It’s amazing to me that there are people who pretend that race is no longer as issue in this country when things like this Obama-as-a-witch-doctor photoshop are circulating among Republicans.
On this topic, I’m not a huge fan of James McWhorter, but his piece on the Gates arrest, though a bit rambling, is by far the best thing I’ve read on the subject yet. I might add one more thing about Gatesgate….There are certain things that seem crazier and crazier the more you step back from them. A news analyst calling for the murder of an American soldier is one. Millionaire pundits lecturing middle-class readers/viewers about how real Americans think is another. And arresting a frail 50-something man with a cane in his own house for yelling at a cop when the cop mistook him for a burglar is another.
Update. This has been the lead headline in the opinion box on the Post web page for the past 18 hours
OPINIONS
Attacking Docs and Cops
Here’s a screenshot. 
Bender
And arresting a frail man with a cane in his own house for yelling at a cop
As usual, you’ve got the facts wrong.
Gates wasn’t arrested in his house. He was arrested for screaming at the cops in the street. Just as you or I or any evil inherently-racist white man would’ve been. Don’t believe me? Just try it.
Crashman06
The rotten hypocrites Dennis and Callahan, on their morning show today tried to bait the Cambridge cop into criticizing Obama, but the dude refused to bite. Got to give him props for that, at least.
I hate those two clowns. You’re on a sports talk station you retards. Act like it!
Senyordave
I didn’t see the press onference yesterday, and my first thought when heard Obama’s response to the question on Gates was that Obama made a mistake. Not that I disagree with his answer, becasue it seems apparent that the police officer should have just left once it Gates identified himself. I just though that this would be the story of the press conference.
The more I think about it, the more I feel that the answer was fine. I hear all these people saying Gates should have just smiled and said I understand officer, etc. Of course these are all white people who never had to deal with this nonsense. It sounds like the only thing missing was the officer describing Gates as “uppity”.
DougJ
Don’t believe me? Just try it.
You know what, you’re a fucking moron, and I’ve seen it happen more than once. No one was arrested.
Plus, if it was in the street, then why is he pictured cuffed on his porch?
Napoleon
Actually Gates was in his house and the cop asked him to step outside his house bacause he was having a hard time hearing him (and in an amazing coincidence you can’t be arrested in a private place for disorderly conduct) and when Gates stepped outside his home he was arrested.
DougJ
and when Gates stepped outside his home he was arrested.
He was on his porch, I believe.
Napoleon
“Plus, if it was in the street, then why is he pictured cuffed on his porch?”
I guess Gates is just one of those shifty tricky negro [/wingnut]
Actually that is a great point.
amk
How come trolls like bender are still given a free run here ?
OGB
Re: the update. I posted late (and somewhat drunkenly) last night about CNN’s front page following the debate. Not sure how long it was up (at least a couple of hours), but with everything Obama addressed, they give us: “Obama: Police ‘acted stupidly’ in Prof’s arrest.”
4tehlulz
>>Post-racial America
Funny you should mention that…
Napoleon
BTW – disorderly conduct is the biggest BS charge on the book. It is the ultimate case of an subjective call that comes down to a he said/she said between the cop and the arrestee, and there is a reason that cops use it ALL THE TIME when they don’t charge the person with anything else. It’s just a way to f— with the person they have just otherwise wrongfully hassled.
gizmo
America is stupid place.
Comrade Jake
Here’s what we know:
1) Gates is black, and he’s the Director of an Institute at Harvard, not to mention one of the most famous African American scholars walking the Earth
2) He was arrested in his own home for disorderly conduct, after neighbors reported him trying to break into his own home and a half-dozen cops showed up on his lawn
3) The city dropped the charges
4) Obama wouldn’t say whether or not Gates was racially profiled, but he did say he thought the cops had acted pretty stupidly, particularly in arresting Gates after he’d shown them his ID
Only wingnuts observe 1-3, watch 4 in the presser, and conclude Obama’s some kind of cop hater.
J.W. Hamner
@Napoleon: Yeah, I had no idea that asking someone to step outside is the hopes that they’d continue to argue with you in front of a gathering crowd is a common tactic to arrest someone who is pissing you off… but this Crooked Timber post lays it out.
Da Bomb
@DougJ: The picture shows him arrested on his porch.
His daughter was on the national morning news. She of course talked about how upset her father was. She said he has always been a law-abiding citizen. He got frustrated that he was treated like crap.
I agree with you on McWhorter. I am not a huge fan at all. He can be shrill and ramble on about absolutely nothing, but it pains me to say that I do agree with him about this.
I have experience some craziness with the police here in my hometown, and I am a law-abiding citizen. Racial Profiling definitely exists.
Bender
How come trolls like bender are still given a free run here ?
Because I’m the only one here with a clue and a take. All your ad hominem garbage and “why don’t you ban Bender for disagreeing with us?” whining is truly pathetic.
Zifnab
@amk:
Because sometimes you need to see with your own eyes how ignorant and racist a guy can get. Hearing even the Gates story second hand is nothing compared to watching some ditto head walk onto the blog and reply that the uppity negro had it coming to him.
It’s refreshing to know I’m not doubting my own senses or hearing cherry picked news when I’ve got a guy like Bender around to confirm my suspicions.
I’m just surprised we’re not hearing that Gates got tazed or beaten. :-p Low bar, but one could almost consider this improvement.
Jonny Scrum-half
I think that the cop was clearly wrong to arrest Gates. The department has effectively admitted as much by dropping the charges.
But I don’t necessarily see the cop’s actions as racial. There are cops all around who, because they have power and further because they’re in situations where they are understandably concerned about losing control, act like assholes.
I’m white, and I long ago learned that you tread very lightly when a police officer is around. I say, “sir,” and “thank you,” and generally try my best to follow whatever instructions I’m given. Black people are not the only ones who immediately get anxious when a police car appears in their rear-view mirror.
I obviously don’t know the specifics about Gates’s conduct, but if he immediately responded poorly to the officer’s presence, and made allegations of racism, I’m not surprised that it escalated the way it did. That wouldn’t make it right to arrest Gates, but it would show that Gates could have avoided the issue, just as well as the cop could have.
By the way, I’m not saying that, in general terms, blacks haven’t been the subject of a lot more police misconduct and abuse than whites. I’m just saying that sometimes a cop arresting someone for no reason is just that, and not a racial issue.
Comrade Dread
And you don’t have a problem with this unwritten First Amendment exception that cops have carved out for themselves?
I may never feel the need to call a cop a c***, c***sucker, or mother****er, but if I had cause, I’d like to think in the land of the free that fought against State oppression, I had the right to do so without fear of reprisals. If the cop doesn’t like it, he should get the hell off of my property.
Or have we reached a place in American society where we give so much deference and reverence to State officials that perhaps Gates should consider himself lucky that the cop showed ‘restraint’ and didn’t taser or shoot him or any dogs he might own?
General Winfield Stuck
Bender – a moron.
pic on porch cuffed out front door
Adrienne
@Bender: No, he was arrested on his porch after the cop asked him to step outside. The cop had ALREADY been in his house and verified his identity. The ONLY appropriate response after learning that Mr. Gates was indeed the owner of the property would have been: “Sir, I’m sorry for the confusion, just had to confirm who you were after getting that call. Thank you for your cooperation. Have a nice day.”
Napoleon
@Da Bomb:
Da Bomb said: “Racial Profiling definitely exists.”
10 or so years ago I had an eye opening experience. I got a ticket in the county Cleveland Ohio is located (which Wiki tells me is 27.45% black) on an interstate highway by the police force of the city the highway runs through. Wiki tells me that city is 95.91% white. There is nothing about the location of the highway to make you think that a disproportionate amount of black people would use it, nor for that matter is the city itself adjacent to anything but cities just as white as itself.
When I showed up at mayor’s court it was perfectly obvious that more then 50% of the people there were black.
Demo Woman
@Napoleon: I did not know that. I just put on “The View” because I wanted to see Elizabeth make an ass of herself and unless I missed the part where she made an ass of herself, she seemed to defend the President’s comments.
Barbara Walters explained why Gates was asked outside to the porch. He could only be arrested outside his house for disorderly conduct. The police did not have a warrant to search his house.
gwangung
Well, you certainly don’t have any facts; you’ve stated some deliberate untruths here.
Compensation, I suppose.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
@Jonny Scrum-half: Why do you believe that “in general” blacks have been subjected to police misconduct yet seek to deny it in this particular, obvious instance?
Zifnab
@Napoleon:
DWB. That’s a ticketable offense, now, isn’t it?
General Winfield Stuck
Sometimes, something is so blatantly racist, in an 1860 cartoon sort of way — It’s hard to not just scratch your noggin in exasperated disbelief in the 21st century.
Comrade Jake
@Jonny Scrum-half:
In any city besides Boston, I’d probably agree with you. Everyone knows that black guys are fucked in Boston.
** Atanarjuat **
@Zifnab:
If the professor had indeed gotten tazed, beaten, and THEN led away in handcuffs, what are the odds that Bill Kristol, Michelle Malkin, Dan Riehl, et al would have still used Obama’s rather thoughtful opinion on the matter against him?
As we all know, if President Obama had declined any comment, as his wingnut critics claim would have been the right thing to do, they’d likely claim he dodged an important question on an issue of the day because he’s an Empty Suit(tm) or that his teleprompter couldn’t provide the answer fast enough. Or something.
Just like the Birthers, there’s no satisfying the card-carrying members of the Party of No.
-A
jibeaux
I don’t see any problem with police responding to what was reported as an intruder alert with requiring him to present ID, and I think Gates was getting a little silly yelling about race when he knew he’d locked himself out and before he’d even presented his ID yet. That said, the fault of this getting blown up is clearly the cop’s. You’re going to need a skin thick enough to blow off a harmless guy yelling that he’s been hassled by The Man, which I expect is happening about 48,000 times across America as I write this, and not charge him with some trumped up charge so as to assert your authori-tie. He should’ve just given him his name and number as requested and been on his merry way.
JGabriel
@Jonny Scrum-half:
I suppose it depends on whether you think the police officer, while responding to a break-in call, and assuming the worst reports of Gates’ reported behavior are true, would have arrested a curmudgeonly, cranky, upper-middle to upper class, 59 year old, white academic for disorderly conduct in his own home.
If you think that sounds pretty damned unlikely, then you’re probably going to assume a racial motive for the cops behavior.
.
Hunter Gathers
Since when is mouthing off to a cop a crime?
kay
Ugh. The growing tendency in this country to completely cower before police officers is scary.
You’re permitted to ask why they’re on your porch. You’re permitted to ask why you’re being handcuffed. There aren’t any rules that dictate that you can’t be upset, or confused, or angry, or a jerk. That’s the job they accepted. It isn’t easy, but either are a hell of a lot of other jobs, and we are permitted to be critical of their work, just like any other profession.
They work for citizens, not the other way around, and they’re subject to the same very public opinionated review as any other public employee.
Legalize
“Because I’m the only one here with a clue and a take. All your ad hominem garbage and “why don’t you ban Bender for disagreeing with us?” whining is truly pathetic.”
Or more likely because you are a lying sack of shit? The man wasn’t arrested in the street. Fact.
chopper
@Adrienne:
that’s the thing. you can’t arrest someone for disorderly inside their own house. you can arrest them for it in a publically-viewable place like a yard or porch (which is pretty screwy if you ask me). the dude asked for the cops badge number and he was all ‘lets go to the porch’ and then surprise, he was arrested for disorderly.
the cop knew just what he was doing. look at the police report – the cop didn’t threaten any arrest inside the house. the cop even made sure to put crap in the police report such as that bullshit about ‘the bad acoustics in the kitchen and foyer necessitated going outside’.
this was a cop on a power trip vs a pissed-off big-wig harvard professor. i think the latter is gonna end up winning here.
The Grand Panjandrum
Racial profiling and being “arrested while black” happens more often than those of us who are not subject to this abusive tactic may be aware of. With that said, I do not know if this was a case of a cop looking to smack down an “uppity black man”, or not. I just don’t know. What I do know is that this is clearly a cop who saw his authority challenged and wanted to smack down a private citizen for yelling at him. Should a citizen be arrested for yelling at a police officer? We should be deferential to cops in ALL cases? Sure Gates lost his temper. So what.
Napoleon
@Demo Woman:
I suspect most people are going to agree with the President that what the police did was stupid, which is not the same as illegal or technically not correct.
The police came to his house to accuse him of braking into it and walk out with Gates in handcuffs. That looks really bad for the police (and therefore is stupid) unless Gates took a swing at a cop of physically was blocking him from leaving. I am even willing to spot the police that Gates was yelling and acting like an a–hole and that doesn’t change that what they did was stupid. I think anyone can put themselves in Gates shoes and understand where he was coming from.
Just Some Fuckhead
I’ve gotten in a lot of trouble with cops on several notable occasions (pro-tip: don’t ever say isn’t a gun without bullets just a big stick, officers?) and I don’t have any sympathy for Mr. Gates. Cops are thugs and they’re looking for a reason to jackboot ya. Mr. Gates shoulda known this already.
Gordon, The Big Express Engine
@Ivan Ivanovich Renko: think he was just saying that it would plausible, albeit unlikely, that the cops actions are not necessarily racial in this case.
I think he was trying to make a different point that cops, by nature of what they are, have a certain power in their interactions with the citizenry and because of this can act like jerks in the exercise of that power.
GregB
Silly people.
“The Man” is now a Black Man.
Whitey is the oppressed minority.
Haven’t you listened to Weepy Glenn Anal Fissure Beck and Dildo Bill O’Reilly and Pus Limberger?
-G
aimai
Can we please stop having white people come on and describe how they come from the class of people who get pushed around by cops all the time so its no big whup if Gates got arrested for having a big mouth? God, I had the same shit from my more stupid university students when I tried to discuss the history of legal deprivation for non white people in this country. There was always some kid who would pipe up “man, we teenagers can’t get no respect either! you should see how mean the cops were to us when they caught us skinny dipping! Its exactly like Jim Crow!”
Gates got arrested because the Police Officer is thin skinned and thought he’d haul a professor down to the jail and spend the rest of the day filling out forms *just because he could.* As a cambridge homeowner I’m upset because it was a transparent waste of taxpayer dollars and police work time all to assuage a fragile ego–the police officers.
I’m also upset because it makes me disinclined to call the police if I see something suspicious. In other words the Police officer’s conduct contributed directly to a general climate of fear and intimidation among otherwise law abiding cambridge residents. That’s a serious problem.
aimai
Da Bomb
@Napoleon: Well, one of my experience involve my role as a backseat passenger.
I was in high school, about 17. I was riding in the backseat in of my friend’s blue dodge neon. Apparently, her left front light was out. We were going to have dinner at a cheap Italian bistro, so we went to pick up another mutual friend. She sat in the front passenger seat.
On our way to the bistro, we were stop by a cop for her light being out. Now of course, the person the cop would be questioning should be the driver. The cop asked my friend who was driving about the light and where we were heading.She responded. He took his flashlight and looked around the car and stopped at me.
Then he started asking me a million questions. Where did I live? He asked the driver and the other passenger if she knew me. Then he asked the driver for license, looked at it and gave it back, then asked for mine, I had my state ID, gave it to him and he proceeded back to his patrol car with my state id. He came back and said that he ran my id to make sure I didn’t have a record. He didn’t ask the passenger for her ID at all. Both of my friends noticed it, and the driver called him out on it. He told her to leave or he would give her a ticket and he tossed my ID back at me.
Maybe he was having a bad day, but I was the only black girl in the car. My other two friends were white. We talked about for the rest of the night. It was so blatant.
r€nato
I just can’t imagine why so few blacks are Republicans… must be because they’re too stupid to know what’s best for them, amirite?
gwangung
Not in New York. They’ll just blow you away if you do.
Just Some Fuckhead
Fuck you aimai. I’ll describe any fucking thing I want.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
We talk about “racist,” but that word doesn’t really connote the experience.
Republicans (like Bender, here) are the last gasp of white supremacy… and their ongoing teeth gnashing comes from the potential loss of what remains of white supremacy, which is simply “white privilege.”
It’s the privilege of simply being seen as “normal.” Not an aberration, certainly not a threat, and always as competent and capable– see the “controversy” regarding soon-to-be Justice Sotomayor.
From the neighbor’s assumption that a burglar was breaking into his house to the cop’s reaction to the good Doctor’s displeasure, he was not accorded the privilege of being seen as a neighbor, an academic, or a homeowner.
TNC had a post up yesterday that explored the effect of “isms” (like sexism, racism, and homophobia) on their targets, and how those NOT targeted just can’t see the effect.
The best of us do try, though.
Bender
Suuuuure, you’ve seen it, Doug. I believe you. To prove it, why don’t you go scream at a cop that he’s a racist for a few minutes. You’re going to jail. You know it and I know it, and the charges won’t be dropped because you’re a buddy with the Prez.
Where a photo (a photo that appears to show Gates screaming at the police while a black officer — “UNCLE TOM!” — assists in the arrest) was taken is not proof of anything. The reports I read on CNN.com when it happened said it was Gates followed the cop out of the house to the street — presumably, the cop was going to get in his car and Gates was following him, screaming “Is this how you treat a black man in America?!” (What? Checking out a report of a break-in and then leaving when you’re satisfied no break-in occurred? Yeah, I hope that’s how the police treat a black man in America! Or a white man. Or an Asian lesbian woman.)
Regardless, Gates was not arrested “in his own house,” like John wrongly asserts.
By the way:
Crowley probably intentionally failed to resuscitate Lewis — that’s how he treats a black man in America! Where’s Skippy Gates to yell “RAAAAACIST”?
Ugh
Interesting post here on the Gates arrest and what the cop was likely up to.
r€nato
It is a crime because the cop can turn it into one.
Doesn’t make it right… it’s like waving the red cape in front of a bull.
bjones
I think that the root problem in this particular instance is not racial insensitivity per se but the inability of a cop to admit fault, apologize, and move on.
The officer displayed an all too common attitude shared by many cops: I am the law – you will obey me no matter who is in the right. In cases where the police are clearly not in the right this kind of attitude will only escalate matters to a dangerous place.
Police officers (perhaps more than any other profession) need good, continuous and consistent sensitivity training and have access to strategies that de-escalate situations rather than exacerbate already high-running emotions.
Scott
Is a front porch even considered a “public place”? Isn’t it considered private property for most purposes all the way up to the sidewalk or curb?
timb
@Jonny Scrum-half: I agree. You want comedy. Check out the right wing fever swamp. Try Patterico. That’s one huge mess of racial identity politics all combined with small government, libertarian “the cop is always right” thinking.
gex
What disturbs me most is that many seem to think that black men should be particularly boot-licking when the police stop them. There’s an implicit acknowledgment that they profile and hassle black men and that speaking up for oneself when black is tantamount to an invitation for bogus arrests or beatings or whatever world of hurt the cop wants to bring down on them. It’s pathetic and offensive.
What was the cop’s response after Gates showed his ID and made clear that he wasn’t breaking and entering? Because it was after his identity was verified that the cop did something else to necessitate asking Gates to go outside in order to charge him with disorderly conduct. There’s no excuse for not simply leaving after finding out Gates was in his own home. And no need to ask Gates to go outside.
It’s bogus trumped up bullshit, and yes, I do think that this kind of attitude from cops is more likely to be delivered to a dude if he’s black.
Bender
Because sometimes you need to see with your own eyes how ignorant and racist a guy can get.
If I cared for one millisecond about what an abject moron like Zifnab thinks, I think I’d be quite depressed about my life.
I will tell you this though (and this will prolly go over Zif’s head, but not others here): False accusations of racism only make people take the actual cases of racism lightly.
kay
@gwangung:
I hate this. I think it’s scary and a bad sign. People here are currently scared to ask questions because they’re afraid of being tasered, and a large part of the country thinks that’s funny as hell. Watching fellow citizens flop around like fish because they had the temerity to “resist” is now comedy.
The price for being a pain in the ass uppity citizen is not a 4 hour involuntary detention, or a brutally painful electric shock.
The punishment comes after the conviction, not before, and police officers aren’t the ones who make that call. Judges do.
Morgan
@Ivan Ivanovich Renko:
While I might go as far as to say it’s likely, I don’t think we can say with certainty the cop was motivated by race. Sometimes cops are just asshole cops on power trips. The 911 operator who hung up three times on a girl, whose father was having a stroke, just because she was freaking out and swore on the phone and then arrested her on a charge that doesn’t even exist is a perfect example of this.
Johnny B. Guud
The race issue is being overblown in this case, and I think the case itself is being blown out of proportion.
Cops in general tend to be aggressive hooligans and overreach their authority.
The Globe is reporting that the Sgt. Crowley, the man that Gates is claiming is a racist, is the officer who gave Reggie Lewis of the Celtics mouth-to-mouth as he died.
Bender
Republicans (like Bender, here) are the last gasp of white supremacy…
You people are pathetic. Anyone who disagrees with Obama — RACIST! Anyone who disagrees with one of Obama’s friends — RACIST! Anyone who thinks a cop who arrests a black man isn’t racist — RACIST!!
You idiots are beyond parody, and worse than any cartoon.
jibeaux
@Bender:
Okay, but are any of his best friends black?
John PM
Clearly several commentors here have never seen an episode of “Law & Order,” “Law & Order:SVU,” or “Law & Order: Boise.” Benson and Stabler pull that “please step outside” stuff all the time in order to arrest the suspect outside of his/her house/apartment.
Seriously, though, cops get yelled at all the time. If cops arrested everyone who yelled at them, they would not have time to make any other arrests. My dad was a Chicago police officer for 40 years and had numerous stories about getting yelled at. The professional officers would ignore it. Based on what I have read of the incident, the Cambridge cop acted out of not only racial but also class bias.
To paraphase DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince: “Pundits just don’t understand!”
JGabriel
Bender:
Given that the officer’s own report states he asked Professor Gates to come out to the porch, Bender, your entire line of speculation fails.
.
docrailgun
Doug,
I agree that Gates was arrested for being black, but it wasn’t because of the supposed “break in”. What cop arrests a tubby 50+ year old man for breaking into a house in the middle of the day.
No, it was because he was yelling at the cops (and went outside to continue to berate them), and was black. He probably would have been arrrested if he had been Bill Gates yelling at the cops, too (but not if he was George Bush).
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
@Bender: Oh, Bender, Bender, Bender…
I didn’t call you a “racist,” I called you a “white supremacist.”
Really, do yourself a favor and get the terms straight, will you?
Napoleon
@Da Bomb:
Did you ever think that maybe it was just you were the prettiest one in the car?
I have a friend who when he was in law school (late 80s) was living in a Cleveland neighborhood that was famous for being the last place in town you would want to be if you were black (that I actually live in myself while I was going to school before him) and he had a black friend of his over to study and the next day a neighbor stopped him and told him if he did that again that his house would get burned down (which I think he ignored because the guy was a friend of his, not just a study buddy).
(PS, I should mention that in recent years the area has become much more diverse as the certain older generation of a certain white ethnic group has died out)
kay
@John PM:
I think his social class probably contributed to his outrage, and clouded his judgment, and I believe the same would be true of a white person standing in his own home, completely confused about why he was being treated like a criminal.
The lowlier serfs just know to obey immediately, without question, or they do around here, anyway, because they have lots and lots of contact with police.
Will
@Napoleon:
That’s exactly right. “DISCON” is the most common of charges thrown out. Judges know exactly what they’re dealing with when someone comes in front of them with the crap charge of disorderly conduct. 9 times out of 10 the cop gives the “offendee” a summons that he doesn’t even bother to notate. The judge takes one look at the blank piece of paper, says “Facially Insufficient”, and dismisses the charges. Like you said, it’s just an easy way for a cop to mess with someone.
Hunter Gathers
@Bender: I’ve called an officer of the law a lot worse things than racist and was not arrested for it. I can tell you think all dissenters should be subservient to authority, but this is America, not a fucking forum on Redstate.com.
chopper
@JGabriel:
that and the fact that the police report says he arrested the dude on the porch.
Mike P
Per usual, the wingnuts are out saying Obama called the cops stupid, which is not what he said. He said they were “acting stupidly” which is a different thing.
That WaPo screen grab might be the nail in the coffin for me. Gene, E.J., Ezra, Harold…it’s been real.
HRA
First of all there is a case precedence for being able to express your thoughts to a police officer. For the legal ones here it’s Duran vs ? Sorry I forgot the last part.
The cop in this case was not too smart. Once he established Gates’s identity, there was nothing more he had to do except apologize, leave the property and disperse the crowd. BTW he already knew the address and the name of the resident before he arrived at the house. I am told the professor is well known by everyone in the community.
I have to admit I love the food and the history of the area. The attitude of some of it’s residents is not at all praiseworthy.
Cat
I grew up on military bases out of the US through the 70’s and 80’s. The housing was integrated and the fact my father was an NCO meant most of the people we lived near were career military families. Mixed race families were not uncommon as its seems to me enlisted personnel like to marry women local to their bases regardless of which country they are stationed in.
It was shocking how f’ing racist a lot of America still was when I returned back to the US as a young adult. It also struck how damn white large portions of America still are. Growing up always exposed to many cultures at the same time you notice the lack of diversity more then the presence of diversity.
There is not going to be a post-racial America. In places where they is no reason for people to migrate to and settle down, those areas are going to stay white/black/whatever. Those places are going to stay xenophobic.
Martin
I love how the wingnuts are defending the cops and simultaneously arguing how they’d shoot any cop that would dare try and arrest them at their sovereign home.
We all know that if the cops arrested Lou Dobbs or Dick Cheney for breaking into their own homes, RedState would explode with cries of ‘this is why every American should own a gun, to protect against this jack-booted thuggery’.
And it was stupid to arrest him. Was he a threat to the community, or did he just piss off the cops? Which scenario is supposed to lead to an arrest and which scenario is going to make the police look like idiots?
Brachiator
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Fixed. The point is that here the cops could simply manufacture a reason. They couldn’t get away with making the arrest stick or (God forbid) beating Gates, but they could make his life as miserable as they could — simply because they wanted to, no matter what Gates did or said.
This is one of the many things that makes any wingnut criticism of Obama so despicable. Fox News fools apparently have wingnut immunity.
slag
@Hunter Gathers: Haven’t you heard of the No Asshole law? Although, sadly, it’s inconsistently applied as I recently failed at having my neighbors arrested for being assholes. Maybe if I told the cops they were uppity black assholes, I’d have better luck.
Da Bomb
@Napoleon: Maybe it was my charming personality.
But in this case, I don’t know if it was a racial bias as much as it was maybe a class bias. It could be a combination. But as Adrienne said earlier, all the cop had to do was acknowledge why he was in the area, apologize for the inconvenience and tell Gates to have a nice day. Just walk away. I mean, if a cop could arrest every person who ever talked back to him or her, overcrowding would be an even bigger issue.
flukebucket
I think Obama should have said “irrationally” instead of “stupidly”.
And didn’t a neighbor call the police? How in the hell do you not recognize your neighbor? If my neighbor was trying to break into his own house I would know who he was. Especially if he were the premier black scholar in the United States.
I once saw a guy on “Cops” get arrested for resisting arrest. It was the damndest thing I have ever seen and would not have believed it had I not seen it.
It was a white guy.
John Cole
I don’t care what color Gates is, he was in his house, he showed the cops (who, by the way, wereguests in his house because they had no search warrant) valid id, they then took him outside and arrested him for the only thing they could make up to fit, and within 24 hours the charges were dropped.
Now if you can make a case that the cop is not just some raging asshole on an ego trip, I’ll listen to it. And it doesn’t matter if Gates was an asshole, as he was in his own damned house.
What is with you people putting up with this kind of shit from cops? This is why they think they can get away with anything- because you all let them.
GregB
Bender, I forgot about the new GOP/Reichwing rules.
Only people like Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly are allowed to use the race card nowadays.
Sorry.
-G
John Cole
@JGabriel: Exactly. Someone call me when the cops do the same thing to someone like Larry Summers.
Hunter Gathers
@slag: A No Asshole Law would be un-enforcable. You would have to arrest the entire male gender. Because we are really good at being assholes.
jcricket
Gates was absolutely arrested for being black. Here’s a good story to illustrate. I was driving my car back to my house about 8 years ago. Cop car flashes lights and pulls up right behind me as I pull into my driveway (I didn’t live in a great neighborhood, fyi). Before I can even think of what I might have done wrong there’s a cop at my driver side window flashing his light and me demanding to see my license.
Unfortunately, I don’t have my wallet (dumb!). I tell him this is my house, and I don’t have my wallet but it’s inside. He looks at me, says there’s a car that fits this description that was stolen. I assure him this is my car and house. And then he just says OK and gets in his car and goes away.
I can 100% guarantee if I was black and missing my wallet, he would have pulled me out of the car, cuffed me, searched me, searched my car, and then maybe brought me over to the door and rang the doorbell to see if anyone was home. If no one was home, I might have even been taken to the station or given a ticket for driving without a license or something.
I guarantee Bill Gates wouldn’t have been arrested, even if was screaming at the police. In fact, the police probably would have apologized. Anyone who thinks otherwise doesn’t know enough black people or doesn’t read the news.
kansi
This morning on his radio show, Bill Press mentioned that he saw Lynn Sweet of the Chicago Sun Times after the press conference last night. He told her “Good question.”
Her response? “Do you think it will be on talk radio tomorrow?”
That exchange shows what these events are truly all about. Making headlines for the reporters involved and stirring up a big pot of gotcha for the President.
Brick Oven Bill
This is the Internet. This is a true story. Read at your own risk.
It was just after Palin had given her speech at the convention. I had thought the speech was really good and hopped in the Ford Focus to head to the gas station to buy a beer. Thinking about the speech, I stopped at the red light and then, distracted by thought, blew right through the red light, the gas station just 200 feet away.
Rollers. Uh oh.
Two hands placed high on the steering wheel in clear sight. Do you know why I pulled you over? Yes officer. Have you been drinking? No, I am stone cold sober officer, I was thinking about something and zoned the stoplight. I need to disclose that there is an unloaded pistol in the glove compartment and am willing to surrender it for the duration of this traffic stop.
Flashlight in my face. Slowly open the glove compartment, remove the pistol, present it handgrip forward to the officer, who requests to check it clear. Yes sir. He takes it to the cruiser and no doubt checks the serial number along with the Ford Focus registration.
There will surely be a ticket for blowing through a red light at a busy intersection. The officer comes back, returns the pistol, thank you for excellent traffic stop protocol. Pay more attention next time sir, have a good night.
Reflecting on this traffic stop eight months later, I realize that, as a prominent oil shale scholar, I should have instead said:
“You don’t know who you are messing with. Do you know who I am? Get the Chief. What is the Chief’s name? I am a prominent oil shale scholar working out of my kitchen. I’ll speak with your mama outside my Ford Focus.”
slag
@Bender:
This is so true!
Will all Balloon Juice commenters please stop calling John Cole, DougJ, Paul Krugman, Glenn Greenwald, Atrios, Digby, etc “RACIST!” whenever they disagree with Obama already? Seriously…it’s getting kind of old, dudes.
kansi
This morning on his radio show, Bill Press mentioned that he saw Lynn Sweet of the Chicago Sun Times (who asked the Gates question) after the press conference last night. He told her “Good question.”
Her response? “Do you think it will be on talk radio tomorrow?”
That exchange shows what these events are truly all about. Making headlines for the reporters involved and stirring up a big pot of gotcha for the President.
Just Some Fuckhead
So lemme get this straight, jcricket? You can guarantee Gates was arrested because he’s black because of something you imagine might have occurred to you if you were black?
There is something about race-based conversations that turns everyone into idiots.
WereBear
I’ve run into this “you shouldn’t have done xx to a cop” before. For the benefit of the simple among us, here’s how it goes:
The police officer is supposed to be the Professional in this situation. We are the Civilians, and we’re called that because we get panicky and cranky and stupid.
Professional police officers are supposed to ignore all that and do their jobs. The police are supposed to be able to handle crazy situations without creating more harm. Police are supposed to defuse situations, not escalate them.
Yes, it takes a certain amount of putting up with shit, but that comes with the job. The real professionals know that, and just keep on being calm and polite no matter what happens.
And that’s not what happened here.
chopper
@John Cole:
cops have a wide latitude when it comes to stuff like disorderly but i think that latitude should become very narrow at my property line and disappears completely at my front door.
the idea that the same rules should apply on my front porch as the public street is ludicrous. its my fucking property.
Bender
I don’t care what color Gates is, he was in his house, he showed the cops (who, by the way, wereguests in his house because they had no search warrant) valid id, they then took him outside and arrested him for the only thing they could make up to fit, and within 24 hours the charges were dropped.
Facts be damned, right, John? You’ve got a narrative to push!
One cop.
The officer didn’t “take Gates outside.” Gates chased after the officer in order to scream racist accusations at the cop who had once tried to save Reggie Lewis’ life.
The officer didn’t have to “make up” anything to arrest him, by Gates’ own admission of what he was screaming.
Now… where are all of the Juicers to talk about what egregious lies you’ve deliberately told on this thread?
(crickets)
ironranger
I watched Professor Gates on CNN who was not in the studio & he spoke in a normal tone of voice..I had no problem hearing & understanding him.
DougJ
I can’t say for sure if the cop was racially motivated here.
But what gets me is Bender, and probably real wingers too (Bender’s a spoof, right?) saying this happens to people of every race all the time.
Cops don’t show up at people’s houses, make them show ID, and then cuff them on the porch when they complain about being harassed. There’s just no way that happens very often.
chopper
@Brick Oven Bill:
too bad your car is not your house. i dunno, maybe it is. maybe you live in a van down by the river.
Gordon, The Big Express Engine
@Brick Oven Bill: Bravo. I mean that sincerely. The “prominent oil shale scholar” bit absolutely floored me…
Montysano (All Hail Marx & Lennon)
@Bender:
Then explain to us all the extreme vitriol directed at Obama, not just from the blogosphere, but from Fox, Hannity, Beck, Limbaugh, etc. It’s unprecedented. Are you going to try to tell us it’s nothing but ideology? Give me a fucking break. Not one Wall Street banker has been hauled off to jail. Dick Cheney is not trembling at the thought of a war crimes trial. There is simply nothing radical about Obama, nothing unusual except his name and the color of his skin. Yet we hear wails of “despotism” and “soft tyranny”, we treated to mindless shit about birth certificates and “iz he Moozlem?!?” It’s racism. What other explanation is there?
Brick Oven Bill
I own the road chopper.
Just Some Fuckhead
Just so there’s no confusion where I stand on this very important issue, I think the cop was dead wrong. However, I don’t think it has to be a racial issue. We’re just deciding in our usual collectivists-shouting-everyone-else-down that it has to be because Gates is black. I need more evidence than that.
chopper
@Bender:
The officer didn’t “take Gates outside.” Gates chased after the officer in order to scream racist accusations at the cop who had once tried to save Reggie Lewis’ life.
you’re an idiot. the guy asked the cop for his name and badge number. the cop said ‘i’ll talk to you if you follow me out to the porch’.
its in the arrest report you dumbass.
Funkhauser
That screenshot is the reason I don’t give The Washington Post any click-throughs. Don’t want them getting any more ad revenue. Neo-con Pravda.
inkadu
Any black man who plays for the Celtics is automatically one of the “good ones.”
And when did “racial” replace “racist?”
Da Bomb
@Bender: Nobody is telling a lie. There are pictures on the man being arrested on his porch. If you have an altercation with the police on the street, why would they bring you back to your porch to arrest you?
Doesn’t make any sense.
You don’t get arrested for screaming at the police. That’s not normal.
So bringing up the fact that the cop saved a black guy doesn’t negate anything. It’s his job to save people. He would have lost his job if he didn’t save Reggie Lewis’s life because he’s black. There are things happening right now in the city where I live where firefighters are in trouble for being pasting racist crap.. ie. nooses, and racial slurs on other fellow firefighters property. That doesn’t mean that the accused firefighters haven’t stopped doing their jobs of putting out fires anywhere.
What is your point?
timb
@Johnny B. Guud: I’m unsure how that makes him a racist or a non-racist. Are we supposed to believe to be a racist, one has to be one of the cops from Mississippi Burning?
Bender
And didn’t a neighbor call the police? How in the hell do you not recognize your neighbor?
And Gates actually applauded the neighbor for calling the cops and looking after Gates’ property. No ill words for someone who thought two black men fiddling with Gates’ door was cause to call a policeman? Wasn’t that racial profiling? Shouldn’t Gates be mortally offended at how the neighbor views “black men in America!!”
Instead, Gates chooses to upbraid the cop sent to check out the neighbor’s complaint, a cop who was leaving after having concluded a short investigation.
Why the cop? Why not the neighbor? Hmmmm, I wonder.
slag
@Hunter Gathers:
So true. But that doesn’t stop wingnuts from coming here and arguing that one exists.
As a friend who has published research on this very type of thing said to me last night, “If a poor black guy did what Gates did, the guy would get the crap kicked out of him.” I then wanted to ask him whether or not he got an NIH grant to figure that out.
Morbo
@Bender: The projection meter has broken, captain.
Napoleon
Gates has gone on Colbert before. How long until he has him back on to quiz him on this.
Mnemosyne
@Bender:
So you’re taking the word of the MSM over what the cop himself said in his report? Why do you hate cops so much that you automatically assume they must be lying in their reports?
aimai
I just don’t get the blatant, slavish, respect for authoritarian(ism) expressed by just some fuckhead, although maybe his name should have clued me in. Its freakin’ unamerican to assume a dog like, submissive, posture just because a police officer happens to cross your path. The fact that they can arrest you, taser you, or shoot you because they are in a pissy mood isn’t a *justification* its a *problem.*
so fuck off, just some fuckhead, until you have something original to offer the discussion.
aimai
chopper
@John Cole:
another thing – us plebes usually don’t have the power to do anything but get arrested.
me and my old roommate were at a weezer (HAH!) show in a big venue in VA once. some cop started giving us shit about standing in the aisle, my roommate started arguing about it (the cop was being really arbitrary, tons of other people were in the aisle too). so the cop cuffed him and hauled him in. i think it was either disorderly or drunk in public (we had 2 beers in the beer garden, big whoop).
he spent the night in the pokey but went to court over the charges and basically got the cop fired over it.
then again his dad was the speaker of the house of representatives. that sorta thing kinda matters. it would never have worked for a regular shmo like me.
kay
@kansi:
Lyn Sweet is a good reporter, in my opinion. Stupid question, but good reporter. She knows Obama. She’s followed him for years. She wrote about Ayres, and Rezko and all the other scandals, real or invented, and she followed up, eventually showing they weren’t, in fact, scandals. That follow-up was completely ignored nationally, but still, I could find it.
She has done solid, fair work. I think he probably let his guard down with her because he’s so familiar with her.
The Moar You Know
@Bender: I like our buddy Bender. He’s so much more “in your face” and “coherent” than Paul L., although he does lack the surrealist qualities of Brick Oven Bill.
I like you, Bender. Will you be my friend?
GregB
To everyone on this blog.
Please cease with the tumultuous behavior or I’ll ask you all to step out onto the porch.
-Officer Krupky
Just Some Fuckhead
@aimai:
First, you want to silence everyone who doesn’t spout aimai-approved dogma, now ya wanna personally censor me for not being original?
What’s yer original contribution, dumbass? Also, why do you hate free speech?
Comrade Kevin
Someone please feed Bender a girder.
Adrienne
@chopper: Oh I’m aware of the sneaky shit that cops do. All that crap about the acoustics is a load of shit. There was no need for ANY further conversation once he verified Mr. Gates’ identity.
Seriously, and they wonder why even the some of the most upstanding, middle to upper middle class, law abiding black folks – like my (step)father with a job he’s been at for 25 years, house in the ‘burbs, deacon in his church, pillar of community type – STILL don’t like the cops….You have no idea the things I’ve seen cops do in my childhood neighborhood.
handy
Where are you getting this? According to the cop’s own report Gates did no such thing. And the fact that he once tried to save Reggie Lewis’ life adds nothing to this discussion.
Davis X. Machina
You see, the real problem is Gates and Obama, reflexively sticking together. What’s the over-under on days before we see references to the “The Thin Brown Line” ?
Bender
You don’t get arrested for screaming at the police. That’s not normal.
Normal is irrelevant (although I have seen a guy cuffed and stuffed for screaming “Fuck you!” at a cop about ten times). If it met the legal threshhold for a disturbance crime, then it was a crime. Only a few people know what Gates screamed and how long he screamed it. Was it enough to be a disturbance? Should he have been arrested? I don’t know the level of disturbance, but he was clearly behaving like a jackass and the cop (who, from all we know, was just doing his job and leaving) didn’t deserve that type of treatment.
But for Obama to say on three networks’ prime-time that the policeman acted “stupidly,” but acting like His Connected Buddy Skip Gates was pure as the driven snow… I’d say there was, at best, equal stupidity on both ends.
And for you idiots to be screaming “racism” when you have to make up Fake Facts like John did to support your narrative…it’s disgusting. It’s Political Discourse for Dummies.
Comrade Kevin
@handy:
He’s lying, it’s as simple as that.
The Moar You Know
@aimai: You’ve mistinterpreted a healthy respect for the reality of the situation as being “slavish respect for authoritarianism”. Nobody here is unaware that police running roughshod over all they encounter, without a single hint of respect for those of us who pay their salaries, is a problem.
As a formerly long-haired DFH, the lessons my grandpa (a former ATF agent and Arkansas cop) drilled into me before my parents would let me get a drivers license, have kept my ass out of jail and from getting a beatdown more than once. You say “sir”. You do whatever the fuck they tell you to, because as gramps always says “If you’re in jail I can get you out and we can sue the shit out of them later. If you’re dead you’re fucking dead and nobody can help you.”
Sucks. But it’s reality. Backtalk a cop and you might end up with a lethal case of lead poisoning and a nice, completely inaccurate story that explains how you got that way. And juries love springing cops. Just love it. You can count the number of cop convictions over the last thirty years in my county (San Diego) on one hand. Rich, poor, black, white, it doesn’t matter, our cops shoot any and everyone with total impunity (about five to ten a year end up in court here) and your only defense against it is to kiss cop ass.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
@John Cole: John, as Steve Gilliard (pbuh) put it a long time ago- America is and always has been a police state for black people.
We tend to teach our young men at an early age to give cops the “yassuh, nawsuh” routine. I’ve personally instructed my nephews “your job is to get to the police station alive. Leave the bitch-pitchin’ to our lawyer.”
We don’t give the bastards this power– this is power that we simply acknowledge.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
@The Moar You Know: Beat me to it.
Adrienne
@chopper:
EXACTLY. I mean, these are the ppl who holler the loudest about property rights and yet they side with the cops who arrested a man for disorderly conduct on his own porch.
Authoritarianism vetoes any of their other “principles” – federalism, individual liberty, etc etc.
SGEW
Conflation alert:
1) Racial profiling and disparate treatment of nonwhites by police officers, in general, as a fact. Well established, and not really in contention here.
2) The particular details of this particular incident. Attributing racial (or, indeed, any) motivations upon the people involved should be done with great caution – there are semi-conflicting reports, unanswered questions (who was the person who reported the “break-in”?), legal quibbling (“tumultuous,” “in view of the public”), and the inherently unanswerable nature of individual human intent. Was the cop “racist” in the arrest? Was Gates “overreacting”? Outside of definitive legal answers (the dropped arrest itself; possible civil action) there is no way of knowing – it’s a matter of opinion. More to the point, it’s effectively anecdotal.
3) Obama’s statement about this particular incident.
4) Race and politics in America, in general, especially in the context of a black president. This kettle of fish is deep with doubletalk and reeks with corruption and decay: white supremacy, outright racism, and fear of the “other” poisons this discussion – on the other hand, accusations of overt racism sometimes marginalize or overly demonize good faith participants in a legitimate debate (e.g., if some young Paulite protests against the increasing deficit and wants a gold standard, or whatever (and did so during the Bush administration) it is unfair to attribute racial animosity to their political sentiment).
Now, 2 and 3 seem to be the central debate here (e.g., was such a definitive statement (“acted stupidly”) premature, why did the press ask the question in the first place, etc.). Dragging 1 and 4 into it is stepping into bigger issues, and should be addressed explicitly and, hopefully, reasonably.
/concern
Zifnab
@Bender: Slow down there Bender. What makes you think I was talking about you? I didn’t mention your name once in my post.
Take a deep breath. Consider what you’re saying. You’re not a racist, are you? I couldn’t possible have been aiming that at you. So don’t worry about it. Right?
shelley matheis
JGabriel
@Bender:
Bender, stop lying. Unless you intentionally wish to be known as a fucking liar – then go right ahead.
The Police Officers reports are available at Smoking Gun. Note the plural.
They pretty clearly state there were at least four officers at the scene: Sgt. Crowley, Officer Figueroa, Officer Ivey, and Officer Graham. A fifth officer is mentioned in the report, Sgt. Lashley, but it’s unclear whether he/she was at the site or consulted by radio/phone.
Project much, Bender?
.
Montysano (All Hail Marx & Lennon)
The ultra radical Hussein Obama X at work: Obama calls for more mild oversight of Wall Street.
Zifnab
@Davis X. Machina: I can’t believe it. Gates was a beloved President down at A&M. There’s no way they’d put a race-traitor like that in such high office. :-p
Adrienne
@The Moar You Know:
I think I would have liked your gramps!
SGEW
@John Cole:
I ask this question sincerely, John: Have you ever been wrongfully arrested? Been roughed up and had handcuffs on until your wrists bled and then released after 24 hours without charges (or food, for that matter)?
It sucks. One doesn’t like to have it happen again. So we submit.
chopper
@Bender:
I don’t know the level of disturbance, but he was clearly behaving like a jackass and the cop (who, from all we know, was just doing his job and leaving) didn’t deserve that type of treatment.
it. was. his. fucking. house. whatever happened to ‘a mans home is his castle’, or did you conservatives throw that away too in your neverending quest to stick it to obama?
Stooleo
Gates court hearing will probably go something like this..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ASQKjbuCS8
timb
@Johnny B. Guud: I’m unsure how that makes him a racist or a non-racist. Are we supposed to believe to be a racist, one has to be one of the cops from Mississippi Burning?
.
@Bender: I call bullshit. The definition of political speech is that it is critical of and made to authority figures. What sort of authoritarians are cons nowadays? Oh, they’ll take my gun from my cold, dead fingers, but I deserved if I asked them their badge number and raised their voice while they were in my damn house.
Look, there’s disagreeing and then there’s failing. You’re leaning to the latter category.
kansi
Kay,
RE: Lynn Sweet. Your description of her might be accurate, but have you ever seen her on Hardball? She never takes a breath! I think she has been affected by the kleig lights of teevee. Disturbed me that her first response to Press had to do with what the MSM reaction to her would be. Not a good sign at all.
Adrienne
I’ll give you three off the top of my head:
Sean Bell
Shem Walker
Amadou Diallo
When was the last time you heard of a cop shooting an innocent person and being convicted and jailed for murder – especially if the victim was black? We let them get away with it because they will KILL you. I’ll take disrespect and humiliation over death any day.
Jonny Scrum-half
aimai @ 104 — I don’t think acknowledging that (a) police officers have certain powers, and (b) some of them abuse those powers is evidence of a slavish respect for authoritarianism. I think that it’s just accepting that people — cops included — can be and are assholes sometimes, and it’s not necessarily about race.
DougJ @ 88 — I don’t know how often cops arrest people who yell at them. My guess is that being rude to a cop greatly increases the chance that he/she’ll look for a reason to take you in.
But your description of the incident as a cop “showing up” at Gates’s house and “demanding ID” is really disingenuous. The police were responding to a resident’s call, and it would have been irresponsible for the officer not to have demanded ID.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Montysano (All Hail Marx & Lennon):
Peak oil?
MikeJ
And if we’re discussing what Obama said, irrelevant. What the cops did was stupid, no doubt about that. Stupidity to a degree that is incompatible with continued public service. Racist, idiot, it’s all the same when it comes down to it. We don’t need racist cops, we don’t need idiot cops. The outcome now should be the same no matter why the cop is stupid.
Ugh
From my link upthread:
Sgt. Crowley’s report almost certainly contains intentional falsehoods, but even accepting his account at face value, the report tells us all we need to conclude that Crowley was in the wrong here, and by a large factor.
The Grand Panjandrum
@Davis X. Machina:
That I will file under Clever Things I Wished I’d Written. Kudos.
Svensker
Without having been there and seeing the interaction myself, it’s really hard to figure out what was motivating the cop. My guess is that the cop was being an asshole and wanted subservience from the citizen, and that Gates was reacting with a chip on his shoulder because he is a black male and has a built in over-active radar, as per the McWhorter article.
The Moar You Know
@Adrienne: He’s still with us, the last one of my grandparents left alive. Survived D-Day and multiple heart attacks and is now in his late eighties, cutting quite a swath among the local widows at the church (still a good-looking motherfucker, looks like Sean Connery).
He’s not all good, but he is quite a guy.
SteveCan
“it. was. his. fucking. house. whatever happened to ‘a mans home is his castle’, or did you conservatives throw that away too in your neverending quest to stick it to obama?”
Maybe, just maybe if he hadn’t acted like an asshole …. Re: Obama, “At every opportunity” . . . .Thanks for asking!!
HRA
http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2009/07/23/henry-louis-gates-contempt-of-cop/
I recommend reading this article.
ironranger
Gate’s lawyer or law prof who was with him at the jail on msnbc now.
Joel
@ Bender: What is your motivation? Seriously, what motivates people like you?
orogeny
Why all the cop hate, even from John? Sure, this particular cop appears to be a badge-heavy asshole who took a bad situation and made it worse, but for every asshole cop like that, there a a whole bunch more who do a shitty job in the best way they can manage.
Over the years, in addition to being a cop, I’ve worked in a lot of different fields and one thing I’ve found is that there are overbearing jerks in every one of them. I’ve seen professors who trade grades for sex. Engineers who treat their secretaries like dirt, doctors and lawyers who are overbearing and obnoxious. When these folks get in trouble for their behavior, you don’t hear a lot of people screaming that all doctors/lawyers/professors are rotten (well, maybe lawyers). But let a cop step over the line and suddenly all cops are racist, abusive assholes.
We take 21-year-old kids, give them anywhere from 6 weeks to 6 months of training and then hand them a gun and a stick and put them on the street. They’re required to deal with all types of people, from the scum of the earth to respected college professors and they have to treat them all appropriately. They’re lied to, insulted, and sometimes assaulted. They spend most of their time seeing humanity at its worst. Is it that surprising that a certain percentage of them go sour…think that the only way to deal with a situation is to maintain absolute dominance, no matter what?
In this situation, it appears that this particular officer behaved unprofessionally and should probably be reprimanded, maybe suspended. But for Balloon Juice commenters to use this situation as an indication that all cops are bad is “behaving stupidly.”
Svensker
@timb:
For them, it seems to depend on who’s doing the questioning and who’s got the gun.
JGabriel
Ugh:
Yep, I’ve read the report and I agree.
Look, like others here, I always try to be polite and respectful of police officers, always addressing them as “Officer”, “Sir”, or “Ma’am”. That’s because it can be a dangerous and stressful job, I respect their service, and I know they frequently have to put up with a lot of bullshit.
That’s their job.
Sgt. Crowley could have easily defused this situation with a simple, “We’re sorry for inconveniencing you, sir. I know situations like this can be frustrating. We’ll be on our way. Thank you for your time.”
.
handy
@HRA:
Thanks for the link. The author (and JMM’s comment he cites) expresses my thoughts about this matter well, at least to the extent that Obama probably shouldn’t have injected his opinion about this particular case.
Then again it was an opportunity. It’s probably better that we talk more out in the open about these things, not less, so in that respect maybe Obama’s comment helps.
gwangung
I don’t think it’s that accurate to say it’s for all cops. But I think there’s an authoritarian streak in a lot of them that really shouldn’t be there. For another example of that, go to Oklahoma.
slag
A clip from Colbert in which Stephen gets Gates to admit Jesus was white. Adds nothing significant to the discussion other than making it clear how stupid (yes, stupid!) it was for the cops to needlessly arrest a prominent black scholar who has a high enough profile to have been on the Colbert Report.
Davis X. Machina
Not off topic, not if you think about it:
“Apologetic doctors can nix lawsuits”. From Tuesday’s Boston Herald
The Moar You Know
@orogeny: I don’t hate cops. They are part of my family.
But the fact that every person commenting here has been the victim of this kind of power-tripping bullshit behavior from a cop at some point in their lives ought to give anyone at least a moment’s pause, wouldn’t you think?
John Cole
Bender- you don’t even know the basic facts of he case, and it is clear you have not even read the arrest report.
And who the hell is Reggie Lewis?
handy
@Davis X. Machina:
My first thought was that this is a corollary to “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.” Sorry. Carry on…
Just Some Fuckhead
@slag: Maybe Officer Crowley was carrying a grudge because Gates totally dissed Lincoln on The Colbert Show.
jenniebee
@Scott: A porch is “public” in a lot of legal contexts. In VA, where we have laws against open alcohol containers in public, it’s technically illegal to have a beer on your porch.
It’s also illegal to strut naked on that porch singing the score of HMS Pinafore. So, you know, there’s something to be said for it.
over_educated
Bender reminds me a lot of my father-in-law (except my father in-law is a genuinely nice guy and and friendly dude as opposed to a lying, disingenuous hack) but he simply cannot acknowledge that racism exists in this country and that their may be a disparity in treatment towad someone based on their race.
If this was a lily white dude and a cop came in asking questions about his guns and then made up some BS excuse to get him outside and arrest him for disordely conduct Bender and his ilk would be sceaming at the top of their lungs about the injustice of it all. But since it is a black man getting all uppity it becomes and issue of “respecting the police.”
If Bender had any intellectually honesty he would be furious at the abuse of authority, irrespective of professor Gates race. Or does bender support the right of the police to enter your home at any time to ask questions and then arrest you if they take offense to your “attitude”? I seem to recall a similar situation involving Ruby ridge and Waco where conservatives went balistic at this type of overreach of government authority.
John Cole
I don’t hate cops. I hate bad cops.
Scott
Why all the cop hate, even from John?
‘Cause cops are just a street gang with a little more power than usual. I hate thugs in general, whether or not they carry a badge.
A far better question would be “Why all the cop love?” Because your average cop hasn’t done shit to earn it.
Mike P
@John Cole:
Win
Just Some Fuckhead
I hate cops. Even the black cop that let me off on a speeding ticket (58 in a 45) some weeks back because I have
an Obama bumperstickera +5 on my driving record.I just hate him less.
Mike P
@John Cole: Lewis was a popular Celtics player who died due to complications from an irregular heartbeat while playing a pick up game back in the late ’90s (?) if I recall.
In any case, he played for the Celts, so “good negro” or something.
SGEW
@orogeny:
Fair enough. Personally, I can attest that there are few things worse than having a bad cop treating you brutally and unfairly in an otherwise normal situation, and few things better than having a good cop treating you professionally and respectfully in an otherwise terrible situation.
Some folk experience more unfairness and brutality than professionalism and respect. Some of that is because of race. And having your ass beaten by cops is more memorable (and exceptional) than having your ass saved by them (which is, after all, their job).
slag
I don’t remember seeing anyone say that “all cops are bad”. Maybe I missed that.
Honestly, my most recent interaction with my neighborhood police force was very positive. So much so that I almost wrote a letter praising them (maybe I still should). Nonetheless, there are race/class circumstances surrounding these interactions that some people want to brush under the table. I was under the impression that this thread was about those (race, in particular). Especially as it began with the offensive photo that nobody has really mentioned.
And for idiots to come here, see these two things next to each other, and try to pretend that there’s absolutely no discernible connection whatsoever between them (nothing to see here!) is just plain irritating. There’s nothing that pisses people off more than telling them that their photographically-evident, statistically-reinforced perceptions of discrimination are all in their heads.
In no way does that mean that all cops are bad.
Origuy
I heard a report that the neighbor who called the cops saw the taxi driver that was helping Gates. She didn’t recognize Gates himself. Whether she just didn’t get a good look at him, or wouldn’t have recognized him if she had, I don’t know.
Brick Oven Bill
Upon reflection, this might be a setup. What kind of college professor locks himself out of his house and shimmies himself into the front door with a black friend?
a) A stupid college professor (possibly);
b) An African-Studies professor looking to appear suspicious, get into an altercation with a white policeman, get arrested, and increase his professional profile and speaking fees (possibly).
r€nato
@John Cole:
long story short: I’ve had asshole cops in my house who refused to leave and had no legitimate reason to remain after I invited them to leave.
They have knowledge of the law on their side, as well as a willingness to BS and bluff into getting their way to do whatever they want.
Unless you are a lawyer or a very, very well-informed citizen, asshole cops will not hesitate to take advantage of their position.
(Oh and now that I think about it, they also threatened to arrest me for disorderly for raising my voice IN MY OWN FUCKING HOUSE)
I complained in writing to the PD. You think that did any good?
There comes a time when you can spend your time and energy fighting against asshole cops and their brothers who cover up for them. I like to call that, ’tilting at windmills.’
As far as I am concerned, all cops are bad cops (just like all wild animals are potentially vicious wild animals) unless they prove themselves otherwise to me. The potential for danger is too great, to give them the benefit of the doubt. I’d rather just avoid any encounters with the fuckers whenever possible. Sad, but true. I have a life to lead and I don’t really care to spend a significant part of it fighting against cops abusing their authority, unless I’ve got some heavy duty lawyers on my side.
SBW
orogeny,
Who else has the power to arrest backed by the full force of government? (So we’re not talking a citizens arrest here.) An overbearing doctor or lawyer or professor is not going to take my liberty away, even for a short while, so the general argument there are assholes in every profession doesn’t cut it. If I am a law abiding citizen, which I am, and which Gates looks to be, I will most certainly despise — yes, despise — any individual who takes my liberty away with no cause, along with all his co-workers who excuse his behavior. And I don’t give a damn if the cop is having a bad day. If he or she can’t take it, they should be stripped of their authority and fired. I’m not interested in playing authoritarian games.
From the report Gates had no weapon. There was no need to ‘control’ him, and I pray this officer gets fired, not reprimanded. But the police union — consisting of all the good cops, right?, will most likely ensure the punishment is light.
r€nato
@Brick Oven Bill:
I knew we could count on you, BOB.
(for that matter, has anyone seen Gates’ birth certificate?)
SGEW
[insert formal request for banning Brick Oven Bill from any thread involving race or gender here]
Bender
According to the cop’s own report Gates did no such thing.
From the report, Crowley was on the sidewalk walking back to his car to leave Gates’ residence while Gates followed him out from his foyer and onto the front porch, yelling that he was a racist and “you haven’t heard the last of me!” In front of a dozen or so attending cops and neighbors, Crowley warned him that he was becoming disorderly. Gates didn’t heed the warning, continued yelling at him. Cuffed.
Anyone who reads that report and thinks that Gates isn’t a total asshole is… well, a total asshole. “I’ll talk to yo mama outside?” Yo mama? Really? Is it a requirement of being a Friend of Obama that you be a raging asshole?
Poor Officer Crowley. Having to deal with “You don’t know who you’re messing with” and “yo mama” from such an eminent scholar at Harvard University (they must be so proud!), all because he was doing his job.
Johnny B. Guud
Reggie Lewis played for the Boston Celtics. He collapsed while practicing, I’d say around 15 years ago.
Sgt. Crowley performed CPR on him.
r€nato
I agree. He should have tasered the fucker, and then shoved a nightstick up his ass for good measure. After all, the cop’s life could have been endangered by such harsh language.
John Cole
The simple fact of the matter is that law enforcement is about de-escalation. We don’t give guys badges and guns to go out and make things worse. This cop, no matter what Gates might have said, once he produced ID and it was clear it was his house, should have turned around, said sorry for the inconvenience, and then gotten the hell out of there. Why? Because that is what he is paid to do.
He isn’t paid to arrest a guy on trumped up charges when he isn’t a threat and no laws have been broken, waste hours of everyone’s time, force his department to have to deal with a media fire storm, and then have the trumped up BS charges dropped. The cop chose to escalate and act the big man with his badge, and wasted a lot of time and money that could have been spent on more productive things.
That’s called acting stupidly.
gbear
@SGEW:
I’ll ditto that. It is the most humiliating and dehumanizing thing that I’ve ever been thru. Here they can hold you for 36 hours in a jail cell without filing charges and the time does not start until you hit the cell (which was 6 hours after the arrest). Almost two days of wondering how fucked up your life had just become and no way of doing a thing about it. The memory still tears me to shreads.
jenniebee
@Jonny Scrum-half:
I’m white, and I long ago learned that you tread very lightly when a police officer is around. I say, “sir,” and “thank you,” and generally try my best to follow whatever instructions I’m given. Black people are not the only ones who immediately get anxious when a police car appears in their rear-view mirror.
I’m with you (and female cops tend to be the most ready to jump on any perceived slight to their authority, I’ve found). I’ve found it prudent when confronted by a police officer to be as dumb and sweet as possible. I can understand though why non-white people would ask themselves “was this because of race?” every time they run into a cop who just likes to fuck with everybody, because there are also cops who treat all non-whites as criminals until proven otherwise. So perceptions of racism are magnified for non-whites because they have no way (unless, like Da Bomb, there are white people with them doing the exact same thing as they) of divining the officer’s motives, and whites dismiss charges of racism for the exact same reasons. The bottom line, though, is that the question isn’t an either/or, it’s an and. Some cops are thin-skinned pricks, some cops are unabashed racists, some are both, and some are actually good cops who, no doubt, find this whole mess embarrassing.
Just Some Fuckhead
God save us from the censors who would save us.
NickM
BOB – your spoof slip was showing on that last one.
Haven’t you ever heard of an “absent minded professor”? It’s a cliche.
gopher2b
“Gates wasn’t arrested in his house. He was arrested for screaming at the cops in the street. Just as you or I or any evil inherently-racist white man would’ve been. Don’t believe me? Just try it.”
Which is precisely the problem with “disorderly conduct” charges. If I can’t have someone arrested for telling me to “fuck off” then cops shouldn’t be able to arrest me when I do it to them.
Gates was screwed. I honestly don’t believe its because he’s black. I think probably occurred because cops in this country are out of control. I’m a white male and I was harrassed, thrown against a car, searched and detained for telling a cop who nearly hit me with his car as he ran a red light to “fuck off.”
chopper
@SteveCan:
Maybe, just maybe if he hadn’t acted like an asshole
since when is ‘acting like an asshole in your own house’ an arrestable offense?
JGabriel
Brick Oven Bill:
That would be the kind that: wants to get into his house.
To illustrate how stupid this approach is, BOB, let’s generalize the question:
Again, that would the kind of person who’s locked out of his/her house and wants to get in.
.
jenniebee
@John Cole:
John, that’s the best thing I’ve seen said about this yet. Amen.
John Cole
@SGEW: I was dragged out of a car by a NJ state trooper, thrown to the pavement and had my neck stepped on while my friend’s car was searched for drugs. Why? Because he had long hair.
They found no drugs, and didn’t so much as apologize. And no, I did nothing to warrant the treatment.
Another time, driving to DC to take my brother home from school, I was pulled over in Maryland, detained for about an hour and a half on the side of the road as a long procession of cars were searched for drugs. Why? Was driving my sister’s car, which had four or five dead stickers, and the dead were playing at RFK, so they were just pulling everyone over with a dead sticker and searching them.
I had two sets of pressed BDU’s hanging in the back seat because I had to go immediately to drill after returning, but they must have missed them as they threw them out onto the side of the road with all my other shit.
Not surprisingly, they found no drugs.
So have I been beaten or wrongly arrested? No. But I have dealt with more than enough asshole cops.
r€nato
In Jack McCallum’s book Seven Seconds Or Less (a book about the 2005-2006 Phoenix Suns), assistant coach Alvin Gentry (now the head coach of the Suns) related a similar story of being locked out of his upscale Scottsdale home and getting harassed by Scottsdale cops over it.
Over time I’ve polled my black friends and the survey says 100% swear that DWB (driving while black) definitely exists.
Faux News
“[insert formal request for banning Brick Oven Bill from any thread involving race or gender here]”
LEAVE B.O.B ALONE! He is a human being (sob!)
Ok, I’m bored by Paul L. but I do like BOB. He amuses me. Think of him as the Trig Palin of Balloon Juice.
Oh yeah and the nasty troll “Bender” should just go join the circle jerk at RedState or the psycopathic Freepers.
Brick Oven Bill
I am familiar with the name Cornel West, but had never heard of Henry Gates. Now Henry Gates is more prominent.
If Gates had patiently coordinated with authority, West would still be more prominent. Gates followed the cop out of the house.
Gates will profit from this encounter.
J.D. Rhoades
@Napoleon: It’s particularly bad in school settings. I’ve been beating my head against the wall for the past few years in Juvenile Court trying to make the point that every disciplinary problem in school is not a matter for the criminal courts.
Bender
Bender- you don’t even know the basic facts of he case, and it is clear you have not even read the arrest report.
I got way more of the facts right than you did, John, just from reading cnn.com. If you read the report and then wrote that terribly uninformed post, then you need to do some comprehension work.
But if you read the report… dude, what a bitter old sphincter that Gates dude is. And it’s not like he’s bitter from a lifetime of Teh White Man’s Police Abuse — he admits he’s never been arrested before in his 58 years. He’s just an asshole, apparently. “I’ll talk to yo mama outside!” Classic Hahvahd material.
And who the hell is Reggie Lewis?
It kind of hurts your “EEEEEEvil racist cop” meme when the cop in question notably tried to save the life of a dying black man. Have you ever given CPR trying to save a black man’s life, John? RAAACIST!
If the Racists’ Club now allows its members to actively try to save a black man’s life by putting your mouth on his in the “Kiss Of Life,” well… it’s just not the same Racists Club as it was when Robert Byrd was the Grand Wizardy Dragon.
r€nato
Hey BOB, while you’re on a roll, why don’t you regale us all with cautionary tales of how Obama’s islamosocialistfascist jackbooted thugs are coming for our guns, Bibles and freedoms?
I’ll assume you won’t be troubled unless they start coming for the white folks and their wimmin.
Jay
Don’t let that idiot Bender mislead you. The cop lured Gates outside so that he could arrest him. It’s not disorderly under Mass G.L. when it was just him angry at the cop in his own house. Clearly the cop knew that and that’s why he asked him to come outside. There was zero reason for him to ask him to go outside once he knew that it was his house.
Sputnik_Sweetheart
@jibeaux: But he didn’t lock himself out of the house. He came back from a business trip to find that the front door was jammed. He used his key to open the back door and tried to open the front door from the inside. When that didn’t work, he and his driver (who is also black) tried to push the door open. I don’t think Prof. Gates had any reason to expect that the police would come.
r€nato
@Brick Oven Bill:
when Obama’s jackbooted thugs come for your guns, Bibles and freedoms, I am certain you’ll patiently cooperate with them.
Da Bomb
@Bender: So you completely changed your tune. During this whole entire exchange, you stated that Gates was arrested for following the cop onto the street. Street and porch are two different things.
Now you admit he was on his porch.
WTF?
SteveCan
@chopper
since when is ‘acting like an asshole in your own house’ an arrestable offense?
A. He wasn’t “in his own house”.
B. Acting like an asshole is always offensive!
Sometimes when you act like an asshole to the wrong people, “notsogood” things happen.
ironranger
I don’t understand why a cop would bother to make an arrest that would tie up a lot of his time with a load of paperwork for a measly disorderly conduct charge. Cops have enough serious stuff to deal while probably working longer hours with fewer officers on the payroll due to budget cuts in most communities. I wonder how much stress & long hours play into decision making.
Legalize
It is slightly amusing that wingers have lately been all concerned about the constitution … except for when a black man is humiliated and arrested by the police in his own home. In such a case, the “arrogant” man should have known not to mouth off to cops.
Translation: “The constitution applies to real Americans and if uppity n***ers don’t like it they can go back to Africa.”
If this had been a white man in his own home, the wingers would be howling about such being proof of Obama’s thugs going door to door arresting white people.
Napoleon
@Brick Oven Bill:
Except he didn’t lock himself out of the house. My understanding was that he was away for several days and when he got back the doors had swelled shut. That is why he was able to “break in”. Him and the taxi driver had to force the doors open.
gopher2b
“Over the years, in addition to being a cop, I’ve worked in a lot of different fields and one thing I’ve found is that there are overbearing jerks in every one of them. I’ve seen professors who trade grades for sex. Engineers who treat their secretaries like dirt, doctors and lawyers who are overbearing and obnoxious. When these folks get in trouble for their behavior, you don’t hear a lot of people screaming that all doctors/lawyers/professors are rotten (well, maybe lawyers). But let a cop step over the line and suddenly all cops are racist, abusive assholes.”
None of these people have guns or the authority to take away someone’s freedom.
My father was in federal law enforcement before he retired. He used to say that whenever he hired someone he wanted to give them a single test: have them walk down a hallway and back. Then give them a gun and badge and have them walk down the hallway and back. If their “walk” changed, take away the gun and badge and never give it back. Made sense to me.
John Cole
@Bender: Yeah. Guess I missed where I was calling this cop a racist. Oh, yeah. I didn’t.
I think he just decided he could arrest Gates, so he did. He should have politely excused himself and left the scene after he had been shown ID.
He chose not to. I have no idea if he is a racist, and I have no idea if he is a good cop or a bad cop, but right then and there he was a stupid cop.
And that really isn’t a matter for debate, is it? I mean, the charges were immediately dropped, weren’t they?
Adrienne
@The Moar You Know: That’s awesome. I love that he’s spicy, you know? Too many ppl age and lose their personalities in the process. Seems like he WAS a whippersnapper back then and still is :-)
jenniebee
@Bender: Yawn.
I know that the birthers have raised the ante on this schtick to a place where you have to go all in just to keep up, but you could make an effort, you know? But this, you’ve got nothing.
Look at BoB, now he’s doing it right. He’s actually come up with a scenario in which Gates fiendishly planned to be arrested all along and expertly manipulated the situation just to make the police look bad, on the grounds that nobody who teaches at Harvard would ever lose his keys. Now that’s some good wingnut. You, now the personal attacks show a lot of enthusiasm, I’ll give you that, but the performance as a whole lacks the kind of originality we expect from our trolls here at Balloon Juice.
bago
@Da Bomb: He’s not one to let facts get in the way of a good sarcastic sneer of “RAAACIST!”
J.D. Rhoades
‘the bad acoustics in the kitchen and foyer necessitated going outside’.
Oh. My. God.
Man, did THAT cop just hand Gates’ lawyer[s] a gift. Hope he’s tired of the asshole he has, ’cause he’s gonna get a new one torn for him if he takes the stand.
ironranger
@Brick Oven Bill:
Hilarious. That was very creative.
@r€nato:
Good one.
MikeJ
Something tells me that very soon professor Gates will be able to improve the acoustics in his kitchen with bales of $100 bills.
SGEW
@John Cole: Cripes. That’s some top shelf assholism there (you were askin’ fer it, wif all that dead head stuff! We knew you’ve always been a DFH pothead).
More seriously, what exactly does not “putting up with this kind of shit from cops” mean? What would you reccommend so that we don’t “let [asshole cops] get away with anything”?
Personally, I think this is a job for Jim Webb’s commission. But, failing national legislation, what would you prescribe?
Blue Raven
Of course there are cops who act stupidly. I got stopped on the street by a cop a few years ago because he thought I looked like a wanted killer. She and I had three things in common: skin color (white), gender (female), and more body fat than some think is appropriate on our frames. He was making sure I wasn’t wearing contacts or dying my hair. He was just doing his job. Nevermind I was three inches taller than the suspect and would’ve outmassed her at my “ideal” weight. In short, I got stopped for walking while fat. No apology was forthcoming, just a shrug and a departure after he was satisfied I wasn’t disguising myself. Oh, and a “You have to admit there’s a strong resemblance.” She and I didn’t even have the same jawline. I even yelled at the cop a bit and he didn’t step out of the squad car to arrest me. I was on the street, so “disorderly conduct” could’ve been argued.
BTW, just because someone will give CPR to a black man because it’s part of his job description doesn’t mean he isn’t a bigot. There is a broad range of racism between none whatsoever and KKK member.
Bender
Sorry, Juicers have told me that you don’t get detained for yelling at a cop. Therefore, you must be a liar. I personally believe you, but…
(If no one but you and the cop heard it, the cop was indeed out of control. Cops have to have thicker skin than everybody else. If you screamed “fuck off!” at him continuously for five minutes in front of 20 people, after he’d warned you to stop, the police would suggest this creates issues of undermining the authority of the police force and could be considered disorderly.)
Brick Oven Bill
The cops did not show up to take away Gates’ guns or bibles. They responded to reports of two people breaking into the front door of a home.
Gates controlled the situation by following the cop out of the house.
Odds of pre-meditation: 60%
John S.
Just like all wingnuts:
Sound and fury, signifying nothing.
Joe Lisboa
Odds of pre-meditation: 60%
Odds of pulling numbers out of your ass: 100%
Joel
@Bender: Motivation is irrelevant. The case looks like an abuse of power, and Obama responded to the question appropriately.
But I am curious about your motivation. What is it?
JGabriel
@Brick Oven Bill:
Because Gates was asked to step outside, you jackass.
If Gates hadn’t stepped outside, you, Bender, and all the other clueless assholes would be saying Gates deserved to be arrested for not following an officer’s orders.
It’s a Catch-22.
But go ahead. I’m sure it’s doing the GOP a world of good with black, hispanic, and other minority voters to mischaracterize Gates’ actions. People just love that shit.
.
SGEW
[btw, the banning request is really just a formality at this point, but I feel that there should at least be a nod towards consensual social disapproval of self-avowed sexists and racists weighing in on matters of sex or race. Questions of spoofery are irrelevant, as most trolls crossed the Poe threshold several years ago and are effectively indistinguishable from authentically insane people.]
Brendan
@jcricket:
I had a similar experience – driving an old beater back to my place late on a Friday night – someone riding my bumper to get me to speed up.
Put on my blinker, turned into my driveway, and parked. The officer had turned on his lights and blocked the end of the driveway.
I stood next to my car, and let him come to me, showed him my license, and that was it.
If I were black, I know the situation would have turned out differently.
JGabriel
Brick Oven Bill:
Odds of clueless douchebaggery: 100%.
.
Legalize
“The cops did not show up to take away Gates’ guns or bibles.”
No, just to arrest a man of color in his own home. Perfectly acceptable to wingers because, well, you guys know how THOSE PEOPLE really are.
“They responded to reports of two people breaking into the front door of a home.”
Yes, and upon learning of their mistake … arrested the man anyway.
“Gates controlled the situation by following the cop out of the house.”
Yes, the diminutive black man, who recently had hip replacement surgery, who walked with a limp – not the man with the gun, badge and color of law on his side – “controlled” the situation. Like I said, the uppity black man should have known his place, right?
“Odds of pre-meditation: 60%”
Odds of you stupidly drawing a conclusion not based on reality: 100%.
Crashman06
@Brick Oven Bill: That Brick Oven Bill. What a character.
JGabriel
Legalize:
To be fair, I’m sure people on all sides, including me, would be reacting differently from their current responses, if this had happened to Rupert Murdoch instead of Henry Gates.
For instance, I would be laughing my ass off. After a while, I might come to the conclusion that Murdoch got handled a little rawly – after all, it still would constitute the arrest of someone who wasn’t a threat to the community. But it would be hard to feel sympathy for him.
Of course, the point is, it wouldn’t happen to Murdoch, would it?
.
Bender
I think he just decided he could arrest Gates, so he did. He should have politely excused himself and left the scene after he had been shown ID.
From the police report, it looks like that was what he was trying to do. Gates wouldn’t give up any ID except his Harvard ID, and Crowley called it in while Professor Yo Mama berated him as a racist for doing his job.
When he tried to leave, Gates followed him out to call him a racist and say “You haven’t seen the last of me!” Crowley gave him a warning for disorderly, and Gates ignored it and continued yelling at him in front of the neighborhood.
If he wanted to arrest Gates just because it’s fun to be Evil Cop, he could do this all day, every day. There’s no evidence to suggest any type of continuing bad behaviour by Crowley, and I think you’re over-cynical to suggest it.
And that really isn’t a matter for debate, is it? I mean, the charges were immediately dropped, weren’t they?
Dude is a Harvard professor of Racial Studies or whatever and a friend of the President. In Cambridge, Mass. Of course, they were dropped. But they might not have been dropped for you or me!
(Actually, I’d guess that this kind of charge is routinely dropped, regardless of initial merit — they let a disorderly guy cool down and release him. I recall this happening for an NFL player this summer.)
Montysano (All Hail Marx & Lennon)
Back in the early ’80s, my wife and I owned a VW Westphalia Camper. We might as well have had a banner that said “Pull us over; we’re the ones you’re looking for.’
Bender
Wrong. Gates didn’t go outside then. Gates said, and I will never stop quoting this, “Yeah, I’ll speak to Yo Mama outside!”
When he finally did go outside, it was of his own volition, to scream at Crowley (who had informed Gates he was leaving) that he was a racist, and do you know who I am, and you haven’t heard the last of me, and cracker-ass cracker. I may have gotten that last bit from Chris Rock.
All of which you would know if you could read English, Gabriel.
jl
The whole Gatesgate thing is stupid. Not what happened, since we do not know exactly what happened yet. But the press flap.
mcc
On a related note, Limbaugh is actively trying to promote race war:
They’re not even trying to pretend conservatism is about anything else anymore.
gopher2b
“Actually, I’d guess that this kind of charge is routinely dropped, regardless of initial merit—they let a disorderly guy cool down and release him. I recall this happening for an NFL player this summer”
Perhaps you are referring to the NFL player who was detained for the having the audacity to roll through a stop sign (at 5 MPH with his hazards on at midnight) because he was trying to get himself, his wife, and his father-in-law to the hospital where his mother-in-law was dying. For that he was nearly shot, missed seeing his MIL before he passed…all because he didn’t respect the officer’s AUTHORTAY!!!
Tonal Crow
@timb:
Any libertarian who espouses “the cop is always right” is a fraud. Isn’t skepticism of government (including cops!) supposed to be the core of libertarianism?
kay
@kansi:
I have seen Sweet on Hardball. I sort of liked her. She looks weary and cynical.
I’m just saying that I don’t want to kill the messenger. She wanted a reaction, and she got one, and it was inevitable, given the media’s obsession with Obama’s race, that he was going to be asked this.
Race keeps popping up because, well, race keeps popping up.
I have some sympathy for Obama regarding his role as First Black President. I don’t know anything about being “first” anything, but the whole idea makes me uncomfortable. I would have some trouble with it. It looks like a burden. I know there’s immense pride attached to it, but at the same time, on a personal level, that’s a big thing to carry. I’d want to put it down once in a while, and just be the President.
Most of the time he handles it grace. This time, maybe not so much. He’s human.
Tony J
Gosh. Nearly 200 posts into the thread and Bender – still – hasn’t managed to acknowledge that the scenario he’s describing is contradicted by the very same cop he’s defending?
It’s like 2003 all over again. I thought that particular tic had been beaten out of wingnuts drunk enough to post on BJ a looooonnng time ago. You’ve got to bring an A-game to this asylum, sunshine, or the regulars will just rip you apart and wear your skin as a girdle while they dance the dance of snark.
Sort of OT, but not really, who fancies a bet?
Within the next 6 months, with some form of Healthcare Reform being pushed through and the stimulus money starting to have a noticable effect on people’s lives, the Wingnutosphere is going to re-label Obama as “The Candyman”.
But of course, they’re only using the popular image of candy as being bad for you, and being something adults often use to buy off (or – attract – but no one meant to make that inference, heaven forfend) young children, in order to suggest that Obama is a failure/evil genius, and is only trying to buy people off with their own money. Which is a perfectly acceptable political spin to put on things, regardless of whether it’s true or not.
And at no point will the MSM bother to draw attention to the fact that wingnuts nationwide have taken to pasting pictures of Obama’s face on the hook-handed body of Tony Todd, and You-Tubing montages of white folks twirling around in front of their bathroom mirrors while chanting “Fuck you, Candyman” over and over again until they collapse and need someone watching to put the sock down and dial 911.
Any takers?
vacuumslayer
I’m offended that Bender shares a name with the bestest robot of all time.
Cyrus
@Brick Oven Bill:
Part of this story just doesn’t sound credible…
@Bender:
This is not true. From the arrest report:
The officer probably did not say “please come outside with me,” no. However, he was being asked a question he was legally required to answer (1), and said he would only answer it outside. Hmmm…
So when you say something that isn’t true, viz. “the officer didn’t ‘take Gates outside'”, do you merely not know what you’re talking about or are you lying?
(1) The claim that he has already given it is just a bullshit self-serving excuse unless he has spelled it, and/or also given the badge number. Crowley? Crawly? Crawley? Krull?
Bender
Apparently, Gates doesn’t think the police report portrays him in a very flattering light (!), and the Boston Globe has dutifully scrubbed the link to the police report from its story.
Ahhhh, the free press!
And Lebron James would like to tell the Globe, “Guys, that shit don’t work.”
Brachiator
@Tony J:
No.
geg6
@Brick Oven Bill:
You are aware, aren’t you, that the Fourth Amendment right to privacy in your home is not the equivalent to your car, right?
http://www.nolo.com/article.cfm/objectId/DED24689-ADA8-4785-887A0B4A19A694DE/104/143/127/ART/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution
Demo Woman
I just called Tom Price’s office and asked whether he still stood behind Dr. David McKalip since he is sending out a picture of our President looking like a witch doctor. There was a gasp and then can I take your name and address. I suggested to the 20 something aide go on google and look for himself. I also said that since this was the first that he heard about it, it might say something about the district that I live in. I did not call the DC office, since I am running out of minutes on my cell but the local office.
Just Some Fuckhead
@geg6:
What if BOB lives in his car?
General Winfield Stuck
@kay:
All the Chicago newsies are that way, like on their last leg and wondering when Superman will get his ass back to Metropolis and straighten the shit out.
goblue72
If I was Skip Gates, I’d damn well have earned the right to be uppity in my own home and tell off some stupid cop who thought it was a good idea to hassle me over breaking into my own house just because some busybody white lady across the street didn’t have anything better to do with her day than to get up into my business. (You climb to the sheer tippy-top of the academic ladder as a black man in America, then you’ve earned the chops to be a little “uppity” from time to time.)
And if someone can explain to me how a limping, 50-year Urkel is any threat to a roomful of cops, I am all ears.(*)
(*) Assuming, of course, that said 50 year old Urkel does not have access to an Urkel Transformation Machine that would allow him to turn into Stefan.
ruemara
@Just Some Fuckhead:
You know, just as you need more proof, after years of living my life in black skin, I need no more proof. Racism may not be the key reason, but it does come into play.
Demo Woman
@Bender: Actually I thought the police report showed that the officer new within minutes that he owned the house and should have excused himself and said he was sorry. To bad the Globe doesn’t link to it. In fact CNN did a segment on it which showed that the officer knew within minutes. The officer said he was just asking more questions to make sure that Gates was not in danger. The report does not suggest that and the officer did not express that but oh well. Live in your own dream world.
timb
@Tonal Crow: yeah, I was calling them hypocrites
Bender
The claim that he has already given it is just a bullshit self-serving excuse unless he has spelled it, and/or also given the badge number.
Well, if you’ve already decided that the officer was lying, gee thanks for playing, Kreskin.
Fact: The officer was leaving, and told Gates so.
Fact: He said IF there were any more questions besides the ones he’d answered twice already, he would talk outside. He didn’t demand anything at all from Gates.
Fact: Gates followed him outside of his own volition, not to ask for his badge number or name, but to call him a racist and to make threats against the officer.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
Inevitably.
slag
@Bender: Fact: None of those things add up to Gates having committed a crime.
Fact: You’re a jackass.
Ken
If Gates hadn’t stepped outside, you, Bender, and all the other clueless assholes would be saying Gates deserved to be arrested for not following an officer’s orders.
It seems pretty obvious to me that the cop had every intention of arresting Gates the moment he got too uppity.
Since it’s pretty damned hard to justify even a “disturbing the peace” charge when a person is only being noisy inside their own house, the cop was intentionally trying to get him to come outside, knowing he would continue his tirade.
Once he was acting like that outside the house, BAM! Disturbing the peace
In this day and age, your domicile is one of the very very few places you where still have a reasonable amount of protection from police. But you gotta be inside
JGabriel
@Bender:
And if the officer reported that Gates’ was asked outside and refused to comply, you would argue that Gates was very properly arrested for resisting arrest.
Like I said, it’s a Catch-22.
I read English just fine, Bender.
.
gwangung
@Bender:
Dude, you STILL gotta get your game up. Still ain’t gonna cut it for Balloon Juice. Trolling for pity post is really pretty sad….
Kilkee
Does anyone, ANYONE (Bender?) believe for a minute that the ‘acoustics’ of Professor Gates’ house are such that the officer really could not hear the (supposedly screaming) Professor, and thus needed to have him step outside?
I didn’t think so. That established, we know that Officer Crowley, who may be a fine man on most any other day, f’ed up big time here, and essentially falsely charged Gates, which is why the charges disappeared. He might want to consider apologizing. If Gates files a civil suit, he won’t want to be there when experts test the acoustics of the hallway.
Demo Woman
@Bender: I did not say the police man was lying… what I said was the report showed the police man knew Gates was the owner of the house. Unfortunately Gates did not know that he should not step outside. The officer had no cause to arrest him inside without a warrant. Both men acted “stupidly” but imo if someone comes into my house demanding ownership, I would too. You would too if you can be honest with yourself.
General Winfield Stuck
@Bender:
LOL. Made threats? who says, the cop. From a old black dude using a cane. Hint, don’t believe everything you read in a police report by an officer, after he makes a dubious arrest of someone breaking into their own home.
I will wait for the jury report, if there is one, before making a decision on what is fact in this incident. And arresting a prominent black man venting some steam at being hassled in his own home, is, if nothing else, another stupid move by a white cop in Boston, as this officer will be finding out over the days to come. He should have just said sorry and left.
Tony J
Nearly 250 posts in and it’s still playing the old “I’m not seeing what you’re seeing” line? Jeebus, John. Did you thaw this one out of your icebox or something?
@Brachiator
I’ve found over the last few months that if you start with “They’d never be this crazy…” you start to get into the mindset of the Bunker Base. Obama’s just the catalyst, they are the fuel.
Bender
In fact CNN did a segment on it which showed that the officer knew within minutes.
But he had his procedures he needed to follow. Look how fast this could’ve been handled if not for Gates being a total dick.
The arrest report said Crowley told Gates he was there to investigate a report. Gates said, “Is it because I’m a black man in America?” Crowley asked for ID, and instead of doing that, Gates got on the phone and asked for whoever it was to get “the Chief” because there was a racist police officer at his door.
At this point, Crowley wrote that he pretty much knew Gates lived there, but he needed ID to radio in to command (procedures), and Gates provided only a Harvard ID. So Crowley called it in to Harvard to verify, all the while being berated for being a racist and told that he didn’t know who he was messing with (the second cousin to “Do you know who I am?”). He radioed the ID info into his command.
That’s when he told Gates he was going to leave, and Gates followed him outside the front door to yell more racist allegations and threats to the officer.
Now how on Earth did Crowley do anything to deserve any of Gates’ asshattery? He was clearly trying to get out of there as fast as possible within procedural limits while Gates called him every vile name in the book, threw a “yo mama” in there, and generally acted like any privileged, connected, rich white man.
And now people want Crowley to apologize? He should tell Gates to kiss his ass.
geg6
@orogeny:
The Cambridge PD has quite the reputation for racial profiling:
http://www.racialprofilinganalysis.neu.edu/IRJsite_docs/finalexecutive.pdf
JGabriel
Bender:
Or, the Boston Globe has a front page link to a PDF of the report.
.
Tax Analyst
” a curmudgeonly, cranky, upper-middle to upper class, 59 year old, white academic for disorderly conduct in his own home.”
Hey, except for not being “upper-middle to upper class”, or an academic that could be me. I AM 59, cranky and curmudgeonly, and occasionally a bit disorderly, too – especially in my own home.
Demo Woman
@Bender: omg, Sorry for the inconvenience takes a few seconds. At first I thought that you were a true believer but with that answer you must be Doug.
chopper
i like how bender has continuously been wrong about every damn thing so far. this is great spoofery.
Just Some Fuckhead
Was having a party and suddenly cops are standing in my living room asking to see the owner of the house. They told me the door was ajar and so by law they are allowed to just come in. I don’t know if they were telling the truth or not but here’s the kicker: I didn’t start screaming at them because 1) I ain’t bulletproof and 2) I didn’t want them to find the fuckton of weed we had.
I was extremely polite and accomodating.
I still think Gates is a dumbass regardless of who was right and who was wrong.
Brachiator
@Just Some Fuckhead:
You know, some things are not simplistically either/or.
But aside from that, the some of the media is almost gleefully turning this into a racial issue. Keep in mind that Obama noted that Gates was a friend of his (not just his “black friend”) and said that he thought that the cop acted stupidly (not that the cop obviously was a racist). Pretty measured. So here is today’s LA Times story on the issue: “President Obama steps squarely into racial politics.”
The full story here:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-obama-gates-analysis24-2009jul24,0,2990550.story
The story goes on to trot out the lame notion that because the news conference should only have been about health care, Obama should have evaded the question about Gates. Apparently, reporters and “real Americans” can only hold a single idea in their heads at one time, and any comment that does not include “police” and “heroes” in the same sentence is automatically a universal condemnation of all police officers, especially when it comes from a black president.
And just for fun, let’s reverse the conventional wisdom. If the same thing, including an arrest and dropped charges, had been done to a white professor, there would be blogs and articles about proper police procedure and civil liberties.
But instead, we have not just wingnuts, but mainstream news reporters wringing their hands over how Obama is taking sides “in a highly charged racial controversy.”
I can’t wait to hear Sarah Palin weigh in on this.
Lesley
Bottom line: Black men are not allowed to get angry. It scares white right wingers (and some white moderate and lefties too). Even a hint of being perturbed is labeled something far more extreme, which reflects the temper of the listener rather than the speaker. But Limbaugh can rave until he’s literally spitting, and this is normal, justifiable outrage. Different standards.
geg6
@JGabriel:
The crazy thing is that he was never locked out. He had his keys and there was something wrong with the lock and the door was stuck. Gates took his keys and went in the back door and then he and the driver were trying to get the front door unstuck. Gates was pulling from the inside and the driver pushing from outside. It was probably the driver that the neighbor saw and thought might be suspicious. The poor old guy had just gotten home from a long plane trip back from China and comes home to this inconvenience. I’m thinking that I, too, would have been mighty cranky at that point and stupid cop acting all authoritarian at me would have sent me right around the bend.
John Cole
@Just Some Fuckhead: It is entirely possible that Gates is an asshole AND this cop was being an asshole arresting him on trumped up charges just because he could. The President gets it and re-states what I said earlier:
Police are supposed to de-escalate situations and enforce the law. They aren’t supposed to engage in dick-measuring contests to show how much authority they have. Once it was clear Gates was the owner of the home, Crowley should have left. Period.
Sputnik_Sweetheart
So, could the police officer arrest Gates on his porch because according to the fourth amendment it is an open space?
Brick Oven Bill
Larry the Lizard just jumped through my back door. I did not yell at him and tell him about his moma. Larry just enjoyed a freshly injured bug. Perhaps I could obtain some conflict resolution stimulus funding.
We get along great.
geg6
@Brick Oven Bill:
BOB, Gates doesn’t need to profit from this encounter. He is and has been extremely successful in his field (literature) for decades. He is very well known and appears on television quite often, though he isn’t close to the media whore that Cornell West is. He is a distinguished scholar and heads the W.E.B du Bois Center for African and African American Studies at Harvard, famous the world over. But since you’ve mentioned that your field has to do with engineering, I’m not surprised you never heard of him. Engineers don’t know how to read and certainly don’t take many literature classes. At least, not in my experience. ;-)
Just Some Fuckhead
@geg6:
85% probability.
freelancer
JGabriel
@Bender:
I’d like to know this as well. Obviously, Crawley has left out of his report whatever it was he said that upset Gates.
Just as obviously, the report makes clear that Gates’ response was to call the PD and ask for the Chief, so it’s not like Gates’ thinks all cops are racist.
Something set off Gates’ reaction. We don’t know what it is, because we haven’t heard Gates’ side of the story yet. Maybe it was a misunderstanding. Or maybe the cop said something racially insensitive.
But I find it difficult to believe that a Harvard professor, or anyone really, wants to ream out a cop for checking on his house when the guy just got back from a week long trip. Unless the officer’s manner was rude in some way, most people would be grateful to know that the police are on the lookout for potential break-ins while they are gone.
Especially, someone whose house has been broken into before, as mentioned in the police report.
So, no, Crawley’s report doesn’t add up, and he appears to be omitting some important details.
.
Molly
@John Cole: “And who the hell is Reggie Lewis?”
Celtics player, died at 27 years old, had a heart attack on the court at Brandeis during practice. The reason Bender thinks this is relevant is because Reggie was black, and the cop tried to save his life, therefore, this cop is not racist.
I don’t necessarily agree with Bender’s logic, but I don’t think the cop is a racist either. If he were, he wouldn’t be offended at being called one. He showed up to a call, and he got something he wasn’t expecting, a pissed-off Professor Gates who wasn’t aware the neighbor had called, and if the Professor was really pissed, he probably should have taken that up with his neighbor, not the officer.
But, all the cop had to do is say “Mr. Gates, there is obviously no problem here. You have a nice day.” And WALK AWAY. Turn your back, and walk away. If Professor Gates followed him, fine. Who cares? If Professor Gates wants his name, just write it down for him. The officer was doing his job by responding to a citizen’s call.
If someone truly has control of a situation, they also have the power to simply walk away and end it.
gil mann
I wonder what Balko thinks about this.
doverite06
To the idiots that say that Disorderly Conduct is just a way for cops to arrest people, they have no clue. Disorderly Conduct is a LAW that is on the books and it is there to PROTECT THE PEOPLE. Innocent people should not have to stand by and listen and watch idiots as they turn into raging a**holes on the streets or even just withing earshot or eyesight. That is what the Disorderly Conduct law is all about. If you were standing in the street with your eight year old daughter and a jerk was arguing back and forth with a police officer trying to do his job and the jerk start jumping up and down and cursing and throwing a fit using vulgar langueage, tell me you wouldn’t get angry and want that person off the street. When a person becomes disorderly, he is disturbing the rights of others. Apparently there are some that could care less what their mother or their children are exposed to. I’d like to see what these same people have to say when they are confronted with a disorderly individual. The REAL blunder in this entire episode is that the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, the supposed leader of the free world, has lowered himself to street politics. I would think he should know that there are national matters of much greater concern than this. Obama has proven HE is a racist and just like all his cronies, president or not, he plays the race card . It was just a matter of time before he made the big mistake. If he had not gotten involved, this matter would have been handled locally and not have been all over the national news and it would be over. We’ve got more urgent matters to tend to and to report on. The media is just as much guilty of making this a race issue as Obama. He’s not fit to be the President.
JGabriel
geg6:
You’re right, of course. I amend my description of Gates to: He was the kind of person who wanted to get his door unstuck.
.
Demo Woman
After a long plane trip Gates arrives home in Khakis, a polo shirt and a cane. He is being quizzed about home ownership and cooler heads do not prevail. I assume the police man had more sleep. According to the police report, the police man knew early on that Gates owned the home.
Many years ago, I was being followed by an unmarked police car on the PA Tpk. and after a while, I stepped on the pedal to escape the tail gating. Low and behold, they pull out the lights and stopped me. Not only do they stop me but they approach the car with guns drawn. I haven’t changed much over the years so first I gave the you are going to shoot someone speech and then to make matters worse one of the nice hats blew off and got smashed by another car and I said good, serves you right. I got a ticket but I did not get arrested and hopefully they learned something. (yeah right)
oh by the way many decades ago, I had long blond hair and looked okay.
Demo Woman
@Molly: Seconded. Pulling out the Reggie Lewis card only makes it worse. I don’t know if the police man is racist but I do know that he did not explain that there was a mistake and I’m sorry.
Nethead Jay
@vacuumslayer: I would think that bender is not so much a name as what he’s on…
Tax Analyst
The Moar You Know said:
“@aimai: You’ve mistinterpreted a healthy respect for the reality of the situation as being “slavish respect for authoritarianism”. Nobody here is unaware that police running roughshod over all they encounter, without a single hint of respect for those of us who pay their salaries, is a problem.
As a formerly long-haired DFH, the lessons my grandpa (a former ATF agent and Arkansas cop) drilled into me before my parents would let me get a drivers license, have kept my ass out of jail and from getting a beatdown more than once. You say “sir”. You do whatever the fuck they tell you to, because as gramps always says “If you’re in jail I can get you out and we can sue the shit out of them later. If you’re dead you’re fucking dead and nobody can help you.”
Sucks. But it’s reality. Backtalk a cop and you might end up with a lethal case of lead poisoning and a nice, completely inaccurate story that explains how you got that way. And juries love springing cops. Just love it. You can count the number of cop convictions over the last thirty years in my county (San Diego) on one hand. Rich, poor, black, white, it doesn’t matter, our cops shoot any and everyone with total impunity (about five to ten a year end up in court here) and your only defense against it is to kiss cop ass.”
Amen. I call it “Passing the Attitude Test”, and it kept my young, pimply ass out of trouble throughout the late 60’s, early 70’s on more than a few occasions. The one time I actually ended up in jail was for failing to show up in court to prove I had correctly a vehicle defect. The judge issued a Bench Warrant and I got pulled over by an LAPD officer on the 405 Freeway (which I thought was unusual, since the freeways are the province of the CA Highway Patrol out here). Now to preface – I had very long hair and a beard so I fully fit the “Dirty Hippy” profile and he his appearance was almost a perfect prototype of “The Man”. Anyway, I had no clue why I was being pulled over. The officer politely asked for the usual ID and registration stuff and I politely asked him what I had done. He politely replied there was a Bench Warrant out for my arrest and said that in such a case they had no further information. That meant he had to take me in. During the course of the conversation I made sure to be polite and call him “Sir” (especially since I had a joint or two in my pocket – duh), and when it came time to arrest me allowed me to drive my car to the station instead of leaving it where it would be impounded. This was no small favor since in addition to saving me towing and impound fees it allowed my to toss my contraband out the window when I went around a curve and momentarily out of his following view on Sepulveda Blvd. BTW – I knew a lot of people back then who liked to be confrontational with the cops and call them “Pigs” and such and every one of them either went to jail or the Emergency Room on more than one occasion. There just was no pay-off on acting that way.
Mnemosyne
@SBW:
This. Cops can bitch and moan all they like about all the problems being because of a few bad apples, but until bad cops actually start being punished, you’re basically endorsing everything your bad colleagues do by keeping silent.
Let’s say for a minute that, before he went up to the door, Crowley turned to his colleagues and said, “I know this Gates guy — he’s an asshole. Bet I can get him so worked up that I can arrest him.” Do you think a single one of the cops who was with him would report that? Or would they keep their mouths shut because protecting their fellow officers — no matter how bad — is more important than getting bad cops off the street?
Mnemosyne
@doverite06:
Since Prof. Gates was disorderly inside his own house, you and your 8-year-old daughter would have had to have your ear pressed to the door to hear his “disorderly” conduct. Why are you spying on your neighbors and then complaining that their conduct offends you so they should be arrested for it? Maybe you should be teaching your daughter not to spy on the neighbors.
SBW
doverite06,
Your kids precious ears do not trump constitutional rights.
Gates was not armed, nor inciting violence, nor acting erratically, and only followed the cop outside after repeatedly asking for the officer’s name and badge number.
Good post, though, as a reminder to me every single right we have as Americans was won after hard fought battles against people who think like you.
Demo Woman
@Mnemosyne: But, but but. Good comment
Svensker
@doverite06:
Gorp.
JGabriel
doverite06:
Is it real or is it Memorex?
I call Memorex.
.
Brachiator
@kay:
Here Obama is a little like George Washington. Washington knew that everything he did would be viewed as the precedent that established how subsequent presidents might be expected to act. Maybe John Kennedy had do think about some of this as the first Catholic president, but Obama definitely has to deal with this as the first black (or nonwhite) president.
And Obama (and his family) is handling it well.
The irony, of course, is that the Republicans and their evil wingnut spawn have decided that anything that Obama does is the wrong thing and that he must continually be criticized for anything he says or does.
Gordon, The Big Express Engine
@doverite06: This should be good for another 150 comments at least!
Olly McPherson
“Obama has proven HE is a racist and just like all his cronies, president or not, he plays the race card.”
I love how the one consistent lesson from this is that racism is dead, except for with black people, who are the real racists.
Also, shut up and try to enjoy it, because if you don’t, the policeman is just giving you what you deserve.
Anne Laurie
This deserved to be repeated. Thank you, Kay.
The more noise surrounds this “controversy”, the more it becomes obvious that President Obama made exactly the right call: both parties “acted stupidly”. Professor Gates — because he was old & tired & probably in some pain from his hip & standing in his own home & used to a certain degree of deferment as an InternationallyRenownedScholarHarvardProfessor — temporarily forgot that walking around not-white can outweigh all other proofs of good citizenship. Sergeant Crowley forgot that some of the uppity not-white rich Harvard arseholes who think they have a right to yell at hard-working police professionals who are just doing their job will turn out to have friends in high places.
As a result, Skip Gates will spend the rest of his life fending off idiotic attacks and almost-as-idiotic-“defenses” from people who’d rather talk about this ONE stupid incident than all the scholarly work Gates has done over the last 40 years or so. And Sgt. Crowley will spend the rest of career… well, I suspect that his co-workers are telling him something along the lines of “In a time of severe budget cuts, we will now get to waste three days & many thousands of dollars on yet another mandatory Sensitivity Training seminar, thanks to you, genius.”
I’m curious to see which media outlet will nab the first interview with the “driver” who witnessed the incident. Odds are good he was either Haitian or Eritrean, and I suspect that’s why he hasn’t already appeared on the local talk shows.
Just Some Fuckhead
This is just typically stupid and inciting. No one has yet made a case race had anything to do with it outside of asserting it loudly and sneeringly.
Molly
@doverite06: “If you were standing in the street with your eight year old daughter and a jerk was arguing back and forth with a police officer trying to do his job and the jerk start jumping up and down and cursing and throwing a fit using vulgar langueage, tell me you wouldn’t get angry and want that person off the street. ”
Actually, perfect teaching moment, as I am quite sure most kids have probably heard a bad word or two more than once in their lives. My kids (4 and 6) hear them constantly, as their daddy is a coach, and fans are known to use all sorts of obscenities when expressing their opinions about him and his team. Does it piss me off? Sure. But if I react to it, I lower myself to their level.
“You see that person over there? He’s being a moron. Don’t do that. I don’t care if it’s a police officer, a stranger on the street, doesn’t matter. Losing control of yourself like that and being mean to other people and calling them names is never OK, just like it’s not OK when people do it to your dad. It makes them look really dumb, like that person looks right now.”
Teach your kids to deal with the realities of the world and get thicker skins.
someguy
The more noise surrounds this “controversy”, the more it becomes obvious that President Obama made exactly the right call: both parties “acted stupidly”.
Gates didn’t act stupidly. He was confronted by a typical racist white cop in his own home after having 9/11 called on him by a typical racist white neighbor, and the cop is being backed up by the racist police chief and the racist Republicans. He’s lucky as shit he didn’t get stomped or shot, and a boot pistol stuck into his hand after the fact to justify the shooting, with a civic award going to the cop for freeing the community of such a clearly menacing figure as a short, slight liberal arts professor.
The only mistake Obama made is soft pedaling on how big a problem racism is in this country. It’s not a minor thing when a tenured professor at Harvard – a gray haired old man, for God’s sake – gets treated like that. There’s no compromising with Republicans on this. They’re supporting bigotry and racism here, and if you compromise with them on this point and accept their narrative, then you’re buying into the notion that it’s okay to be racist, as long as you’re only a bit racist, or maybe so long as you don’t let on what your real motivations are. It’s disgusting.
Tax Analyst
“orogeny
Why all the cop hate, even from John? Sure, this particular cop appears to be a badge-heavy asshole who took a bad situation and made it worse, but for every asshole cop like that, there a a whole bunch more who do a shitty job in the best way they can manage.”
Good point, but an abusive cop poses a very real threat to any citizen who comes in contact with them, and if there is a racial component to his abuse that greatly amps up the negatively possibilities. The citizenry can be rightly concerned when there is evidence of police abuse, and it’s very important to determine if that abusive behavior is widespread and tolerated within that authority or an aberration. If it’s the former you’ve got a community with a big, big problem that they need to address.
Here is Los Angeles we used to have a huge problem, but a lot of work has been done within the department, sometimes with more than a little push from judicial sources to address and deal with this issue. There’s still more to do, but progress has been made. But if you look next door at a place like Inglewood (where I used to live, BTW), well, they’ve got a very, very bad situation there. The Inglewood PD has had far too many cases of demonstrably innocent citizens being shot and killed by Inglewood officers under highly questionable circumstances.
Alleged instances of police abuse need to be taken seriously and fairly and carefully investigated. When confirmed the officer involved needs to be appropriately disciplined to the level of the abuse. When there is a process in place to do this it will take a lot of pressure of the “good cops” out there. When the process leads to the trash basket at the end of the Desk Sargent’s table then every cop’s behavior will be equated with the bad ones.
OT – Hey! Why don’t I see the “Comment Preview” stage anymore? Did I do something to make it go away or what?
Molly
@someguy: “Gates didn’t act stupidly. He was confronted by a typical racist white cop in his own home after having 9/11 called on him by a typical racist white neighbor, and the cop is being backed up by the racist police chief and the racist Republicans.”
A bit of hyperbole going on there.
Look, “typical racist” is kinda insulting to people who happen to have white skin and are not racist. We exist. We don’t presume to tell black people we understand their experience. Yes, it’s usually different from ours. It probably always will be. Is that fair? Hell no. We need to all be pissed when it happens. But we can’t go off assuming we know the hearts and minds of others because of, well, the color of their skin.
You know nothing about the attitudes of the neighbor, the cop, the police chief (who Professor Gates CALLED), and all Republicans. You are assuming you do because of the color of their skin. You also assume all Republicans are white.
Isn’t that profiling?
This is how we end up fighting instead of working together. Exactly this.
chopper
@doverite06:
oh, this is awesome.
or in their kitchen! yeah! the authorities should be able to tell us how respectful we are to strangers in our own houses! otherwise if you take one step onto your porch you’ll get arrested!
orogeny
Tax Analyst-
I agree with you completely. The officer in this case screwed up. He should have simply handed Professor Gates one of his cards and left the scene.
My post was in reaction to a couple of comments (one from our host, which really surprised me):
John Cole
@orogeny: You are adding an extra sentence to my quote. I never said “Cops are thugs and they’re looking for a reason to jackboot ya.”
But I stand by the rest. I’m flabbergasted that there are people here who think the cop was in any way right to arrest Gates. Why do people put up with that shit? It was clearly a bad arrest, so bad they dumped the charges without even thinking about it.
Just Some Fuckhead
@John Cole:
I said that. I stand by it.
Just Some Fuckhead
Ya know, on a second reading, I think he thinks I’m the host, John. Prolly a direct result of my facilitating and gracious manner.
But I’m not the host. And believe it or not, I’m not facilitating or gracious. If I was the host, I’d ban every one of you assholes and start over.
Except Kay.
cj
@Bender: No you have it wrong. Gates was arrested the moment he step his foot out of his door NOT THE STREET.
Brachiator
@Just Some Fuckhead:
So let me see if I have this right.
temporarily forgot that walking around not-white can outweigh all other proofs of good citizenship – is just typically stupid and inciting.
But
“Cops are thugs and they’re looking for a reason to jackboot ya.” is insightful commentary that you stand by.
A charge that race may have played a part in the cop’s actions requires a ton of evidence before you accept it, but that the cop is a thug is a given.
And by the way, I note that you allowed that the cop was wrong in an earlier post. But still …
Just Some Fuckhead
It’s pretty clear the cop was a thug. It isn’t clear at all he’s a racist. Maybe try using bullet points in your summary next time.
Bender
Once it was clear Gates was the owner of the home, Crowley should have left. Period.
Sorry, but police have CYA procedures they need to do. They can’t just take a guy’s word for it. They need to confirm ID, call it in, and then they can leave. Which was exactly what Crowley was trying to do (while Gates was being a total douchebag to him), as I have showed in excruciating detail.
He’s a good cop. He’s taught anti-racial-profiling classes, and was hand-picked for that position by a black commissioner. He’s not your fantasy evil cop looking to screw with people.
If all Gates got for the unfair treatment, threats, and racist language that he dished out on this good officer was a few minutes in cuffs, then Gates got off light. Gates is the bad guy acting stupidly here, and I am confident that the facts will bear that out in the end.
And “I don’t know the facts but Gates is my friend so I’ll denounce the cops as stupid on network prime time” is not very smart. Obama should just shut his fucking lie-hole about things he admits has no clue about.
Bender
Gates was arrested the moment he step his foot out of his door NOT THE STREET.
No, according to the report, Gates stepped out onto the front door to make threats and racist accusations against the officer — who had announced his intention to leave Gates’ residence — in front of the gathered neighbors and police. Then, Gates was given a warning to cease. Then, Gates ignored that warning and continued his barrage. Then, he was cuffed.
Yes, I know it was on the porch.
Brachiator
@Just Some Fuckhead:
It’s only clear to you. It’s just funny to see you so adamant on one point, and so unwilling to consider another point of view on the other, especially when you are either ignorant of or blind to the way that racists cops have treated nonwhites. And bullet points are not necessary to point out your rather obvious blind spot here.
So you have stated that you have no sympathy for Gates because you believe that there is something that he could have done to placate a thug cop.
But there is nothing that he could have done to placate a racist cop.
And because the real world is complicated, Gates may have made his own situation worse by assuming — based on his own life and past experiences — that the cop was racist.
And for the sake of the reason-impaired, I am not declaring that the cop in this situation was racist.
orogeny
John,
Sorry about combining the two quotes…poor coding on my part. I never intended to attribute both of them to you.
As I’ve said a couple of times, the cop in this case blew it and deserves some kind of punishment. What bothered me about your quote was the generic nature of the insult: “This is why they think they can get away with anything” as though all cops are looking for a chance to get away with misconduct.
Nina Simone
I think people are looking for any reason to annex this race card issue to the president. I would like to know how Obama’s initial statement even implied a hint of racism. It had nothing to do with race, which he made perfectly clear. I don’t believe Cambridge Police or Mass police are an 100% white force, so it’s not only white people who are the “victim”, if there really is a “victim”. What about everybody else? It sounds like all the white people whining are still trying to cope wit the fact that a black man is in office. If anything the comment was directed to the force, not one officer. As long as that officer was on the professor’s property, he was harassing him. And when was it a crime to have a bad attitude? The police are not superhuman just as Obama isn’t. Respect isn’t given, it’s earned. With that being said, Obama earned the worlds respect. He is entitled to his opinion and freedom of speech just like the rest of us. When slavery was abolished racism did not end. There are still people in this world, like police officers, and other white people in positions of power who continue to abuse it. So let’s not act like this type of thing doesn’t happen everyday. The bottom line is white people are crying they are the new minority and things are unfair for them but the real problem is because of Obama, things are actually becoming fair for the minority (blacks) after 100’s of years oppression, and that’s a lot for some white people to deal with. The day has finally come. The old Negro spiritual says “We shall overcome someday”, that day has came and went, so it’s time the world starts functioning properly and accept it. Accept us.
Sputnik_Sweetheart
@doverite06: He was asked a question about Gates at a press conference (about Healthcare) and he answered it. How is that playing the race card and ignoring other issues, exactly?
Just Some Fuckhead
Well no, Brachiator, I think it’s clear to most of us the cop is a thug. Some want to claim he is a racist thug without proof of racism on his part but rather by just declaring it to be so or offering up their own imagined stories of what some traffic stop woulda been like had they been black.
I don’t have a blind spot here despite your wankiferous efforts to suggest one. I can be both against thug cops overstepping their bounds and lacking in sympathy for dumbasses like Gates who said some stupid unnecessary shit. I reserve the right to be that fucking complex.
General Winfield Stuck
@Bender:
You keep saying “threats”. What threats? Physical, legal. And calling a cop racist is thin gruel for arresting someone. Get specific, or just stfu already.
Bender
You keep saying “threats”. What threats?
Saying you’re going to call “the Chief” on the “racist cop” who’s checking out a complaint and yelling “You don’t know who you’re messing with” and “You haven’t heard the last of me” are pretty obviously threatening the officer’s job.
Johnny B. Guud
It’s not just “answering a question” when you’re the President of the USA. He began his answer, “I don’t know, not having been there and not seeing all the facts…”
At which point, the ONLY acceptable words out of his mouth should be “…so I won’t comment”.
The POTUS making a idiotic and, by admission, ignorant statement about a local law enforcement matter, is insane. We just spent the past 8 years criticizing…HAMMERING…George Bush for getting involved in the lives of private citizens and their legal issues.
It just makes Obama look petty and in over his head. Of course, Gibbs had to come out today and say that the president didn’t say Sgt. Crowley was stupid, except when he DID…..etc., etc.
Obama looks like an amateur here as far as I’m concerned.
SBW
Johnny B. Guud,
Nonsense.
Bush got hammered for a lot of things, trying to bend the Constitution for one, resulting in loss of rights for citizens, what he did NOT get hammered for is expressing an opinion about a local police case. A President can express an opinion about any matter. When the President takes active steps to skirt the Constitution……..it’s not the same.
Johnny B. Guud
Of course he can express an opinion on anything, at anytime. But it doesn’t mean he SHOULD. Especially when it comes to racial issues.
But besides all of that, it’s just downright idiotic to acknowledge that you know no facts about the issue, and proceed to make a comment like the cops were stupid.
Just. Dumb.
Mnemosyne
@Bender:
You seem to have a serious reading comprehension problem, because you keep misstating what a report says that we can all read for ourselves. The officer stated that he stepped out onto the porch and asked Gates to come with him because he couldn’t hear Gates in the kitchen or get reception on his radio.
He asked Gates to step out on the porch with him. He said so himself. I can’t figure out where you’re getting this “he tried to leave but Gates followed him” notion, because it’s nowhere in the police report.
In short, you’re making shit up that we can all check for ourselves, which only makes you look like an even bigger douchebag than we already know you to be.
(Edited to clarify what kind of moron Bender is)
Mnemosyne
@Johnny B. Guud:
Why? I mean, seriously, is Obama supposed to pretend to be white, or pretend that all racial issues have been solved since his election? Why is the first black President of the United States supposed to keep his mouth shut about racial issues?
Johnny B. Guud
@Mnemosyne: For the love of pete….
We have the biggest opening in recent memoryto actually reform healthcare in this country, all eyes are on the president for his leadership, and the one thing people will remember about the presser is that he made a comment about a local arrest. That’s why.
And again, he acknowledged he knew none of the facts. “No Comment” would have been acceptable. Or “I won’t comment at this time” That would have been the sensible thing to do. Take the high road…
General Winfield Stuck
Only an idiot cop would arrest a black man for that, otherwise lending credence to the claim of being a racist, aside from being an idiot with a gun . Jesus, your dense.
Viva BrisVegas
The photoshopped African witchdoctor in the picture is not African and not a witchdoctor, it’s of a New Guinea highlander tribal headman.
Which of course would make the two subjects of the picture, Obama and the headman, far more distantly related than Obama is to the Republican racist who promotes that picture.
Something which should be of concern to Obama.
amk
@Brick Oven Bill:
BOB, what a stoopid, strawman argument. You did break the traffic rule, so you’d better kiss that cop’s ass. Btw, what’s with you wingnuts that you can’t leave home without your beloved gun. Some kinda small p@nis compensation ?
@bender – You’re an ugly POS – that’s ad hominem. You’re a troll – that’s the truth.
Brachiator
@Just Some Fuckhead:
It’s certainly not clear to “most of us” in this thread. And again, it’s downright comical that you insist that racism cannot even be considered unless there is some proof offered, but the cop’s thuggery does not have to be proven because — your words — cops are thugs. Just because you declare it to be so.
And your claim that Gates somehow unleashed the cop’s thuggery because he said ‘unnecessary shit” is not very complex at all.
But it is consistent with your view that since cops are thugs, civilians have no other option but to meekly submit to police authority, even in their own home, and even though they have done absolutely nothing wrong.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Brachiator: So the cop acting like a thug isn’t evidence of thuggery but the lack of evidence of racism suggests racism? THAT is what is downright comical, douchebag.
And I never made the claim that Gates unleashed the thuggery that you claim doesn’t exist here, supported by “most” in the thread.
Mnemosyne
@Johnny B. Guud:
Yes, because until today, the media always stayed laser-focused on the actual content of Obama’s press conferences and never, say, spun off into speculating that a journalist from the Huffington Post was an administration plant instead of reporting on the situation in Iran. They never, ever went chasing the soccer ball down the street when it was a choice between a substantive story and something that Drudge had front-paged.
And then Obama had to go and remind the media that he’s black and, well, the whole damn thing fell apart. Now we’ll never get universal healthcare, and it’s all because Obama commented on the Skip Gates story.
Seriously, if universal healthcare can be completely derailed because of one comment Obama made on an unrelated subject, we deserve every consequence that comes from that.
JackieBinAZ
And another wingnut meme is
bornspawned.amk
@Mnemosyne:
well-said Mnemosyne. The WH press corpse lives and dies by gotcha moments, which are fleeting at the best. If not lynn’s vapid question, they would’ve latched onto something else – like msnbc’s ed schultz’s concern trolling that obama looked too tired and passionless that he’s ready to call it quits bullshit.
PaulB
@Bender:
LOL…. Moron, those aren’t actionable “threats.” Not only are the statements protected by the First Amendment, but the actions that those statements refer to are also quite legal, and even admirable when applied against a thug and a bully.
Gian
being a california lawyer, who works in the criminal area, and having read a few of the reports, there are a few things I can add that may add some light instead of heat.
first, the actual arrest was outside the house, after the initial investigation was concluded – however you get to that fact, and the fuss before that doesn’t change the actual arrest was outside.
based on years of experience, and just stepping back and thinking a touch, it looks like cops responded to a call. the professor, tireed after a trip responded rudely, being rude isn’t reason for arrest. eventually, the matter of who he is and who is supposed to be in the house is cleared up, the cops are leaving. the prefessor makes the ego and sleep deprived and angry at being screwed with in his house decision to go outside and yell at cops more. neighbors are watching, cops arrest him for yelling and what we in Cali would call “disturbing the peace” for all the yelling.
neither the cops, nor the professor handled this in the best way possible, the cops should’ve just gotten in cars and driven off, the professor, who had fatigue as an excuse, didn’t need to react by yelling at cops. He behaved badly, but the cops really should’ve walked away and shown professionalism.
I know it’s all the partisan fashion to see everything in a take sides fashion, but in this case, I see essentially a use of discretion to arrest the guy for the shouting outside as a bad call, but a human one, and the decision to go outside and shout as a bad call but a human one. people, professors and cops alike make bad calls with harborring deep racism in their hearts.
I see this as a perfect storm of a professor who was tired, and irrated (he had to force the door to his own house) and ordered to find ID that was probably packed away in a suitcase somewhere meeting up with cops who really could’ve dealt with it more professionally in how they handled the guy, and certainly could’ve just driven off, rather than rise to the challenge of the guy coming out to yell at them.
as a rule, when it comes to anyone being evil or making an error, making an error is usually the answer.
since I can only get online and post while a newborn is asleep and I’m not at work, I’ll probably not be able to respond to people who read and reply.
So, I’ll sum it up
1) professor’s reaction bad
2) cops did OK until
3) they didn’t take into account he was the resident and they were on a wild goose chase and arrested him for yelling at them outside, they should’ve just left the scene
4) that could be because they are racist as claimed, or, they just made a mistake after being yelled at, and mistakes are more likely then being evil