built on basic flaws.</p>
<p>Nobody here should deny you might have life experiences that have formed your cynical views of America. However, there are plenty of others who simply do not agree with the basic premises that a police officer questioning a minority does it only because of racial discrimination. For what it is worth, respect is something that is earned, and especially when two opposing parties are forced to communicate. </p>
<p>And, you should never assume that you are the only one who understands the life of minorities in America. Yours might be a case of black versus white, but there are all kinds of different colors in our world … plenty of yellow and plenty of brown. You should not be that quick to dismiss the experience and views of others for the sole reason that they do not seem to advance your very narrow agenda of racism against black people. </p>
<p>Fwiw, please come and walk a few miles in the community where I grew up, and I will show you the impact of racial tensions and a violence you have no idea could exist in North America. I will show you a town where more than 200 people are slaughtered every … month in street battles (that is more than 2,000 a year,) and where an entire police force has been wiped from the map in less than two years. </p>
<p>Perhaps after your visit, you’ll understand why some of us decide to take such a jaded view on the claims of Prof. Gates fearing for his safety at the view of ONE uniformed police officer in a higher class neighborhood of Cambridge, and epecially fearing of his safety for the sole reason of being a black person in an upscale house at … high noon! </p>
<p>I’ll repeat my position is that racism exists everywhere in America, but that our attention should remain focus on solving REAL problems, and the type of problems that REALLY affect the life of people who suffer from tragic discrimination. </p>
<p>This case, and despite a “stupid” arrest does not do a SINGLE thing to bring attention to our real problems, and actually exacerbates our differences by highlighting the ridicule of the ease of some to use allegation of discrimination to cover their individual failures. </p>
<p>Prof Gates should never have seen the inside of a Cambridge jail, but that has nothing to do with the color of his skin or the color of the skin of the arresting police officer. It has everything to do with harboring the wrong attitude and treating people as inferior human beings. </p>
<p>Pretending that this case is one of racism is a complete insult to the people who REALLY suffer from racial discrimination in America and abroad.</p>
<p>Xiggi, I’d rspond to your last query to me but Calmom has said about all I could on the subject. The simple fact remains that “we” don’t know exactly what role racism did or did not play in these events. We weren’t there. I can certainly understand how Prof. Gates might perceive the event as racially driven. I can also see that he might or might not be right. I just don’t know. What I do know is that Gates broke no laws, and the police officer did. Would that police officer have broken the law in the same manner if Prof. Gates was white? I don’t know. And you can’t know either. Labelling either opinion as “ludicrous” simply categorizes the person applying the label.</p>
<p>Kluge, you’re obviously entitled to your opinion and your legal interpretation of what happened at Ware Street. I happen to believe that your interpretation --as well as Calmom’s-- is simplistic and based on a number of questionable assumptions. For instance, aren’t you assuming Prof. Gates ASKED the officer to leave his house? Aren’t you assuming that he had no probable cause? And the list goes on. </p>
<p>However, the finer discussions about the legality of the presence of the Sgt and the legality of the arrest of Prof. Gates are not elements that are of great interest to me in this debate as it is something for the courts to weigh on. If people want to debate this case in court, so be it! Again, I’ll stick to my opinion that there plenty of cases that should be far more pressing than this trivial one. </p>
<p>And, by the way, thank you for confirming that there is not a shred of known, tangible, or concrete evidence of any racism in this case, but only the figment of someone’s vivid imagination. Well, indirectly, that is!</p>
<p>I have to agree with what kluge just said—all but the very last line;). And though I very much doubt that Officer Crowley’s actions during his encounter with the professor were motivated by racism, I am bothered by his inclusion in the police report of certain racial archetypes. Where did the description of “two big black men with backpacks” come from? Honestly, where? All evidence (which the professor’s most vociferous vilifiers insist backs up every word of Officer Crowley’s account of those six minutes) supports the testimony of the 911 caller, whose words on audio tape never one make mention of black men at all. That she insists that she never at any time used the words “black men”—indeed, never spoke with Officer Crowley himself, is entirely credible to me. But somehow, not only does Officer Crowley report having personally talked with this woman, he describes the contents of their conversation in great detail. The caller still insists that this is patently false. So, someone is not telling the truth. People who insist on installing a halo over the officer’s head seem gladly willing to throw this woman under the bus (the same woman they vehemently defended when the story first broke) in order to maintain its shine. But, the question remains: How did the account of “two black men with backpacks” and a detailed account of an interview with a party who insists said interview never occurred, end up in the police report personally filed by Officer Crowley? And I’ve already said that I have serious doubts as to the veracity of the report that Prof. Gates yelled, “Yo mamma!” at the officer during the encounter between the two of them. It’s just so—stereotypical…and so easy to insert with the assumed plausibility that that’s something “a black guy would say.” What seems entirely plausible to me, at this time, is that an otherwise good, and professional cop relied on certain racial archetypes in filing his Official Report in order to cover his backside. He must have known very soon after the arrest that he committed a number of procedural errors, errors which when compounded, resulted in his violating the civil rights of a citizen. He had to make that citizen’s words and actions out to be as absurd as possible, and to make him seem so out of control as to warrant being arrested on his own front porch on illegal charges of disorderly conduct.</p>
<p>"What seems entirely plausible to me, at this time, is that an otherwise good, and professional cop relied on certain racial archetypes in filing his Official Report in order to cover his backside. He must have known very soon after the arrest that he committed a number of procedural errors, errors which when compounded, resulted in his violating the civil rights of a citizen. "</p>
<p>Yes, that’s what looks like what happened. And if this is what a guy who truly seems to be a good cop did, imagine what the bad cops do!</p>
<p>“But the fact that a cop lies in a report doesn’t make him a racist. It just makes him a typical cop.”</p>
<p>If the above is true, I find that frightening. I am not aware of any legitimate profession in which lying is considered typical behavior of practitioners.</p>
<p>So, the theme seems to have evolved from ‘it’s not appropriate to judge all black men by the bad ones’ to 'it’s only reasonable to judge all cops by the ones you think are bad’.</p>
<p>I worked in prosecution (and defense) in a major city and the general understanding among all involved in criminal justice there was that, yes, cops lie and it is part of their culture. They are expected to lie about details but not about matters that affect guilt or innocence. This is an important point: lying about planting evidence or some other major factor in determining guilt is considered wrong, but lying about minor details is considered typical.</p>
<p>If you’ve sat with police in stations or cars or courtrooms for extended periods of time, you know that fudging details is almost a necessity and it becomes part of what’s expected. You work a shift and have to mix in paperwork, which means typing up forms and reports. You’re often describing stuff that happened hours - sometimes a day or more - earlier and so you do the paperwork so it fits what you’ve learned not what you were thinking at every point as you lived it in real time. So the caller didn’t say black male and you now know it was a black male and you put that in without thinking much about it, even maybe because you now assume the caller said that. You found a black male and if anyone ever asks whether you had probable cause then the report says you were looking for a black male. Important? It is important in some cases - like when the defense argues the wrong man was targeted and the police had no probable cause - but most of the time you’re merely massaging the facts to make the whole thing fit together. From the police perspective, that’s a lawyer’s kind of guilt or innocence not a policing kind and if you catch the bad guy that’s what should count, not whether the caller said hispanic or black. Police know from experience whether a fudge matters or not and this cop certainly knew that this fudge had no bearing on the actual case - and he likely knew the charges would be dropped.*</p>
<p>In the Gates incident, the entire issue is really that the officer pulled the cop card and arrested this man rather than getting in his car and driving away. We tell kids all the time to walk away if you can - and that is built into the law as the concept of “retreat” before danger (as in, you can’t shoot a guy if you can get away). That is what I believe the cop should have done and what they should do all the time unless a person is a threat, not merely loud. The caller’s ID or non-ID of race means nothing legally. It is just a way to keep talking about this matter in racial terms instead of as a policing decision.</p>
<p>*I saw every possible probable cause argument and the basic rule is that the bigger the crime / sentence the more you’d get these arguments, however implausible. I’ve heard arguments that being parked in the fast lane of a highway wasn’t probable cause for police to stop - reason argument made: guns & drugs found. Or that a guy being beaten in public was having a seizure and thus there was no probable cause - reason: guns & drugs found. Add this to context: if the judges entertain dumb arguments like this, then the police feel pressured to make every piece fit even if some require a bit of a nudge. So now the report says the guy agreed to open the trunk - where guns were - or the guns were sticking out in plain sight from under a seat when in fact a cop popped the trunk from the driver’s side and looked under the seat with a flashlight. As the cops would say, it’s a war.</p>
<p>xiggi, you questioned whether Professor Gates asked the Officer Crowley to leave his home. This question does not make sense to me. If you are in your own home in America, the police officer must be invited in, in order for him to enter–unless he has a warrant, which Officer Crowley did not. Turning to walk toward your kitchen, thus leaving an opening that makes entry possible, does not constitute an invitation. Correct, kluge and calmom? </p>
<p>I understand that you, xiggi, have seen much worse problems than this, while you were growing up. People who live in dangerous parts of the world have my very deep sympathy. That, however, won’t stop me from objecting to an injustice when it occurs here–an injustice that is less grave than some you’ve seen, but an injustice nevertheless.</p>
<p>What do you think of the Perino case in New York which resulted in a perjury trial for the detective?</p>
<p>As Perino was doing what any detective would do to get a confession out of someone he knew was guilty, Crespo slyly recorded the entire 75-minute interrogation on an MP3 player he had in his pocket.</p>
<p>Perino then dug a hole for himself he couldn’t climb out from when he lied under oath at Crespo’s attempted-murder trial and said he never grilled the teen.</p>
<p>Perino, 43, who had been on the police force for 19½ years before he made the fateful decision to commit perjury on the witness stand, was suspended without pay yesterday pending termination by the NYPD.</p>
<p>The lie will cost the third-grade detective his $80,000 annual salary, his pension of $41,300 a year once he retired – and, more than likely, his freedom when he’s sentenced Aug. 18. </p>
<p>We get it; we just don’t agree with it, that’s all. And some of us are finding incredible hypocrisy in a stance which says that it’s ok for some blacks to proceed under the assumption that all whites / white cops are out to get them until proven otherwise, while simultaneously decrying (and for good reason) the tendency of some whites to proceed under the assumption that all blacks are criminals / up to no good until proven otherwise. </p>
<p>Here’s a concept. Just because some are, doesn’t mean that everyone is.</p>
<p>Ok, couldn’t resist. I’m back (once only, I hope).</p>
<p>Without expressing any opinions on any disputed question of fact:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Everyone agrees that Crowley had the right to be there at first. He entered Gates’ home for the purpose of validating Gates’ claim to ownership. He said he was leaving and Gates followed, asking (in some shape or form) for id. How is he going to provide the id unless he stays.</p></li>
<li><p>On the allegedly controlling authority. Winkler et. al. cite two cases: Commnwealth v . Lopiano and Commonwealth v. Mallahan. Lopiano is quite explicitly based on the specific facts of what the person said and did. Crowley could argue that loud allegations of racism might in fact incite a crowd. In addition to being arguably distinguishable on the facts, Mallahan is an unpublished opinion and therefore under court rules in Massachusetts, only persuasive and not controlling authority–a point reconsidered and explicitly restated by the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts as late as 2008.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>My problem with this case is that it is such a trivial case. It doesn’t deserve 1250 posts on CC or become the major news story every day on all the major networks. </p>
<p>I know people have their opinions, but I firmly believe this was not a racial case. I think the cop overreacted and would have done the same to a white man that he was mad at as well.</p>
<p>Problem is, the media is treating this as a race case, and therefore the case is much larger than it should be. Then Obama made a comment out of character that made this case even larger! </p>
<p>Gates should be told that not every cop coming to his door is out to get him and the cop should be told that arresting on the basis of annoying people is not cause.</p>
<p>Pizzagirl, your mischaracterization of what Dross’s stance shows that you indeed do not get it. That’s okay, these are thorny matters. It’s still good to have the discussion. It’s also good to leave open the possibility that we may not understand each other perfectly.</p>
<p>This is not agreed to. We have legal opinions that he didn’t have a right to be in the home.</p>
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<p>When was the last riot in a tony area of Cambridge? Lawrence? Sure. Cambridge? I don’t recall riots in Cambridge. Perhaps someone could refresh my memory.</p>