The white police sergeant criticized by President Barack Obama for arresting black scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. in his Massachusetts home is a police academy expert on racial profiling.
Cambridge Sgt. James Crowley has taught a class on racial profiling for five years at the Lowell Police Academy after being hand-picked for the job by former police Commissioner Ronny Watson, who is black, said Academy Director Thomas Fleming.
“I have nothing but the highest respect for him as a police officer. He is very professional and he is a good role model for the young recruits in the police academy,” Fleming told The Associated Press on Thursday.
The course, called “Racial Profiling,” teaches about different cultures that officers could encounter in their community “and how you don’t want to single people out because of their ethnic background or the culture they come from,” Fleming said.
Cheesy wiz!!! I think cops are great, but you guys don’t see the point. This cop is in an unmarked car, not in uniform, and is telling him (after the frustration of being locked out) that one of his neighbors called the cops because he was breaking in to his own house. His neighbor called the cops because he was a “black man”! Read the report, I’m no flaming liberal folks. I’m surprised some of the more fervent 2nd Amendment folks aren’t defending this guy. I have heard rednecks being much more abusive and threatening. It sounds like this cop was offended by being called a racist. Give the Harvard professor your card (cops always have cards), apologize, and tell him you’re glad everything is o.k.. File your report and move on. Cops are doing a tough job. But like soldiers, and doctors, and priests, and ditch diggers…They can make mistakes.
19 Uncle Dave. The bottom line is no matter what happened, the judge didn’t believe the cop was right and threw out the charges.
In view of Gates “Do you know who I am?” and Obama’s intercession, you expected the judge to make some other ruling?
The cop will be hailed as a hero in the face of that kind of crappola.
The irony, btw, is that it’s now pretty clear from the reports and evidence that are surfacing that those who are shouting the loudest are the racists.
RBG
jccalhoun asked: What law says you can’t curse at a cop?
Hate crimes (also known as bias-motivated crimes) occur when a perpetrator targets a victim because of his or her perceived membership in a certain social group, usually defined by racial group, religion, sexual orientation, disability, ethnicity, nationality, age, gender, gender identity, or political affiliation.[1]
A “hate crime” can take two forms: “hate crime” generally refers to criminal acts which are seen to have been motivated by hatred of one or more of the listed conditions. The second kind is hate speech, which is speech defined as crime.
Gates obviously violated the former.
But I prefer the non-legal perspective, common sense and followed with some nominal intelligence.
I have no doubt Gates made sure this blew up as a racial incident.
When he spoke at my university a few years ago (great speech, BTW, no disrespect to his professional work), we saw a side of Gates that challenged our view of the man.
I was the head of the speakers committee who brought him in. After the talk, I offered to take him back to his hotel in my father’s car, hoping to chat with him on the way. He said no, he’d take a taxi because he wanted to visit a friend who lived in town. We called for a taxi and gave the driver the school account voucher to take care of the tab.
Later we got a nasty letter stating that a “ordinary-type” taxi wasn’t acceptable for a “distinguished speaker” (his words), and that had he been white, we would likely have called for a limo. He then advised us to sit down with some black faculty and examine our decision-making process on speaker transportation to “identify where and by whom this biased decision was made”.
I am mixed-race, and more than half of the committee members were black. As I shouldn’t have to say, transportation is handled the same way for everyone. With the exception of Garrison Keillor, who is a well-known bastard to deal with, no speaker has ever complained about our arrangements.
Gates stayed in the nicest hotel in town, left several thousand dollars richer for his talk, and flew first-class back to his racist hellhole of a neighborhood, all at our expense. But the fact that he didn’t get a limo meant we were racist.
What a prick. Guess he needed some fresh media attention. Does he have a new book coming out?
The officer may HAVE been a racist, but there is little evidence of that. There is however a lot of evidence that HLG sees every slight as race-based, and will create slights if he is not presented with them.
(BTW, Keillor was upset because someone unauthorized spoke to him while he was walking backstage…he is not to be spoken to at any time except by event staff, and then only when necessary).
Gates has been stewing in his own raciest juices for many decades. I’m sure dealing with this guy on a day to day basis must be a joy. The typical if you don’t agree with him or his philosophies he’ll call you a raciest. Fricken pathetic.
He should have simply said “Sorry officer, I got locked out of my home, here are my papers, thank you for coming so quickly to protect my home.”
Then if the cop did anything other then close the matter the cop is using bad judgment and should be reprimanded.
Are you really saying that you think that this would have been charged as a hate crime if he was white? I guarantee you that I am blonder, whiter, and have bluer eyes than you. White people don’t get discriminated against unless they are stupid or racist.
Try looking at it from his perspective.
Bobbo,
“What other kind of person do we expect/demand/need to go out on real burglary calls at night in the bad part of town? If you (Uncle Dave) demand officers that are equally adept at both environments, then you have high standards indeed.
You probably want the cashier at McDonalds to be able to count, and your housemaid to speak English too.”
I do have and expect high standards, especially if I’m paying their salaries. Cashiers and maids don’t carry guns and tasers. Usually.
#31: The judge ruled before Obama spoke or this hit the media.
No one has really answered my basic question: Why didn’t the cop walk away when he determined (as he said in his own statement) that this was Gates’ home? Continuing to interact with Gates was what led to Gates’ arrest. The cop played into Gates’ hands (taking the view that he was bating the cop) rather than doing the responsible thing and leaving the guy to rant which is his constitutional right.
Baseball managers can yell at umpires, curse at them, and say all sorts of things. But there’s a line you can’t cross…unless you want thrown out of the game. Gates crossed that line, IMO intentionally, as I noted very early in the previous thread. #33, you added a huge piece of the backstory…Gates is a race-baiting dick. Now he’s got a story he can run with….problem for him is that the cop isn’t backing down.
ha ha, this will be fun.
I read different stories on this and one of them referenced that Mr. Gates was slow in getting his credentials out. Nobody knows what Gates demeanor was during this incident and whether he sparked the cops reaction and the subsequent arrest.
If I were Gates I would be pleased that a cop showed up after a report of a potential break-in was reported. If I were the cop I would have been much more understanding and had a cooler head.
All I know is that it is a shame that the race card was used and that this will lead to just more use of the race card.
I am also displeased with Obama’s response during his news conference last night. I don’t think he knew all of the facts and obviously took Gates’s side. Unfortunate, to say the least.
O.K. dannychoo2. That’s great. Why don’t you send John a copy of the nasty letter? I’m sure he’d like to print it. Oh… What’s that? You lost it? Too bad.
“Nasty racist hellhole” I’m glad there’s no racial tension there.
What happens if the Gates house actually gets broken into after this incident? Wouldn’t that be something?
Carcarius, Read the police report. He produced I.D. pretty quickly. The cop said he was “confused” by Gates’ comments. This cop was trained in avoiding racial profiling. What was he confused about? I don’t think this was profiling. This was responding to a suspicious situation. The report indicates that the cop took out his cuffs when he noticed that other people could see him getting dressed down. That would have been a nice time to say,” Sorry about the confusion Sir… I’m glad everything is o.k.” in front of a lawn full of witnesses.
It was 10 years ago. I know you probably have copies of every letter ever sent to your committee in college, but I don’t. You’ll have to take my word for it….which you would if I agreed with you. But John wouldn’t print it if I did. He’s already decided the case, and would say it was “old news”.
That was sarcasm, you might want to look it up…Gates seems to believe Cambridge is just that.
#32, dannychoo,
BULLSHIT !!!
I’ve met Garrison Keillor several times and have to say here isn’t a nicer person alive. No performer wants to be distracted during a performance and in that regard, neither does Garrison.
Because of your comment about Garrison, I have a really difficult time believing the Gates incident happened at an unnamed school sometime in the past. A letter? Ya right, and to whom was it addressed? Oh, someone else?
Like I said, bullshit.
**What happens if the Gates house actually gets broken into after this incident? Wouldn’t that be something?**
Just more proof that the racist cops won’t protect black people’s stuff. Besides, they will probably arrange for that to happen. They can’t get at Obama directly, so this is how things will go for blacks for the next 4-8 years.
Verbal Abuse of a Police Officer is illegal in Ohio:
509.11 VERBAL ABUSE OF POLICE OFFICER.
No person shall knowingly and willfully, verbally abuse or make derogatory remarks to a police officer or other officer of the peace in the performance of the duties of his office or employment. Whoever violates this section is guilty of a minor misdemeanor.
(Ord. 2004-048. Passed 10-19-04.)
Good thing we still have our guns to protect our holy honor.
Gates’s version of what happened.
“The police report is full of this man’s broad imagination,” Gates said in response to a question on whether he had said any of the quotes in the report. “I said, ‘Are you not giving me your name and badge number because I’m a black man in America?’ . . . He treated my request with scorn. . . I was suffering from a bronchial infection. I couldn’t have yelled. . . I don’t walk around calling white people racist.”
Gates continued, “I’m outraged. I shouldn’t have been treated this way but it makes me so keenly aware of how many people every day experience abuses in the criminal justice system … No citizen should tolerate that kind of poor behavior by an officer of the law. . . This is really about justice for the least amongst us.”
…
“Because of the capricious whim of one disturbed person . . . I am now a black man with a prison record,” Gates said. “You can look at my mug shot on the Internet.”
http://boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2009/07/charges_to_be_d.html
NOTE: The charges were dropped by the District Attorney at the request of the Police and City.
My guess would be when a top Harvard Law Professor is representing the accused, your charge better stick.
#18, bob,
Saying that would be meaningless if they couldn’t arrest people who don’t cooperate.
What an effen jerk. You want the police to have the authority to arrest someone who doesn’t cooperate? I guess you would need to revise the Bill of Rights for that to happen.
Well, little Ralphie, you’ll just have to rant and rave. (But try to keep the ALLCAPS SCREAMING!!! to a minimum. All caps can be usefully used to indicate emphasis, but using it to yell is low-class. Just a tip there for you, son, free of charge.)
Garrison is a Grade A Prime Dick. He spoke at SMU in 2006. He was treated royally and acted the ass to the poor volunteers. He treated the crowd well, but the little people are beneath his notice. It wasn’t during the performance, it was after, when a volunteer said “Thank you for coming” and he waved her off and complained that the volunteers weren’t supposed to bother him. I heard him with my own ears, so you can just f**k off calling me a liar.
Gates spoke at University of Buffalo in 1996 (ok, more than 10 years ago) and complained about the taxi. Sorry I didn’t demand a copy of the letter for my own files. It may have been sent to the dept head, but we certainly didn’t respond.
And yes, I attended both schools, Buffalo for a BA and SMU for an MA.
jccalhoun asked: What law says you can’t curse at a cop?
Hate crimes (also known as bias-motivated crimes) occur when a perpetrator targets a victim because of his or her perceived membership in a certain social group, usually defined by racial group, religion, sexual orientation, disability, ethnicity, nationality, age, gender, gender identity, or political affiliation.[1]
A “hate crime” can take two forms: “hate crime” generally refers to criminal acts which are seen to have been motivated by hatred of one or more of the listed conditions. The second kind is hate speech, which is speech defined as crime.
Gates obviously violated the former.
But I prefer the non-legal perspective, common sense and followed with some nominal intelligence.
What are you talking about? I don’t have the magic ability to know what someone is saying in a photograph so all I have to go on is the police report and Gates’ account. IN neither do I read anything relating to hate speech. If you know of something or I missed something please point it out.
Its a big mistake for Obama to put in his two cents. These race based issues are often line ball and its all lose-lose.
I’m sure shit like this happens all the time and a lot of cops will immediately distrust black folks more than white folks. There’s a culture of racism in law enforcement and not just in America.
Nothing wrong with Gates standing up for himself but being black doesn’t exclude him from being an arsehole.
#31 “but you guys don’t see the point. This cop is in an unmarked car, not in uniform ….”
And you didn’t read the report. He was in uniform the car wasn’t.
The report said when he arrived he stood on the porch and saw Gates inside the house and asked him to step out on the porch and talk to him and gates gave him a bunch of crap.
I don’t think any police officer is going to answer a suspected burglary call and enter the house without knowing what is going on in it. Gates is lucky he didn’t get his ass slammed face down on the floor.
I just read the police report, then most of these posts. It still sounds like the problem was with Gates to me. Several have already pointed out that if he had simply shown his ID that would have been that. Also the neighbor obviously didn’t know her neighbors (bet she does NOW) so she shouldn’t have picked up the phone so quickly.
Finally, even Bill Cosby said today that Obama should have essentially kept his nose out of the story. It shouldn’t take a PhD in Education to understand why. Problem is now, can the administration afford to just let this go now? I bet not. It’s too bad because this is basically a non-issue.
Read it again web. The report says” I was on ununiformed duty.” I had to focus on it myself to make sure I wasn’t misreading it.
Again, my point was never that the cop shouldn’t have investigated. A good cop will diffuse the situation. I’m not even saying that he is a bad cop. He’s probably an excellent cop. He just didn’t handle that right as best as I can tell. It sounds like they were both having a bad day.
#41, Carcarius’
“What happens if the Gates house actually gets broken into after this incident? Wouldn’t that be something?”
That would be hysterical, specially since his front door isn’t working because of the LAST break-in!
I can see it now:
Cop: “Do you live here?”
Thief: “Yes, and can you please help me move my big screen TV?”
Cop: “Of course. After all we are here to ‘Serve and protect’!”
Snicker, Snicker…
Gates:
His Chickens…
Have Come Home…
To Roost!!!
Dave,
The fact that the judge threw out the charges is certainly not the bottom line, or even relevant. It’s commonplace for folks who are picked up on charges like this to be released when they have calmed down. When that happens, it is very much not a reflection on the actions of the arresting officer. I’m a former criminal court judges’ clerk and I have seen that happen many times. You may not like that – I don’t, much – but it’s a separate issue and truly not a reflection on the officer. The officer did behave properly in every detail, as far as I can see.
Please talk to a cop or a criminal court employee to confirm what I’m saying. The procedural context here is just not what you think it is at all.
Hi Bob,
Did you read the police report? This was an ununiformed police officer. He was provided with I.D.. He was offended because Mr. Gates was angry that his neighbor assumed that he was a burglar because he was black.Even in the officers own report, he never accuses Dr. Gates of violence or threats of violence. He was embarrassed that Dr. Gates was in control on his own property. I would never be rude to a police officer. Point is… Once he made an I.D., he should have left, or diffused it by listening. That is the conservative thing to do. I have three friends who are cops. They hate these kinds of situations. You get more respect for using restraint. After cooling down, everybody feels better about the outcome. Often people will appologize and shake hands after they blow off steam and you simply listen. Then you can say bad things about them in the privacy of your car as you drive away.
What the people posting here actually know about this case is pretty much nothing. When you know nothing it can make you appear wise if you say nothing. Time to take my advice. Bye.
***WARNING!!!!**** All liberals should first put down any sharp objects, push any furniture you are standing near away and put on a football helmet and mouthguard before reading this post.
The cop should send him a watermelon, bucket of KFC, a case of grape juice, a sweet potato pie and some cornbread along with a new set of white wall tires for his car and the latest 50 cent CD and call it good. If your going to be called a racist anytime you argue or say anything at all about a person of “color,” you might as well make the most of it.