I hope this puts the whole ZOMG HE SAID STUPID controversy to rest somewhat, though obviously we’ll have to hear what Bill Cosby thinks about it all before we know for sure.
I tend to think that people don’t care much about Gatesgate anyway because (1) no one likes the idea of being arrested on their own front porch for speaking loudly and (2) while the punditocracy contains a disproportionate number of Irish-American blowhards whose cousin/uncle/father is a cop/disgruntled ex-cop/guy who blames affirmative action for his inability to get a job as a cop, the general public does not. (My own extended family consists almost entirely of Irish-American blowhards — I may even be one myself — so I will be curious to hear what they think about all of this.)
Bob Somerby has a very different perspective on this, though, that I recommend checking out.
Update. TNC’s take on all of this is very good (via the comments):
The rest of us are left with a country where, by all appearances, officers are well within their rights to arrest you for sassing them.
Just Some Fuckhead
I guess Bob Somerby is a racist too.
JMG
As groups, people dislike/resent cops and university professors pretty equally, I’d say. So it’s a wash. Sure hope they don’t get into a big beef over baseball or playing darts when they’re quaffing cold ones at the White House.
General Winfield Stuck
Nice disqualifier for the inevitable rocks coming your way Dougj. I would tend to say it’s just separate worlds lived in by cops and the rest of us, which I guess is inevitable given our violent society, and largely segregated one.
When you pay people a pittance and give them a badge and gun, the kind of people you will have as police won’t be known for mental greatness. Though I will say it isn’t easy being a cop, to many are unable to keep themselves under check when under stress.
And arresting an old man on his porch having done nothing wrong other than possibly running his mouth, cannot be defended once the story gets out. It’s thuggery that lawmakers and judges have been fomenting for several decades with greater and greater permissivity for cops to operate up to the line and over, with respect to citizens rights. That’s just my opinion.
Comrade Jake
Imagine a white guy was mouthing off to a black cop after breaking into his own home, and W was president.
Something tells me the media narrative would be a lot closer to “OMG HOW CAN THE POLICE ARREST YOU IN YOUR OWN HOME? DONT THE COPZ HAVE JOBZ TO DO?” But I could be wrong.
Shibby
OT: Flipped to CNN. They are doing an obit on the Taco Bell chihuahua.
Game over man game over.
geg6
Somerby sounds like an idiot there. I’m sorry, but most of the people I’ve talked to understand that some savings is better than none and just getting some has been the work of Egyptian slaves building the pyramids. And they would be thrilled to put a couple thousand in their pockets while having health care at the same time. Is it enough? No, but it’s probably the best that can be done right now.
DougJ
Though I will say it isn’t easy being a cop, to many are unable to keep themselves under check when under stress.
Personally, I have nothing against cops at all. It just seems weird to me to be arrested on your own front porch for speaking loudly.
Comrade Jake
Ta-Nehisi, as always, is worth a read:
joe from Lowell
I hope this puts the whole ZOMG HE SAID STUPID controversy to rest somewhat, though obviously we’ll have to hear what Bill Cosby thinks about it all before we know for sure.
First the Cambridge PD, then Crowley, then Gates, and now Obama have each taken steps to walk this back and have a mature, civil conversation about what happened. After a racially-charged incident. Unheard of!
I’m sure that Rush Limbaugh and the like are going to continue to carry on their half of a racial shrieking match. I trust the optics will work out really well for them as they howl and froth while Barack Obama models maturity and restraint for the public, and Gates and Crowley join him for a beer at the White House.
The wingnuts thought they had a new Joe the Plumber. Um, no.
General Winfield Stuck
@DougJ:
I completely agree.
John
I wish we’d take this opportunity to talk about the appalling lack of professionalism displayed by so many police officers, instead of race (which it is not clear that this arrest really was about). It’s one of those issues that we mostly all acknowledge, and I wish it would become a more prominent one, because having people be nervous and defensive when talking to the police is more likely to lead to more incidents like this one.
Having a police force that prides itself on being courteous, professional and actually helpful would do a lot toward eliminating incidents like this, IMO. I understand that the job is scary and difficult, but that doesn’t mean that there should not be standards of professional conduct which are rigorously enforced and HOPEFULLY the police officers believe in, too.
DougJ
I’m sorry, but most of the people I’ve talked to understand that some savings is better than none
Yeah, I thought that was very stupid too. Obviously, if we can cut health care costs by 15% (that’s what reducing it by 2k per family would be), that would be a huge success.
But I thought the other stuff in his piece was an interesting perspective, though I don’t agree.
NickM
The press conference he did was right on target, I think.
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/2009/07/obama-on-gates-incident-my-hope-is-this-ends-up-being-a-teachable-moment.php?ref=fpa
Scamp Dog
I tend to agree with Somerby–we don’t really know what went on, we just have two competing stories with next to no objective evidence to base our opinion on.
My general position is to be skeptical of what the police say in their reports, AND to be skeptical of the other guy as well. But pundits are paid to be confident and loud, even in the absence of evidence, or even evidence contradicting their story, so we’ll continue to hear from them.
SiubhanDuinne
@General Winfield Stuck:
And arresting an old man on his porch having done nothing wrong other than possibly running his mouth, cannot be defended once the story gets out.
Not trying to pick on you, General, but you just happen to have provided the latest example of a scurrilous meme, the idea that Prof. Gates is an “old man.” Guy’s only 58, for FSM’s sake. I’ve seen/heard a lot of this the last couple of days from Juicers and others in the Greater Commentariat. (Of course with my own 67th birthday only days from now I guess I might be feeling just a leetle sensitive to what constitutes “old. . . . ” )
Naaaaah.
gwangung
I defer to Coates:
HumboldtBlue
Bob Somerby? Really? Somerby is a dipshit on order with Erickson at Red State. An educated man masquerading any form of critical thought in narrow-minded childish ranting which in any sane society leads to nap time. What next, an expose on how Obama stole the election?
At least give us some lolcats if you’re gonna link to Somerby.
MBunge
Okay, Bob Frickin’ Somerby lecturing someone on THEIR condescension is comedy gold.
Mike
DougJ
Bob Somerby? Really? Somerby is a dipshit on order with Erickson at Red State. An educated man masquerading any form of critical thought in narrow-minded childish ranting which in any sane society leads to nap time. What next, an expose on how Obama stole the election?
I learned a ton from reading Somerby about the 2000 elections. Yes, he went of his meds last summer and hasn’t been the same. And he’s annoying and pedantic. But he’s done good work in the past and I thought his perspective was interesting here.
joe from Lowell
I haven’t read Bob Summersby in quite some time. Did he become insane recently, or am I just remembering wrongly?
JenJen
I think Somerby was dead wrong there, and is peering at this moment through some kind of 1990s glasses.
Gotta stick up for O’Donnell, too. I remember the exchange between him and the swift boater, and recall being grateful that someone was kind of pissed off about the allegations. I do agree that O’D is an establishment pundit, but it’s a little outrageous and maybe a little personal that Somerby lays the Kerry defeat at his feet.
Montysano (All Hail Marx & Lennon)
I’ve got an idea: if Gates broke the law, and Crowley’s actions were 100% correct (as his captain stated), then reinstate the charges against Gates and move forward. Easy.
handy
@Comrade Jake:
Uhhh….Ruby Ridge?
General Winfield Stuck
@SiubhanDuinne:
Point taken. I’m 56 myself. Probably infirmed would have been a better description. He uses a cane, so I suspect it’s for some medical reason. Though 58 is a sight older than a thirty something cop.
DougJ
Did he become insane recently, or am I just remembering wrongly?
I think he went off his meds about a year ago. I still read him from time to time.
handy
@MBunge:
Sorta like Lady de Rothschild accusing someone else of being an elitist.
geg6
Doug J: Yeah, well, I deliberately refuse to even validate his stupidity about “Lord” O’ Donnell. I’m not an elite or “Lady” of anything and I didn’t find anything objectionable in what O’Donnell said in that segment, which I saw in real time. In fact, I was right there with him. And O’Donnell is often the one who undercuts that whole male Irish mafia crap anyway. He’s always showing what assholes people like Tweety, Buchanan, and Barnicle are. And the constant Rachel snarking is old. Somerby is becoming a bitter old bitch (and damn, I love when I can call a man that!).
Svensker
@General Winfield Stuck:
When you pay people a pittance and give them a badge and gun, the kind of people you will have as police won’t be known for mental greatness.
Hey, in my little (very safe) town, a cop after 5 years on the job makes $100K. A pittance by Wall Street standards, maybe, but I’d take it. And with the pension, dental and medical bennies to go with it? Hell, yeah!
JenJen
I’m mobile & can’t edit, but just wanted to add that just because I disagree strongly with Somerby’s view, I did find it to be damned interesting. And as DougJ said, it was a bit of a different perspective.
joe from Lowell
Police officers don’t earn a pittance. Especially if they work private overtime shifts directing traffic or providing security.
General Winfield Stuck
@Svensker:
That’s the exception rather than the rule, though I don’t know where you live, local COL is usually considered.
Ailuridae
DougJ,
I think refusing to provide identification to a police officer when prompted is grounds enough for a disorderly conduct charge. Berating that officer is certainly grounds for such a charge.
joe from Lowell
Coates is a bit overblown. Turning down the temperature on the discussion isn’t the same thing as abandoning it.
Two sides, white vs black, left vs right, howling at each other is a dynamic that benefits the racists. Barack Obama has always cut them off at the knees by modeling restraint and maturity and decency, so as to create a contrast with the angry white guys like Limbaugh.
DougJ
I think refusing to provide identification to a police officer when prompted is grounds enough for a disorderly conduct charge.
That simply isn’t true. Someone who knows more than I do about this can explain why.
Joey Maloney a/k/a The Bard Of Balloon Juice
@General Winfield Stuck:
One of his legs is a couple inches shorter than the other. Guess why?
From http://www.gale.cengage.com/free_resources/bhm/bio/gates_h.htm (emphasis added):
That’s right; Professor Gates was literally crippled by racism.
PS, what happened to the preview window and the formatting button bar?
kay
It’s silly and patronizing to police officers to compare Gates behaviour with the police officer’s behaviour.
The police officer is supposed to act professionally in the course of his duties. He didn’t. He took it personal.
Gates has no such duty. He can take it personal, and he did. He’s not a cop, and he wasn’t at work.
We’re setting an extraordinarily low bar for professionalism here.
“both men overreacted”. Oh, okay. No harm, no foul. Except one man chose a profession that really relies on resisting the impulse to do that, and he was at work.
As usual with me, I feel as if the whole country is missing the point. I think I’m fringe.
The police officer knows he didn’t de-escalate the situation, and he also knows that is a big part of his job. Not to get too dramatic, but a police officer’s life can depend on an ability to de-escalate a situation. He failed.
If the police officer had a bad day, fine, but that is not the same as Gates having a bad day. Gates has the latitude to be an idiot, in his free time, in his one and only police encounter. Not so much for the guy who was at work, and does this every day.
JK
Obama should take Henry Gates and James Crowley to a Boston Red Sox game at Fenway Park.
This would serve 2 purposes
1 – Reconciliation between Gates and Crowley
2 – Obama gets a do over for that lame first pitch he threw at the All-Star game.
I’d have a modicum of respect for Bob Somerby if he could muster the same outrage towards Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, and Lou Dobbs that he regularly exhibits towards Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow. Somerby is on a jihad against Olbermann and Maddow and needs to stop and take a breath. He also needs to stop referring to himself in the first person plural. The more I read of Somerby, the more he comes across as a conceited, arrogant scumbag. Somerby can go fuck himself.
gwangung
And I think y’all pulling things outta yer ass.
Stick to what actually happened, OK?
The Other Steve
@Ailuridae: Yeah, and the state trooper down in Oklahoma was totally justified in pulling over the ambulance because he thought the driver had flipped him off.
Fuck you.
Joe Lisboa
Hey, in my little (very safe) town, a cop after 5 years on the job makes $100K. A pittance by Wall Street standards, maybe, but I’d take it. And with the pension, dental and medical bennies to go with it? Hell, yeah!
Contrast this with my adjunct university instructor’s pay: $20k if I’m lucky, benefits rarely, hours = 50+/wk during Fall and Winter terms. That’s 5-6 sections at 2-4 different schools.
The ability to engage in questioning why salaries are so disparate, e.g., is part of why I take the job, but if you’ve got a union (and I’m pro-union) and benefits and a six-figure salary, you can kiss my ass if you’re claiming classism or whatever. Not you, you. But them, you. Of course. Also.
The Other Steve
@kay: Amen. Life ain’t fucking fair. Police officers are paid to calm situations, not make them worse.
geg6
Gates provided I’d well before he was arrested, while both were still inside the house. Read the fucking report, people. It’s widely available online and I’d link if I wasn’t on the mobile.
geg6
Woops. Can never edit on the mobile either. I meant ID not I’d. Damn shortcuts.
Brachiator
Yeah. That pretty much nails it.
Having determined that no burglary had taken place and that Gates was the owner of the house, the cop should have just left and gone on about his business — even if Gates got angry.
And although this is not the most egregious example, what’s lost here in the blare of a racial foghorn is the larger issue of civil liberties, especially set against the bizarre notion that people have some affirmative duty to obey the police whenever they show up on their doorstep.
A better case in point of cops abusing their authority and manufacturing wrongdoing can be found here:
http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2009/07/another_cop_lies_gets_caught_o.php?utm_source=mostactive&utm_medium=link
RSA
Pretty much. I’ve noticed, among the law-and-order conservatives taking the policeman’s side on this, that they generally don’t add, Still, it’s a bad thing that being loud and rude to a police officer is an arrestable offense. Authoritarianism raises its ugly head yet again.
I’m also reminded of G. Gordon Liddy saying that if an ATF agent comes to get you, you should shoot him in the head, or something to that effect. So now, some of the same people who thought that was okay or at least funny are now taking the side of a local police officer who came into someone’s house and arrested the owner? Gee, I wonder what the general principle is here?
Ailuridae
@gwangung:
What do you know of what actually happened?
Joey Maloney a/k/a The Bard Of Balloon Juice
@RSA:
IOKIYAR.
geg6
Ailuridae: Read the actual incident/ arrest report written by the damn officer in question. You characterization of events isn’t even in line with his version of events. The Google is helpful in these situations.
freelancer
@briachiator:
I spent about an hour today combing through Ed Brayton’s blog as well as Balkos, and compiling shit that had been reported just since March. My original list was over 25, but I whittled it down to this post:
http://forgetthisnoise.blogspot.com/2009/07/americas-finest.html
I think the Philly cop who assaulted the female victim of his son’s hit-and-run is one of the worst people I’ve ever heard of.
Ailuridae
From one of the first reports on the incident:
[quote]The police report offers a different account of the incident.
Gates refused to step outside to speak with the officer, the police report said, and when Crowley told Gates that he was investigating a possible break-in, Gates opened the front door and exclaimed, “Why, because I’m a black man in America?” the report said.
“While I was led to believe that Gates was lawfully in the residence, I was quite surprised and confused with the behavior he exhibited toward me,” he said, according to the report.
The report said Gates initially refused to show the officer identification, but eventually produced a Harvard identification card, prompting Crowley to radio for Harvard University Police.
Gates followed the officer outside and continued to accuse him of racial bias, the report said. After Crowley warned the professor twice that he was becoming disorderly, the officer wrote he arrested Gates for “loud and tumultuous behavior in a public space.”
Ogletree said the professor was “very frustrated” but never touched or pointed at the officer.
He was released from police custody Thursday evening after spending four hours at the police station, Ogletree said. [/quote]
If the above and the police report is true Crowley wasn’t just in his rights to arrest Gates, he was correct to do so.
Also, the disorderly conduct ordinance in Massachusetts is readily found using google. Many of you should read it.
General Winfield Stuck
Here is the relatively recent SCOTUS decision on providing ID to COPS. I remember it because it grated when handed down as another example of where I mentioned in another thread, the courts giving more and more power to police.
Don’t have time to read it again, but the gist was that cops were given greater leeway than ever to demand ID, and arrest if not complied with. Or “may I see your papers please”. I think all they have to show is that there may be some suspicion of criminal activity in the area, which is pretty much a blank check.
kay
@The Other Steve:
I hadn’t seen him interviewed. I was really surprised he relied on Gates insulting him to set up the arrest. He went back to that several times. I thought he would deliberately avoid any appearance that he was personally offended. He didn’t. He compared his own reaction to that of the college professor.
Except that isn’t the standard he’s held to. The enraged citizen standard. Thankfully, right? His is higher.
Joe Lisboa
Ailuridae: get off your disingenuous horse already, you ass.
Joe Lisboa
… I give up. Enjoy your privilege, asshole.
geg6
Ailuride: perhaps you should read up on that issue a little harder as there is quite the long history of case law that pretty much proves you are an idiot. But, sure, keep on trolling. Have you met BOB, by the way?
Just Some Fuckhead
If I lived up that way, I’d burglarize Gates’ house. You know the cops ain’t gonna bust their asses gettin’ there now, if they bother to show up at all.
Ailuridae
@geg6:
I did. The part when asked for photo identification Gates “initially refused”. Those quotes are because thats what it says in the report.
Ailuridae
I honestly don’t know how anyone would construe this as an unreasonable search and seizure so am not sure what Hiibel has to do with it.
Crowley had spoken with a person that had just identified two black men forcing their way into a home without a key.
chopper
this is a perfect distillation of what i’ve been saying. the idea that you can be arrested for smart-mouthing a cop on your own property is just nuts.
cops have a lot of power. that doesn’t mean they need to wield it so bluntly. its like gun nuts – a real gun owner is very respectful of his weapon. he’s trained and licensed, keeps his weapon clean and safe and knows his and its limits. a gun nut waves the thing around like its a toy. guess which is more dangerous.
Montysano
@Ailuridae:
Then why the dropped charges? Reinstate the charges against Gates and move it forward through the legal system. If it’s a solid case, the Cambridge PD has nothing to fear, and it would make all the DFHs STFU.
geg6
Ailuride: No, you obviously haven’t. The arrest had nothing to do with providing I’d, which the report you fucking posted shows. ID given and the arrest happened well after that. You left out all the bullshit about the acoustics being so bad that the cop couldn’t give his name and badge number so he told Gates to come outside so he could be heard. And so your shit don’t fly, troll. And my comment originally directed you to read the case law on disorderly in MA. Since you’re such a legal expert and all, you should have no trouble understanding that the reason the charges were dropped so fast was because the Cambridge PD was about to be buried in the losingest civil suit of all time. Asshole.
General Winfield Stuck
@Ailuridae:
This right here is where Crowley screwed up. Why would he, after verifying that GAtes was who he was and lived at this residence, then call additional police. It should have been over then and Crowley should have left. That is what is called escalating the situation, and I don’t blame Gates one iota for getting loud and obnoxious. Crowley apparently didn’t believe the ID, WHY?
Slocum
The notion that what is at issue for the media and the right-wing is that Gates did something wrong is mistaken.
Notice that Gates is black and a professor. Black people are always in the wrong, unless they are denoucing other black people or, maybe, gays. Professors are arrogant parasites who read books. In America, reading books is for sissies and when you do it a bald eagle cries.
These are the only real issues for the people who have any problem with Gates’ behavior.
(Automatic deference to police is the issue? Maybe. What if Gates were white and a construction company manager and the same thing happened [not that it would]?)
gwangung
No one is buying that. Actions speak louder than words
Less words, more integrity.
SBW
Ailuridae,
Gates provided both his Harvard ID and driver’s license prior to his arrest. So whether he initially refused to provide ID when asked is immaterial, because he then did anyway, and that is not why he was arrested. It’s not that complicated, and I’m astonished by the idiotic contortions I’ve seen used to try to justify the officer’s behavior.
kay
@Just Some Fuckhead:
They can’t. They’re really, really offended and hurt. That Crowley must just be miserable every day in that job if this is his reaction to enraged citizen yelling at him.
He’d last about twenty minutes at the post office, I’ll tell you that.
DougJ
The report said Gates initially refused to show the officer identification, but eventually produced a Harvard identification card, prompting Crowley to radio for Harvard University Police.
Is that a normal reaction to someone producing a Harvard ID?
Ailuridae
@geg6:
I didn’t assert that the arrest was grounded in not providing ID. I asserted that would have been grounds enough. If the police report is true Crowley certainly had grounds to arrest to arrest Gates for being disorderly because Gates was being disorderly.
Rich people have legitimate but small charges dropped by police departments all the time precisely because the police department doesn’t want to get sued. That doesn’t make them innocent.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
Spokane police officers were called to a party that my neighbor was having. While loud it was early in the evening and no noise laws were being broken. I watched the officers tell one loudmouth at the party to leave because he was drunk and loud. The homeowner told the guy to stay and that he would be stupid to leave the party. The loudmouth followed the cops advice/threat (that if he stayed that they would have to arrest him), so he walked away. While his mouth was still running.
Stupid. He was jumped by several cops and then he compounded the error by struggling with them, allowing them to body-slam him into the hood of a patrol car, repeatedly bang his head against the hood/fender and whipping out a four-cell Mag-Lite to administer a bit of pain. I will never forget the sound of the batteries rattling in the flashlight as they delivered each blow.
They fucked him up good, hauled him to jail for disorderly conduct and resisting arrest and left the rest of us to party on like nothing happened. When we saw Mike (the loudmouth) the next day (he bailed out), his face and arms were bruised up pretty good and was he ever pissed.
But there was nothing he could do. He ended up being fined but got no jailtime. No other offenses/offenders were found at the party, just the one situation they helped create.
If cops tell you to leave private property and the property is either yours or you are welcomed there by the property owner, DO NOT LEAVE THE PROPERTY. If Mike had stayed on the property the cops would have had to leave empty-handed as no laws were being broken.
If a cop takes a disliking to you there is a distinct possibility that he/she is going to make your life miserable. They ARE the law.
General Winfield Stuck
@Slocum:
I hope you are aware that the BJ blog owner is a professor. Arrogant, weeeelll maybe a tad, but parasite is overboard.
Reads books — Now that is suspicious.
Slocum
You should read more carefully, GWS.
geg6
Ailuride: So you support the death penalty for the cop killer here in Pittsburgh, right?
Ailuridae
@General Winfield Stuck:
I went to the University of Chicago and we had a massive private police force. If you present the City of Chicago Police with a U of C id in Hyde Park, they call the University of Chicago police immediately. I would imagine Harvard and Cambridge/Boston have the same agreement.
Ailuridae
@Slocum:
I am Appalachian and was detained in almost the exact same situation in Chicago until I could prove I lived in my condo which I couldn’t because my keys, wallet and cell phone were all inside.
Ailuridae
geg6-
I don’t support the death penalty except for crimes against the state. But I certainly think the cop killer in Pittsburgh should get the maximum allowable sentence.
To those denouncing me as right wing I assure you I am not remotely so.
Ailuridae
@DougJ:
I am pretty sure it is.
cosanostradamus
.
This couldn’t happen in a country that had a real revolution. Or real revolutionaries.
.
General Winfield Stuck
@Ailuridae:
But lets remember the big picture of what this was about, or how it came to pass. Someone called in about a man entering his home, when the cop gets there the man is inside and presents an ID with the address on it.
How often does something like this happen. Not very/ And after reading some key parts of the report, I am convinced there really is a racial component to this, where I had not before. The man was on HIS property, not public space. This should have made the officer extraordinarily passive and self motivating that he should hitail it. Home/Castle idea runs deep in the American psyche. Unless there are countervailing reasons, ie race.
Mnemosyne
@Ailuridae:
Except that’s not what it says in the actual police report. You may want to see what Office Crowley actually said in his report and not rely on hearsay from early reports of what happened. According to Officer Crowley, he asked Gates to come out onto the porch with him.
Ailuridae
@General Winfield Stuck:
Your omitting a key detail. The man did not enter his home in a conventional sense. There was an eyewitness standing there who saw two African Americans force there way into the home. That isn’t in dispute from anyone.
And, again, Crowley didn’t arrest Gates for B and E or anything of that sort. He arrested him for disorderly conduct after he became disorderly. If anyone can establish that the police report is false they haven’t yet.
AhabTRuler
I think that the word you are looking for is deference, as in due deference to the property-holders rights, absent a direct and identifiable threat to the public well being.
Although the key to the issue is still the way in which the officer manipulated Gates into stepping into the public sphere, into the situation that the police had created (numerous cops, public gawking), and then used that as the justification of the arrest.
Slocum
@Ailuridae:
That’s irrelevant to what I wrote, so I am not sure why you are addressing me. I am not saying that the situation between Crowley and Gates could only happen between a white cop and a black resident. I am commenting on the motivations of the people propelling this story forward (and not even yourself, as you are just reacting to it, unless your secret identity is a CNN producer).
geg6
Ailuridae: Gone and read the case law then and come to your conclusion? Cuz I again assert that you don’t know your ass from a hole in the ground based on what you say you think you know about MA disorderly conduct. You know nothing and based on your arguments here, I can only conclude that you are full of shit when claiming you’re not some wingnut authoritarian freak.
Ailuridae
@Mnemosyne:
Here is a link to the police report:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/17512830/Gates-Police-Report
What part of the CNN recap is different? I would have quoted the police report but you can’t grab text out of scribd easily.
Ailuridae
geg6,
I read the statute itself. Like most states its an overly broad catch all. I’m not terribly thrilled that disorderly conduct laws are as broad as they are but that’s not for police officers to decide or fix.
AhabTRuler
@Ailuridae:
As others have said, read the statute; Gates’ actions did not meet the standards for disorderly conduct, and furthermore, that doesn’t even pass the smell test. Without a demonstrable threat to society to motivate being arrested for disorderly conduct, you have nothing less than an etiquette law that dictates that everybody should be meek and deferential to LEO’s.
Now, I recommend against resisting arrest or disobeying direct commands from officers, especially in the happy Taser (or is that ‘Taser-happy’?) world, but as yet it ain’t against the law to tell a cop he or she is being a jackass, especially when they are being a jackass.
SBW
Ailuridae,
And again back to ‘contempt of cop’. At least most comments here are from people who still value their civil liberties, but Gates was not threatening anyone (including himself) in anyway, nor inciting violence, nor armed, and was merely yelling from his porch for the officer’s identification, which the officer could have, and should have, provided promptly upon request while they were both still inside. Since the charges were dropped promptly, I believe, deep down, we all know they were bullshit. But it’s all about saving face…
General Winfield Stuck
@Ailuridae:
It doesn’t matter that it was not conventional, after ID was provided that issue was moot. Either Crowley accepted the validity of the ID, whereupon ,he should have promptly left and shown respectful deference (thanks ahab) for the mistake, or for his own reasons, not fully accept the ID and stick around, which is what he did, no doubt further incensing GAtes to the point he could justifiably (in his mind) arrest him.
The cop is in control in these situations and they are obligated to take the road of least escalation after being satisfied no crime was evident. In this case that would be departure sooner rather than later.. He didn’t/
Ailuridae
@General Winfield Stuck:
Unless I am misreading the police report once Crowley had the identification he called it in. The only additional interaction was him giving the Professor his name and telling him he was leaving the residence. It says in the next sentence that after accepting the ID, he called Harvard Police and then prepared to leave. There is no documentation of him sticking around.
Slocum
You forgot to add “…and then arresting him for no legitimate reason.” Glad to help.
Mnemosyne
@Ailuridae:
This part:
The CNN report leaves out the part where Crowley claims he couldn’t hear Gates in the kitchen and asked Gates to step outside. Gates didn’t just start following the guy and yelling at him all on his own. He did what the officer asked and stepped outside. This was all, by Crowley’s own admission, after Crowley had verified to his own satisfaction that Gates was in fact a resident of the house and not a burglar.
Claiming that you felt threatened because a guy was following you and yelling at you and claiming that you felt threatened because a guy did what you asked but was yelling at you are two completely different things.
If Gates was already upset, why did the officer ask him to step outside? Because it’s not illegal to yell in your own house. Crowley couldn’t arrest Gates unless he stepped outside, and Crowley knew it. That’s why he asked Gates to come outside.
DougJ
I am Appalachian and was detained in almost the exact same situation in Chicago until I could prove I lived in my condo which I couldn’t because my keys, wallet and cell phone were all inside.
How is that the same situation? Gates was in his house, you were outside.
I still think what happened to you may have been bullshit too.
freelancer
I have had it with all these muthafuckin’ bloviators on this muthafuckin’ thread!
General Winfield Stuck
@Ailuridae:
I flat don’t believe this is what happened. Doesn’t pass the smell test of this whole clusterfuck. The cop says Gates then followed him leaving, while being disorderly, when he was arrested on his porch next to his front door. Nope, don’t buy it for one sec.
And what Mnemosyne said
Ailuridae
@SBW:
Again, according to the police report Gates was asking for Crowley’s name (versus identification). Each time he was asked Crowley gave it to him.
Outside, Gates was disorderly and after receiving a warning he was being disorderly continued to be disorderly. As such he was arrested for … disorderly conduct.
DougJ
There is no documentation of him sticking around.
Actually, there is. He arrested Gates. He couldn’t have done that after leaving.
gwangung
Sorry, but saying so does not make it so.
It does not pass the statutory requirements.
Mnemosyne
@Ailuridae:
Again, read the report, not the CNN summary. Crowley says specifically in the report that he asked Gates to come outside with him. That doesn’t jibe with your assertion that there was no “additional interaction.”
Ailuridae
@General Winfield Stuck:
That’s fair. I have prefaced everything I have written hear with the caveat that “if the police report is true”. If its not then thats a different story.
General Winfield Stuck
@DougJ:
This, I think, is what’s called a Cosmic Truth.
Joshua James
Y’all remember that pro football player who was dashing to the hospital and got yanked out of his car and harassed by a cop for a half an hour while his mother-in-law died … the cop later resigned, mainly because there was video.
I wish we had video of Gates -Crowley … I think a lot of people might be saying, “he was arrested FOR THAT?”
Ailuridae
@Mnemosyne:
The officer wrote that he asked Gates to step outside because he couldn’t hear the other end of his call into what was presumably a dispatch. Gates elected to follow him into the public space. He wasn’t ordered to do so and Gates also clearly knew he didn’t have to step outside as he had already refused to do so.
Gets elected to step outside and was disorderly. He continued to be disorderly after being warned he was disorderly. He was arrested for disorderly conduct.
HRA
I am sure a cop would call the U. to verify an ID. Mine is a photo ID with an ID number. What I would not expect is to see the campus police come to the scene unless there was a crime or suicide committed close by in U. housing or on the campus. It would be interesting to know what the campus police were told. Then, too, would the DMV be called to verify the driver’s license?
The attitude of cops is not one size fits all. In 2 previous jobs, I had contact with many cops and they were not all from the same place or locale. Attitudes of the unlikeable kind began at home. I have an inlaw relative who once used the n word in my home. After I told her that language was not allowed, she came back one day to tell me her father who was a cop always told her and her siblings some terrible racist things connected to his work along with the encouragement to use his form of foul language. We had a nice long talk.
“When you pay people a pittance and give them a badge and gun, the kind of people you will have as police won’t be known for mental greatness.”
There may be somewhere where this is true. The cops I knew and know make very good wages plus overtime. IMO there is not enough money to make me want either their job or a fireman’s job.
General Winfield Stuck
@Ailuridae:
I’m wondering if you see the glaring inconsistency in this story. Gates refused earlier to step outside, but then volunteered to do so cause the cop just asked him; Get’s arrested next to front door, when cop claims he was just leaving and Gates followed him with verbal insults. It’s pure unadulterated bullshit and is likely a big reason the charges were dropped, before a judge dismissed them.
Ailuridae
@DougJ:
He left the house andarrested him outside. Is there now dispute of what happened outside the house (but still on Gates property) in front of 15-20 witnesses?
SBW
Crowley claims he tried to answer once, but was cut off, then finally answered again. If Gates continued to ask him, perhaps, just perhaps, it might have clued him in to continue to answer the question until Gates, a citizen, stopped asking. Or at least write it down.
Which goes back to ‘contempt of cop’. Gates obviously felt strongly his treatment was racially biased, and as any citizen should, let the officer know fully. Annoying a cop and jingling handcuffs does not make the 1st amendment magically disappear, no matter how much — and I am honestly surprised how much — many seem to want it to.
Was Sgt Crowley offended by being called a racist?
I don’t care. I don’t give a damn about his feelings. He is not assigned arrest powers for his feelings. He should be constantly reminded of this, as should all law enforcement, and I am thankful Gates stood up for himself.
Was Gates disorderly?
By the law, no.
geg6
Ailuridae: You really are quite thick. You keep just quoting from the CNN report and not reading the actual arrest report. And second, you act like you know the law by stating the statute as if you are some sort of legal expert and you aren’t even reading the statute right if you think this case fits that language. But when I tell you to look up the case law, you blithely ignore it and keep parroting your total misreading of both the police report and the statute. You don’t seem to think case law is important but you somehow are an able interpreter of the law. Well, let’s try your reading comprehension one more time and I’ll give you a hint: try looking up the Mallahan case.
gwangung
Then this is entrapment and clearly not a legal arrest.
As well, Crowley chose, quite unprofessionally, to continue the exchange by inviting Gates outside.
And the stated behavior STILL does not constitute disorderly conduct by the statute.
Sorry, but you’re not making a whole lot of sensible arguments here. And you’re not showing much integrity here.
Mnemosyne
@Ailuridae:
That’s not what you were claiming. You were claiming that Gates followed the officer outside when the officer was trying to leave. In fact, by the officer’s own admission he asked Gates to step outside to discuss the matter further, and Gates eventually granted the officer’s request. The officer was not trying to leave. He was trying to get Gates to step out on the front porch. That’s not even in the same county as “he followed me as I tried to leave.”
Again, going strictly by what the officer said in his report and assuming that every word in it is gospel truth, the officer admits that he lured Gates out onto the porch so he could arrest him. It’s right there in the report. I don’t know why you’re making facts up when everything is right there.
Mike P
@joe from Lowell:
Yeah, I like TNC, but I think he’s really reading this one wrong. As you said, turning down the heat doesn’t mean ignoring the issue (and Obama didn’t ignore the issue…he spoke frankly about the problems that still exist between communities of color and the police).
It’s almost as if he didn’t watch the whole thing or disregarded it since Obama didn’t say exactly what he wanted him to.
Ailuridae
@General Winfield Stuck:
I think his story is perfectly plausible particularly that Gates followed him outside to continue to yell at him. There were witnesses there. None of them have stepped forward to disagree with Crowley’s descriptions of what took place once they were outside.
freelancer
Fixed.
Disorderly conduct and Disturbing the Peace are each a bullshit charge cops use when you’ve annoyed them and they don’t have anything on you.
gwangung
No one else does. Someone lacking in integrity would say so, to continue the argument.
General Winfield Stuck
@Ailuridae:
He was arrested just outside his front door on his porch. Have you not seen the photos of him cuffed there. It wasn’t down in his front yard or even porch steps. This belies Crowley’s claim of “being followed” as he was leaving, and is contradicted by his claim he asked Gates to step outside and he did voluntarily.
I know your arguing from the report, but maybe you should start thinking for yourself.
Comrade Jake
@Ailuridae:
There’s a photo of Gates in handcuffs, on his porch, no? I’m pretty sure his porch is not public property.
General Winfield Stuck
@Ailuridae:
No, it’s not. It’s filled with contradictions/
Ailuridae
@Mnemosyne:
No, the officer admits no such thing. Re-read the paragraph in the report that begins with “With the Harvard University identification in hand” The final sentence reads like this:
I told Gates that I was leaving his residence and that if he had any other questions regarding the matter, I would speak with him outside the residence.
Thats transcribed by hand but I think I got it right.
Again, you can challenge the veracity of the police report but according to the report Crowley handled the situation in a very straightforward manner. Gates was offered to speak outside if he had further questions. Gates chose to go outside not with further questions but instead to berate the officer.
geg6
Assholidae: It fucking DOES NOT MATTER what Gates said to him or where he said it, you fucking retard. Again, I point you to the goddam Mallahan case. Damn, you’re a shitty troll.
freelancer
@Ailuridae:
You’d go to a Casino and cheer for the house you sick fuck.
shelley matheis
Ailuridae
@freelancer:
I think disorderly conduct and disturbing the peace charges are almost universally overly broad. Massachusetts seems particularly bad in that regard. But it is a criminal statute police officers are not tasked with deciding which laws are just or unjust.
Comrade Jake
Who wrote the police report again? I’m assuming it wasn’t Jesus Christ.
iluvsummr
@Ailuridae: Apparently, this depends on the context.
From the article:
shelley matheis
General Winfield Stuck
@geg6:
:
Yeah right. The cop was just a dudely Do-Right but would only talk outside, which turned out to be the doorway, where Gates was arrested.
Ailuridae
@General Winfield Stuck:
It doesn’t belie any such claim. The kitchens in most of those houses are twenty plus feet from the front door. Gates was not arrested inside his house and brought outside. Crowley had to ascend the stairs to arrest him. There were witnesses to that part and again, nobody is disputing what took place outside the house except Gates.
Ailuridae
@shelley matheis:
Its unclear but I would presume not because Gates did not assert this in his retelling to his daughter for the Daily Beast (but thats from memory so I could be wrong)
General Winfield Stuck
@Ailuridae:
now you’re just being obtuse like a troll. Ascending stairs has nothing to do with anything. For the twentieth time. Gates could not have followed the cop outside as he was leaving cause he was arrested about a foot outside his door. This is not in dispute if you can read a photograph.
Why was he a foot outside his door? Cause the cop asked him to step outside cause he couldn”t hear him in the kitchen. At lease according to one contradictory account by the cop. And my guess is a mans porch is not “outside” legally.
Ailuridae
@General Winfield Stuck:
That was to something I posted but you referenced geg6. The cop seems like a little bit of a blockhead but he does pretty much seem like a Dudley Do-Right type right with Obama saying as much today.
Ailuridae
@General Winfield Stuck:
What? He easily could have followed him outside the house and onto the porch. I would surmise that he *had* to follow him to cover the distance from the kitchen to the door. Maybe you are using a much more legal sense of outside than me. When I go onto my front porch I refer to it as outside despite it being my property. If I had a covered porch I would still refer to it as outside.
Crowley’s report never suggests that Gates followed him off the porch. Are you maintaining that Crowley re-entered the front door to arrest Gates?
iluvsummr
@Ailuridae: My brother was once stopped by Cambridge Police looking into a convenience store robbery by “young black males.” Long story short, he was too young to have a driver’s license (he wasn’t driving), but his MIT ID was deemed sufficient identification for them to let him go. The Cambridge Police didn’t call the MIT police nor was he arrested (he did repeatedly, politely request an explanation for why he was being held, so he wasn’t considered obnoxious enough for the police to haul him off to jail for sassing them).
General Winfield Stuck
@Ailuridae:
My mistake on Geg6 misquote.
You two have much in common/ And Obama is just doing some political spot removal for the folks at home. I have Nolo doubt he believes what he said at his presser. As do I.
General Winfield Stuck
@Ailuridae:
You really are a blockhead. I’m getting dumber by the minute myself. Smacks forehead.
geg6
Okay, so the dimwit will shut up, here’s the basic facts of the Mallahan case. Lowlife piece of shit sees group of cops while in a public place, not even anywhere near lowlife’s home. Lowlife starts screaming obscenities at the cops in the clear presence of about 100 witnesses, who agree lowlife was saying really nasty stuff. Lowlife gets arrested for disorderly conduct. Lowlife wins case as insulting cops is NOT disorderly conduct under MA law and numerous cases cited in the judgment for Mallahan. You can call a cop any name you want and say anything you want as long as you are not inciting riot or violence. Since there there is no evidence that Gates was doing either thing, there was no basis for the arrest, whether in his home, outside on the porch, in the yard, on the street, or in the middle of Harvard Yard. Gates could have sued the shit out of Cambridge PD and that’s why the charges were dropped so fast. The cop was in the wrong all the way and, yes, it’s his job to know that.
mcc
Hm, back up. It actually seems to me that the entire crux of this issue– the thing that determines which “side” any one media consumer or commentator will take in responding to the Gates incident– is the question of whether that person identifies with Gates enough that they are able to even think of this in terms like “the idea of being arrested on my own porch”. There are clearly people in this argument who are not thinking about the idea of getting arrested on their own porch, they’re thinking about Gates getting arrested on Gates’s porch and stopping there. They’ve somehow got the idea in their head that they’re not going to get arrested just for yelling on their own porch unless they were actually doing something wrong, and instead of following that thought to “I wonder why that is?” they follow it to “Gates must have been doing something wrong or he wouldn’t have been arrested”.
So then in walks Obama, who responds on the “wrong” side of that willingness-to-imagine-self-in-Gates’-position divide– giving a response that didn’t even really say much about whether the cop was right or wrong, but just basically saying, gee, here’s how I’d feel if I got arrested for yelling on my front porch. I’d think the whole thing was pretty stupid. Responding like that is going to make the people who don’t want to imagine themselves in Gates’s shoes very uncomfortable.
In a sense this is maybe all about that “empathy” thing that everyone was making a big deal about last month– do you have it, or do you think there’s something kinda suspicious and dangerous about it. Nonwhites in higher office like Sotomayor or Obama are treated as okay as long as they don’t show risky signs of running around having empathy with other nonwhites, imagining “gee, how would that feel if I were in that situation?” instead of just assuming the cop must have been in the right and moving on…
Jess
@Ailuridae:
It’s much more simple than you’re determined to make it. The First Amendment allows us to stand on our front porch (or anywhere, actually) and berate anyone, even cops, for perceived racism (even if they’re not racist). It’s called free speech. In Massachusetts it is not considered disorderly conduct. Crowley was wrong to arrest Gates, now matter how irritating he was being. We have the right to be irritating dickheads in this country. If you don’t like it, move somewhere else–Iran, for example.
Just Some Fuckhead
So does President Obama think the cop is a racist?
Ailuridae
@General Winfield Stuck:
I think Obama believes that the Police behaved wrongly. That’s not hard to reconcile with Obama believing that the officer behaved with non-racist intentions.
geg6 – allegations of police acting behaving like racists seem precursor to a situation that could lead to a riot. You disagree. That’s fine.
shelley matheis
Okay, I think there’s only one way to stop all the wrangling on this thread. John needs to post a new Lily/Tunch photo.
AhabTRuler
Has anyone ever told you that you think like a bent cop?
freelancer
okay, still modded @119 so lets try this again…
@Ailuridae:
You’d go to a Casino and cheer for the house, you sick fuck.
EDIT: FUCK, didn’t work.
Jess
@Ailuridae:
“allegations of police acting behaving like racists seem precursor to a situation that could lead to a riot.”
Wow, good point. So maybe we should rethink the whole first amendment/free speech thing, huh? There’s so many allegations that could be made that could lead to riots…what a scary world we live in!
General Winfield Stuck
@Ailuridae:
I f I get the double negatives right here. You are saying because since Obama thinks the cop behaved wrongly, it follows Obama thinks it’s because he’s a racist.
Obama said the cops acted “stupidly” and didn’t mention race as a factor/ and since this sort of thing happens so rarely in post racial America, I’m sure it didn’t cross his mind that race had anything to do with it/snark
Midnight Marauder
@geg6:
All right then. Gates CLEARLY was not in violation of any law. So we’re all agreed on the matter, no?
Uh oh…methinks I hear the footsteps of morans in the distance still…
allegations of police acting behaving like racists seem precursor to a situation that could lead to a riot. You disagree. That’s fine.
IT’S A STAMPEDE!
geg6
Ailuridae: What I think is immaterial. The law says you are wrong and the courts in MA do, too. You claim you aren’t a troll or a wingnut but it’s pretty hard to believe that when you are determined to be so stubbornly ignorant and unwilling to admit to reality. I’m done with you. You are just as stupid but much less entertaining than BOB and I would rather engage with entertaining trolls.
SBW
Ailuridae,
Yes, and by the same measure any allegations of wrongdoing or corruption by protesters against the government could possibly result in rebellion, so that speech must be stamped out also…for public safety.
I hope you don’t work anywhere near law enforcement (whether a cop, or lawyer, or judge) because you seem to want to gut the 1st Amendment based on some sort of ‘what if’ principle.
Gates was not yelling ‘Kill Whitey’, or ‘Kill all the crackers!’ He was not inciting violence against the officer, or anyone else, merely stating his belief the officer was racist. In this case–if the officer was truly concerned about riots — he could have ceased contact with Gates, since the reason for the initial contact was over, or better yet, not leave the interior of the house to begin with until any misunderstandings were cleared up. An apology from Sgt Crowley right then and there — even if he didn’t feel he did anything wrong, public safety would have demanded it — would have cleared up everything. Sgt Crowley obviously did not do this, did not attempt to do this, and nowhere in the report did he mention a concern of potential rioting. This is even wackier than some other ‘gangs hiding in closet’ theories I’ve seen to excuse Sgt Crowley’s behavior on other blogs.
freelancer
Modded 2x for [expletive deleted]’s
so I’ll give you an A.D. version of it:
@Ailuridae:
You’d go to a Casino and cheer for the house, you…handsome cowboy, you!
mcc
“Your comment is awaiting moderation.”. I’ve never really figured out what triggers that on this site…
allegations of police acting behaving like racists seem precursor to a situation that could lead to a riot.
Oh man. This sounds hilarious. I mean, a riot in whatever upper-middle-class area of Cambridge that the college professors live in would be pretty funny by itself. But a race riot? I guess we’d have, like, the three black people from that zip code slowly marching down the sidewalk, throwing bricks (taken from their composting piles) through windows with their middle-aged limbs. A 48-year-old adjunct professor in comparative literature daintily knocks over a trash can with her foot, then blankly gropes at her pockets for a lighter for a moment before she remembers she quit smoking in 1996.
Ailuridae
@General Winfield Stuck:
Not at all. I think the President believes (actually believed when he made his statement Wednesday) that the cop reacted stupidly. I am not sure he ever believed the cop was acting in a racist way. Having heard him speak about racial profiling often both before his political career started and especially when he was a State Senator I am not sure Obama thinks that racial profiling has to stem from racist intentions. I disagree with him there – it seems to be eerily like the way Chris Matthews and his ilk defend clearly racist actions by white ethnics (in Matthews case almost always the Irish).
Midnight Marauder
@Ailuridae:
I am not sure he ever believed the cop was acting in a racist way.
Yeah, that’s probably why he’s never said anything that would even come close to resembling that belief.
Ailuridae
@geg6:
Its a shame you are done with me. I’ll miss your completely inappropriately placed vitrol. As for the law in Massachusetts you see a very clear analogy between Gates case and Mallahan. I don’t.
General Winfield Stuck
@Ailuridae:
Then I didn’t interpret your comment correctly.
Since we are speaking in the context of criminal suspects, I don’t see why racial profiling is not a form of racism. In fact it’s absurd to think it’s not, unless you have a description of a suspects skin color for a specific crime, then you create an uninformed suspicion not based on relevant fact, but on skin color.
Racism.
Ailuridae
@SBW:
I don’t work in a legal field. I wouldn’t ever consider it largely because I think laws are overly broad and lead to really problematic enforcement especially as it relates to drug law.
For those asserting the lilly whiteness of Cambridge it has about 15,000 black year round residents. If someone knows the neighborhood Gates lives in (its seems posh) but to assert a race riot would be impossible in Cambridge is incorrect.
Ailuridae
@Jess:
I appreciate the snark. Except we have a very real history in this country of racist police acts leading to riots.
freelancer
@Ailuridae-153, 121
You keep using this phrase while generalizing the point you’re trying to make. Please clarify. Or don’t. I could give a shit.
Ailuridae
@General Winfield Stuck:
I agree that its clearly racism. I don’t think Obama sees the individual acts as coming from racist intentions.
Tweety was talking about this with Michelle Bernard today giving the explanation that because his Dad was a court reporter who saw a lot of black suspects in court he developed a feeling that blacks, broadly, were prone to criminalism. He did this while asserting his Dad wasn’t racist. I have a tough time understanding nonetheless reconciling that.
Jess
@General Winfield Stuck:
I believe Ailuridae is saying that Obama may think it’s possible to be stupid (or act stupidly) without being racist (although the reverse may not be true…). If this is what’s s/he’s saying, I would agree.
mcc
@Ailuridae: “I appreciate the snark. Except we have a very real history in this country of racist police acts leading to riots.”
It’s interesting here that Ailuridae seems to be framing all this as if the problem we need to be on guard against here is the risk of riots, not the risk of racist police acts.
Ailuridae
@freelancer:
I think legal statutes for disturbing the peace and disorderly conduct are universal catch-alls for law enforcement to criminalize irritating behavior.
Jess
“because his Dad was a court reporter who saw a lot of black suspects in court he developed a feeling that blacks, broadly, were prone to criminalism.”
A perfect example of racism as a function of stupidity. Or deeply flawed logic, to be more charitable.
SBW
Ailuridae,
So the perfect way to avoid a race riot is to improperly arrest a loud, but non-threatening, middle-aged black scholar, on his front porch, for the sole crime of engaging in free speech critical of the police. Interesting. I’m not a cop either, and I must say, that is a type of logic I have never seen before.
Well, no mention of riots, anyway. However, I believe Sgt Crowley showing some humility would have been an excellent way to diffuse any racial tensions, but as we know, there was never any danger of riots — it goes back to ‘contempt of cop’.
That is why he was arrested.
freelancer
I’ll go you one further.
Fixed
Midnight Marauder
@Ailuridae:
For those asserting the lilly whiteness of Cambridge it has about 15,000 black year round residents. If someone knows the neighborhood Gates lives in (its seems posh) but to assert a race riot would be impossible in Cambridge is incorrect.
Do you think a race riot was going to break out at 12:45 in the afternoon on a Thursday in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with all of about no more than 15 people gathered around?
Jess
@SBW:
“So the perfect way to avoid a race riot is to improperly arrest a loud, but non-threatening, middle-aged black scholar” –don’t forget “with a cane”!
kay
@General Winfield Stuck:
The police officer asked the professor to step outside after he had made the decision to arrest him for disorderly, to satisfy the element of the crime that mandates it be “in public”.
It’s in the police report and in interviews he gave after.
There’s no earthly reason to ask Gates to step outside. None.
That’s the police officer’s problem, and it’s a big, glaring one. It jumps off the page, when you’re ticking off the elements.
A first year assistant prosecutor would catch it, and probably did.
“Step outside”. That’s his problem.
Ailuridae
@kay:
The police report doesn’t say that he asked Gates to step outside. He offered that if Gates had further questions he could follow him outside. Gates was not ordered outside and elected to do so.
AhabTRuler
Actually, the police had to re-cuff him with his hands in front and bring him his cane.
Ailuridae
@Midnight Marauder:
I’ve seen some pretty close situations in various parts of Chicago over the years during the day.
General Winfield Stuck
@Ailuridae:
Ok, I see what your saying. I would just say Obama is politically smart as they come, and when he decided to enter the elected office fray, he realized to get anywhere, he was going to have to at least sound post racial. In other words, call attention to racism without having it sound personal, or accuse as few actual people as possible of being racist. He did let it get a little personal at his presser, but only in body language and the “Stupid” word. I thought it was great, but I can see why today’s clarification. He got right back up on that racial tightrope he has to balance on every single day. Keep moving in an affirmative direction on race, but always above the political snake pit..
Midnight Marauder
@Ailuridae:
I’ve seen some pretty close situations in various parts of Chicago over the years during the day.
That ain’t Cambridge, Mass, son.
So, to answer the question, no. A race riot was not likely.
The police report doesn’t say that he asked Gates to step outside. He offered that if Gates had further questions he could follow him outside. Gates was not ordered outside and elected to do so.
Le sigh. Let’s go by the logic you laid out. Fine, he didn’t ASK Gates to step outside. Instead, as he wrote in the report “I told Gates that I was leaving his residence and that if he had any other questions regarding the matter, I would speak with him outside the residence.”
Now, yes, Gates elected to go outside…because the officer told him he would answer the rest of his questions outside. It is apparent to anyone who reads the report that Gates did not feel as though the officer has properly identified himself (spelling of name, badge #), so it’s logical to believe that he would take Crowley up on his offer to continue the “conversation.” Crowley is not some kind of wet-behind-the-ears rookie; it’s not his first rodeo. He knows how the game is played.
Are these dots really that hard to connect for you? Are you honestly incapable of seeing how Crowley created the circumstances by which he could arrest Gates?
kay
@Ailuridae:
There is no earthly reason to ask Gates to step outside. Incidentally, the police officer can’t “order” Gates out of his own house, because he hadn’t arrested him (he couldn’t, Gates wasn’t outside) and the police officer is in the house legally only as long as Gates consents to have him in there.
The state doesn’t need just a coupla random elements. They need all of them, and they have the burden.
It jumps out because it’s an element of the crime, it has to be satisfied, or there is no crime. Not kinda sorta. All of it.
And police officers tick off the elements just like lawyers.
kay
@Midnight Marauder:
He needed him outside or there’s no crime. That’s why he does a paragraph in the police report about the acoustics in the house.
He knows that jumps right out. It’s flashing neon. It isn’t rocket science.
Ailuridae
@Midnight Marauder:
Cambridge is a lot more like Boston than it is say Ann Arbor or Madison. People say the same thing about Evanston until they cross the tracks. Cambridge has some pretty bad stretches and a povery rate around 15%. I lived in Davis Square for a year and would randomly end up on some pretty shady areas on runs.
As for the angle that Crowley entrapped Gates by offering to take more questions outside I find that highly specious. Nobody is defending Gates actions outside and there were by most estimates about 20 non-police officers outside. Gates clearly knew he didn’t have to step outside as he had already refused to do so. Also, what was Crowley’s alternative – he had already established that Gates was not a burglar and he was obligated to leave the residence. I actually find it vexing that as many people here don’t seem to realize that Gates was pretty clearly the person continuing this much longer than needed.
Midnight Marauder
@kay:
Exactly. It really isn’t hard to grasp the particulars at all, really.
Unless you’re allergic to logic.
kay
And Gates doesn’t know the elements of disorderly, and he’s mad as hell, so he steps outside, and now we have the crime we need.
I have no opinion on the racial or class motives here, among the various parties, incidentally. That might be impossible to discern.
Midnight Marauder
@Ailuridae:
Wow, you are dense. Fine, Cambridge has some rough areas. Is that where Gates’ residence was? More importantly, as to the original question I laid out for you, do you think a riot of any kind (race or otherwise) was going to break out at 12:45 on a Thursday afternoon because of Gates’ actions? If the answer is no, there is literally nothing more for you to say. You’re point is officially done.
As for the angle that Crowley entrapped Gates by offering to take more questions outside I find that highly specious. Nobody is defending Gates actions outside and there were by most estimates about 20 non-police officers outside. Gates clearly knew he didn’t have to step outside as he had already refused to do so.
Do you know why nobody is defending Gates’ actions outside? BECAUSE THERE’S NOTHING TO DEFEND! Was it stupid? Sure. Was it illegal? NO.
You’re right. Gates didn’t have to step outside; he choose to do so at the invitation of the Crowley. Now here’s where your attempt at reasoning begins to resemble the Hindenburg:
Also, what was Crowley’s alternative – he had already established that Gates was not a burglar and he was obligated to leave the residence. I actually find it vexing that as many people here don’t seem to realize that Gates was pretty clearly the person continuing this much longer than needed.
What was his alternative? TO FUCKING DRIVE AWAY. That’s it. That was his alternative. If Crowley was really sincere about leaving the residence, then why did HE continue to engage Gates? Oh, I know, I know–Gates was the one yelling at him. But guess what? IT’S GATES’ RESIDENCE. Crowley is the one visiting, which means that he has the power to end the situation by LEAVING.
Again, it doesn’t matter what Gates was yelling so long as he wasn’t threatening anyone (which we’ve established about 12 times so far in this thread). Which means that Gates was well within his right to act like a dumbass all he wanted.
You know what I find vexing? That you really don’t seem to understand that the person with the real power to end the confrontation was the professional who is literally trained from Day 1 on how to handle these kinds of situations. Do you know what that training teaches officers to do when they’re confronted with non-threatening hysterical citizens? I’ll give you a hint:
It’s something quite a few people here would like to see you do.
kay
@Ailuridae:
Well, when “public” is part of the crime you just look for “step outside”.
If Gates were standing in his livingroom drinking a beer, and the officer said ‘step outside” and he did, and then the officer arrested him for open container, I would think he same thing, and so would everyone else looking at the police report.
Just Some Fuckhead
Not me, while I disagree with Ailurudae and don’t think the arrest is justifiable I appreciate the different point of view and respectful dialogue.
The rest of you make me want to root for the other side.
Ailuridae
@Midnight Marauder:
A quick question:
Would you have had a problem with Gates being arrested for disturbing the peace?
Ailuridae
@kay:
Neither the police report or Gates own (likely self-serving) interview with his daughter suggest that he was ordered outside.
He was offered the chance to continue asking questions outside. Instead he followed the officer outside and continued to upbraid him. Then despite being warned that the officer felt he was being disorderly he continued his behavior.
Midnight Marauder
@Ailuridae:
A quick question:
Would you have had a problem with Gates being arrested for
disturbing the peace(insert bullshit “crime” here)?Yes. And yes.
Ailuridae
@Midnight Marauder:
Ok. Then you have a much different understanding than I do of what entails disturbing the peace.
Also, in the future when he pop off about a city’s ethnic make-up it would probably make sense to look at some demographic data.
General Winfield Stuck
@Just Some Fuckhead:
We try to live up to your fine example, but do fall short. Mon Capitan Fuckhead/
Slocum
Yeah, don’t you guys remember the Somerville Race Riots of ’02? It’s a powder keg waiting to happen.
Just Some Fuckhead
Fuck you Stuck, I wasn’t even talking about you.
Midnight Marauder
@Ailuridae:
Again, no one is saying that he was ordered outside. People are saying that he was asked to do so.
Let’s see if a different approach can get these facts through to you:
He was offered the chance to continue asking questions outside.
So that he could be arrested for “disorderly conduct/contempt of a cop.”
Instead he followed the officer outside and continued to upbraid him.
Again, this is not illegal. Also, you neglected to address Crowley’s explanation of “bad acoustics” in the foyer necessitating him having to go outside. Moreover, you have failed to establish why Crowley continued to say and listen to the nonsense Gates was spouting. He had already verified there was no robbery and that Gates was the legal resident, so there was literally no reason for Crowley to continue any interaction of any kind with Gates, no matter how much he was being upbraided. It’s his job to let that shit go.
Then despite being warned that the officer felt he was being disorderly he continued his behavior.
So, the officer, who in your words was “obligated to leave the residence”, decided to ignore that obligation and instead get into a pissing contest with Gates?
Again, I find it telling that you’ve yet to indicate in any way how Gates was behaving in an illegal fashion, and yet, you choose to place the blame squarely on him. One last time: Police officers are trained in the art of de-escalation.
Show me where that happened here.
Ok. Then you have an
much differentunderstandingthan I doof what entails disturbing the peace.Fixed.
kay
@Ailuridae:
I’m not clear on why you keep saying “ordered” outside. Of course he didn’t order him outside. He can’t. Gates is standing in his house and he hasn’t committed a crime yet. They can’t just order people around willy-nilly. This is a methodical process, and it’s not all that complicated. It’s not nuanced.
So he asks him to step outside and now it’s disorderly. But, of course, Gates doesn’t know stepping outside satisfies (e) in the statute. A required element, or, no crime. Nada. Nothing to arrest him for.
General Winfield Stuck
: Just Some Fuckhead
The rest of you is the rest of you, which includes moi’.
Oh, and fuck ya right back.
Ailuridae
@Slocum:
Somerville isn’t Cambridge but did you ever see the documentary of the James Brown concert in 1968? If not you might want to watch it.
Slocum
Davis Sq., which you mentioned above, is in Somerville, not Cambridge.
Ailuridae
@Midnight Marauder:
No. Its his job to enforce the law not “let that shit go”. He felt a law was being violated and, more importantly he told Gates he felt Gates was violating the law. Gate persisted in violating the law after being warned.
Crowley left the house. Gates followed him voluntarily. Crowley felt Gates actions outside violated the law. Gates was arrested. If Crowley felt Gates behavior was disorderly conduct he should have arrested him. I would have preferred him having arrested for disturbing the peace but there are a lot of things I would have preferred be handled differently in this case with there being three for Gates for everyone for Crowley.
As for th acoustics angle – I have trouble hearing a crystal clear cell phone connection if someone is even talking in the same room as me. The Cambridge Police Department is now pushing for the audio of the call into dispatch be released. I suspect we’ll know soon enough whether Crowley could reasonably have continued the call in Gates’ kitchen and I am pretty sure than answer will be “no”.
Ailuridae
@Slocum:
Thats because thats where I lived in greater Bostonland.
Ailuridae
@kay:
No. Its only disorderly if Gates elects to step outside and continues to behave in a disorderly way. He elected to do both, was warned and continued to do the latter. The notion that he was entrapped is beyond silly. Also, the open container isn’t apt because he would still be legal on his porch.
Ailuridae
I’m off to work in about 45 mintues. I’ve been a long-time reader here and have been in the comments before. Those that suggest I am a right-wing troll will likely be pleasantly surprised if I find time to comment more in the future.
I don’t particularly mind be called names by not particularly bright internet tough guys but I suspect other people may not like to read those comments. Also several of the posters who were calling me ignorant and dense have been spectacularly dim in other threads especially those relating to finance. In the future when I see such comments I will take great care to resist name calling while demonstrating how misinformed they are.
iluvsummr
@Ailuridae: Yay you win! Let’s wait for the arraignment and see what the judge has to say about Gates’ disorderly conduct. I’m sure s/he’ll throw the book at him. I think 6 months in jail would teach him not to sass Cambridge’s finest.
What’s that?
Crowley and Gates soon to be BFFs, quaffing beer in the White House? Say it ain’t so!
Midnight Marauder
@Ailuridae:
No. Its his job to enforce the law not “let that shit go”. He felt a law was being violated and, more importantly he told Gates he felt Gates was violating the law. Gate persisted in violating the law after being warned.
The two things in bold are important. Just because Crowley FELT that “a” law (WTF? Not a specific one? Just “some kind of law”?) was being violated, ahem, DOES NOT MEAN A LAW WAS BEING VIOLATED. Do you seriously not understand that? It’s not good enough for a police officer to feel as though a law was being broken. There has to be a law that is demonstrably being broken. But again, you failed to point one out. All you’ve done now is talk about how Gates “upbraided” Crowley (not illegal); how Crowley “felt” a law was being broken (let’s see how that flies in a courtroom); and that Gates continued to ignore Crowley’s warnings to be quiet (also not illegal).
As for “more importantly he told Gates he felt Gates was violating the law,” please see everything written above. Now that last statement–“Gate persisted in violating the law after being warned”–you’ve stilled failed to point out the law being violated.
Crowley left the house. Gates followed him voluntarily.
You’re doing that thing where you leave out important details again.
Crowley felt Gates actions outside violated the law. Gates was arrested.
We’ve covered the issue of Crowley’s “feelings” on the law already. Recap: they are irrelevant if no law is being broken. Which is exactly the case in this circumstance.
If Crowley felt Gates behavior was disorderly conduct he should have arrested him.
What about if–GASP–despite Crowley feeling that Gates was “guilty” of disorderly conduct, it turned out that his feeling was COMPLETELY AND WHOLLY WRONG?
I would have preferred him having arrested for disturbing the peace
Funny. I would have preferred him just not being arrested at all.
As for th acoustics angle – I have trouble hearing a crystal clear cell phone connection if someone is even talking in the same room as me. The Cambridge Police Department is now pushing for the audio of the call into dispatch be released. I suspect we’ll know soon enough whether Crowley could reasonably have continued the call in Gates’ kitchen and I am pretty sure than answer will be “no”.
The difference between you and I is that you’re giving the acoustics angle–like a lot of other elements of Crowley’s report–legitimacy that I don’t feel they deserve. More importantly, I think quite a few people have demonstrated that the entire acoustics canard was just an excuse to move the situation outside, where Crowley would then be able to show Gates just who was really running shit right then.
Also several of the posters who were calling me ignorant and dense have been spectacularly dim in other threads especially those relating to finance.
Good thing I don’t post in finance threads.
kay
@Ailuridae:
The police officer would have had a lot of trouble with “step outside” when one of the elements is “outside”.
There’s simply no good reason to ask an outraged citizen to follow you outside his own home. He decided to make an arrest, he as much as told Gates the intended charge, and then he asked him outside.
An arrest he could not have made without the ask. It’s really that simple. No outside, no arrest.
There is a huge legal distinction between inside your house and outside your house. The officer had no further reason to be in that house, and he’s there only on Gates consent. Gates can order him off the property. He’s not under arrest.
So he leaves, because he doesn’t have any choice, really. He’s not there legally without consent. But he had to get Gates outside.
gwangung
Ailuridae: Sheep or Troll. You decide.
Ailuridae
Again, we’ll see about the acoustics angle when/if the tape gets released.
As for my use of the word “feel” that’s more an issue of epistemology than anything else. Crowley can not know that Gates is violating or not violating the law.
As for which laws Gates violated to me its indisputable he was disturbing the peace and pretty clear he was guilty of disorderly conduct. I am not a fan of either law particularly but I believe laws should be enforced when they are violated.
Also, Crowley as far as we know, and Gates doesn’t dispute this told Gates he was being disorderly. RLG is one of the foremost social scientists alive he should certainly understand that he was being told he was violating the law and which law it was.
Ailuridae
@gwangung:
I’m about the furthest thing from a sheep imaginable. Your attempts to engage in this debate have been poorly thought out and uninteresting. What’s the internet tough guy word for that?
kay
@Ailuridae:
Nice talking to you. I believe that if you looked at this in terms of the state having the burden, you could and would drop a lot of your requirements and expectations for Gates. Because Gates has only one requirement: he can’t satisfy all of the elements that constitute a crime. He doesn’t have to please the police officer, or be polite, or scope out social science, or act rationally, or drop his professor status and feel the officer’s pain, or any of that.
The state has the burden, and no helping any of the elements along. No nudging.
General Winfield Stuck
@Ailuridae:
I don’t think you’re a sheep, though a bit of a blockhead:) Just kidding, mostly. And I do appreciate your calm manner of debate. Though I disagree with your findings.
Ailuridae
@kay:
Thanks. Nice talking with you too.
I share the belief that the state having the burden. I don’t think in this case that there is any evidence of Crowley nudging things along from the police report or Gates’ interview with his daughter. I think its personally reasonable (and by far the most likely to be true) that Crowley had dropped the issue when he left the kitchen and had no intention of continuing the conversation. Gates continued to behave in a way that can best be described as erratic and i think its perfectly reasonable to conclude any of his quoted states could be the last things said before he did something rash.
I don’t know when the last time anyone here has had someone yelling insults at them for multiple minutes is but I don’t think many people’s immediate reaction to that is “I am in a physically safe situation”. Also the matter about Gates physical well-being seems totally unrelated. People are talking about it as if it were that Crowley could only arrest Gates if he felt as though Gates could physically harm him.
Ailuridae
@General Winfield Stuck:
I don’t think ill of you. I do however think that there is a typical way for a progressive/liberal/leftist to react to news of a prominent African American in his own home being arrested by a white police officer and while normally that likely is most consistent with reality its not the case here.
I didn’t get a chance to touch on this elsewhere but (again assuming the police report is truthful) Gates initial actions here are so inexplicable. He knows he just shouldered his door open in broad daylight and he immediately asks the police officer a confrontational question intimating he’s a racist rather than explaining he locked himself out.
General Winfield Stuck
@Ailuridae:
Nor I you. But I think you’re wrong about this case.
Belvoir
How in the FUCK did Irishness get drawn into this circus?
It’s the second time I’ve read it today- someone actually blamed Irish-American TV commentators for this freakshow of race and class and utter distraction.
Let me make this clear: My Ireland- born dad was a cop in Harlem for 20 years in the bad old days, and this cop ought to have just let IT. GO. No one has as much contempt for unprofessional cops like my Dad- bullying sorts with loads of attitude. He hates them.
He- and I- are more Irish than any fucker defending what this stupid cop did, harrassing an old man in his own home.
Severely don’t appreciate “Irishness” being brought into this equation. You’re Irish-American? Fine, don’t speak of the Irish please, you don’t know jack. Shit. Don’t give a fuck about the cop’s ethnicity, I’m fiercely sick to death of Irish= racist jerk cops. It’s not the goddamned case.
And no, you don’t get to say, “I’m Irish too, I can say this. ” No you can’t, at least without me saying – thanks for propagating unfair stereotypes, – I am actually pretty furious . Speak for your goddamned self. MY Irish family -in Ireland and in my parents careers in the Bronx- cop! nurse! My parents working their asses of in the 60’s and 70’s , keeping NYC running after “white flight” from the cities- WELL, black people were their friends, their allies, in a weird way my parents could relate to them. I just cannot stand Irish-Americans who brag about alleged Irish racism in America then step back and expect congratulations for being self-deprecatory. No, screw you, so tired of hearing this. Clichè, and bullshit.
Maybe YOUR Irish-American family was racist. Mine wasn’t. Speak for yourself. It offends me greatly to hear “Oh, all Irish are racist”. It’s just untrue. Wasps, Jews, everyone else is apparently untainted by racism- it’s the Irish who’s the prob here. Fuck that noise.
PaulB
No, and no, which is why you haven’t even tried to defend these silly assertions by mapping the actual events to the requisite laws; you simply keep mindlessly regurgitating the assertions. Of course the real clue here is your amazingly stupid claim that Mallahan is not pertinent. This is some seriously funny shit.
PaulB
Irrelevant. The issue is whether Crowley’s actions were justified. Clearly, they were not. I could care less whether those actions stemmed from racism, hidden or overt, or from a sense of entitlement or simply a pissing contest. What Crowley did was unprofessional and, yes, stupid.
Whether Gates was stupid or not, as well, is also irrelevant. Only one of those gentlemen was on duty at the time of their encounter and was required to behave in a professional manner.
PaulB
And, for the record, you don’t have the slightest idea whether this was the case here or not, nor even the slightest shred of verifiable evidence one way or another.
Ailuridae
@PaulB:
neither do you. We have two pieces of information on what happened – the police report and Gates interview with his daughter. Nobody here has first hand knowledge of what occurred and we won’t until/if the audio is released from the dispatch call. Something tells me that even if the audio immediately matches up with the police report there will then be unsurprising allegations that the tape had to be altered to make gates look worse and Crowley better.
Again, many of you have much different opinions than me of exactly what someone acts like before they grow violent.
PaulB
Which is why I’m not stupid enough to make any such claim. You, on the other hand….
Which is why most of what you have been writing is entirely baseless, as has already been noted above, and why you haven’t even tried to actually justify or back up the nonsense you have been writing.
Something tells me that you’re a moron. There is far more evidence for my supposition than there is for yours.
And if your opinion was actually backed up by something remotely resembling real data or evidence, we might take it seriously. The fact that you can write drivel like, “allegations of police acting behaving [sic] like racists seem precursor to a situation that could lead to a riot,” and expect us to take this seriously tells me all I need to know about the validity of your argument, or the complete lack thereof.
I will also note that, despite repeated requests, you have not once provided even one shred of evidence to back up any of your assertions.
henqiguai
@Ailuridae (#138):
Hmmm. I think someone is channeling some unacknolwledged, and denigrating, racial stereotypes here. Are all allegations of officials exhibiting racist behaviors a riot precursor, or just black Americans making said allegations ? If an anglo<em[sic] makes such an allegation, is that a precursor to a riot ? Or just a ~citizen~ exercising their gawd-given-rights-to-free-expression™ ?
And, yes, once again I’m way late to this conversation. Do any o’ y’all ever frakin’ sleep ?!
AhabTRuler
@henqiguai: Actually, several people are piling on the very same jackass in this thread right now.
chopper
@PaulB:
was mallahan a white guy? cause if so then the cases are totally different. when a black dude screams and yells its automatically a violent act. didn’t you watch any movies from the 70’s? all those dudes know some rockin’ kung-fu.