This story has been written about to death, but it is rare that you have a high profile black academic maligned by the police, spoken about by the POTUS and a national conversation about racial profiling and the police state. Yesterday the 911 call that was made was released and it turns out that Officer Crowley misquoted the caller. She never mentioned race on the call, making the police report highly suspect.
But outside of the details of this case, I read a comment over the weekend that really struck a chord with me and I wasn't going to write about it since it is a few days old, but as I sit here thinking more about it, I really want to share it. It was a comment from Ta-Nehisi's blog, (paraphrased via PostBougie),
Setting aside all of the other meta-discussions on race and class that surround this issue, the thing about all of this that creeps me out the most is that so many people are willing to defend this officer who, assuming the most charitable possible interpretation, arrested a guy because he didn't like his attitude. That is what [Mike Barnicle] is defending. That is what the execrable Mika Brzenski is defending. That is what I have read numerous commenters on a multitude of sites from the entire political spectrum defend.They are, as far as I am concerned, defending the indefensible... [The panelists] were saying that if you cannot agree that arresting Gates was just plain wrong then there is no possibility of moving the argument forward. There is no good faith argument to be had without starting from the point that officers do not get to arrest a guy because he says unkind things to him.
I have decided that I no longer have anything to say to people who can, with a straight face, defend this nonsense. Forget about race. Forget about class. Forget whether or not Gates or Officer Crowley are nice guys who treat their mothers well. The bottom line here is that an officer used the authority of law to restrict the liberty of a man who was expressing displeasure with him. If you think that is right, then you fundamentally disagree with the basic principle of a free society.
That is not hyperbole. If you are willing to grant any individual with a gun and a badge the authority to arrest people because they don't like them, then you and I share no common principle on liberty and the right of people to be free from oppression. None.
Emphasis mine.
I think this gets at the heart of this issue. People seem to get blind sighted by rage when you talk about the police and race and it descends into a conversation between innate qualities between two groups of people, a battle of good and evil. The question of justice never enters the conversation, folks are generally stuck on, "well he shouldn't have done that," "wrong place at the wrong time," or "the cops were doing their job." It is rare we step back and think about what that job entails and what it would really look like if it was done properly.
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That is a great excerpt. Free speech includes speech that is insulting, rude, disagreeable. I'd like to know when it became a crime to insult a police officer. If I'm trying to weasel out of a traffic ticket, it would probably be smarter to be charming, but I also have a constitutional right to tell off the officer with whom I'm dealing.
It became illegal when most jurisdictions defined "disorderly conduct," the statute gates was arrested under. DC is basically the catch-all. If you raise your voice, Disorderly Conduct. If you say curse, Disorderly Conduct. If you are visibly mad in public, Disorderly Conduct. A lot of times people can get off, sometimes they can't. There's a ton of discretionary power in the hands of police and judges. It's a system where the powerful are judged by the more powerful.
The abuse of an officers right to arrest (whether legal or not, or moral, or ethical) is rampant in society. To use an example involving race, young African Americans are stopped and frisked to often for suspicion of illegal activities, with minimal reason of suspicion. For example, standing at a corner in a gang neighborhood is considered enough reason. Police officers are then able to arrest them for any number of reasons (minor drug possesion, suspicion of gang activity, resisting arrest, refusing to submit to a search) for simply standing on the street. This is an abuse of police power.
I agree, it's a great except, so thanks for sharing it. I wonder why the officer has been so defended, too. It's like the opposite of the blurb about lawyers, how everyone hates them until they need one. Everyone loves cops until they're illegally harrassed by one.
There are thousands of good cops out there, and this guy may even be one of them. But that's no reason to defend his actions on this occasion.
YES. This has been my biggest complaint surrounding this arrest as well. So, so many of my friends and aquaintances have been arrested under the "disorderly conduct" charge, most of them were disagreeing with the officer.
It is disgusting. This is one of the main reasons why I am so distrustful of law enforcement. I'm sorry to anyone out there who works in or has loved ones in the police force, but through my personal experiences, I have come to believe that most people who are attracted to that line of work are obsessed with control and power. It really frightens me. I have a pretty strong prejudice against police and it is really quite sad.
People defend the police because of constructed white fear. They look at stats like that recently revealed by the New York Times regarding criminals and race and never consider the social context under which it happens.
We know about Gates because he is rich and affluent but how often are POC assaulted by the police without any media glare? It is assumed that because someone has a badge that they are acting in the best interest of the public. My question is which segment of the pubic do the police really serve?
Renee, you bring up a point I've considered often wrt the Gates arrest. People (read: middle-class white people)are aware of this particular arrest and it has incited discussion (which overall is a great improvement) about the propriety of police action. Still in this case, it seems the sentiment often is "but Gates is a prominent scholar. How could *he* be arrested?" After all, if Gates were a 22-year-old black man working at a grocery store, then perhaps the police would've been justified in the arrest.
I am a white woman, so my personal experience with profiling is limited. I can say, though, that I had an excellent (and as close to first-hand as I can get) education on police in the black community when I lived in downtown Cincinnati. I was shocked by the way I saw police react to people who were doing nothing except standing on the sidewalk, and this was a daily occurrence. Then the folks in the suburbs ask why people in the inner city won't cooperate with police investigations. Sheesh.
It's because of white fear and because white kids are taught from an early age to trust the cops, to go look for a cop if they're lost or call them when they have a problem. For most of these kids, it works too.
If you've been taught your whole life that certain people are there to protect you, it is difficult to imagine why someone wouldn't be grateful for their presence or wouldn't be cooperative. This is another example of how privilege limits people's ability to understand.
This is exactly right. The term of when a police officer arresting you simply because he does not like you is "contempt of cop." It is used to harass and to bully, to disempower, and to punish obstreperous civilians who dare to question the absolute authority of the badge.
Now this brings home why race is such a big factor in the national conversation: if cops can arrest anyone they personally dislike, and if some cops are known to dislike people of color, how can even the most obtuse white apologist not acknowledge an obvious problem?
But more than that, the Gates incident is a reminder of the danger of unchecked police power. Even the usual white imperialist right-wing talking heads should begin to realize that even they may be in danger of "contempt of cop." If Hannity gets pulled over out in the middle of nowhere by a state trooper who decides that he just plain doesn't like him or his tone of voice, I wonder if getting thrown in the hoosegow might finally open his eyes.
Actually, the caller did specify the race of the person entering the house, after she was asked by the 911 operator. In the article that you linked to the entire sentence actually reads:
"She does not mention the race of the men until pressed by a dispatcher to describe them."
Now the operator and the dispatcher may be two different people involved in responding to the call, or they may be the same person, but regardless, Crowley didn't misqoute the caller because she really did say that the person she was calling about was black.
Um...no, she didn't, actually.
Quotes from the article:
"She does not mention the race of the men until pressed by a dispatcher to describe them.
"Um, well, there were two larger men," Whalen says. "One looked kind of Hispanic, but I'm not really sure. And the other one entered and I didn't see what he looked like at all. I just saw it from a distance and this older woman was worried, thinking, 'Someone's been breaking in someone's house. They've been barging in.'""
...and later in his report
""She went on to tell me that she observed what appeared to be two black males with backpacks on the porch," Crowley, who's white, wrote in his report."
and her response to that:
"Whalen's attorney, Wendy Murphy, said her client never mentioned the men's race to Crowley and is upset by news reports she believes have unfairly depicted her as a racist."
Right. No matter how rude Gates may (or may not) have been, and however excusable you find that under the circumstances, Crowley was acting in his professional capacity as a police officer with a gun and a badge and should have risen above the situation and any hurt feelings he had. Arresting the 60 year old guy with the cane in his own home was ridiculous, and the police obviously knew it because they dropped the charges right away.
"...No matter how rude Gates may (or may not) have been, and however excusable you find that under the circumstances, Crowley was acting in his professional capacity as a police officer with a gun and a badge and should have risen above the situation and any hurt feelings he had..."
Exactly! The people using the it's-different-because-he's-a-cop excuse for the arrest have it back-asswards.
If insulting a police officer becomes a crime, as "disorderly conduct," then I believe the statute or ordinance defining and criminalizing "disorderly conduct" is unconstitutional, in violation of the 1st Amendment. People have a right to speak freely, even to a police officer.
Further, if the discretion regarding whether a person should be charged with the crime is so wide that it may or may not include various types of conduct, I believe the statute or ordinance is unconstitutional as a violation of Due Process. People have a right to know and understand whether their behavior is criminal.
Absolutely, 100% correct. The First Amendment guarantees me the right to say whatever the hell I want to whoever the hell I want. Last time I checked, expressing my displeasure at not being permitted to enter my own property was not "disorderly conduct".
This cop acted deplorably. The fact that there is even a debate about this makes me ill.
Word.
That not kinda wrong, thats alot wrong.
he First Amendment guarantees me the right to say whatever the hell I want to whoever the hell I want.
I was suppose to quote that first... you can't threaten people, intimate them, or even gasp verbally abuse them under the 1st amendment.
Wow, a lot of great points have been made here. Some comments have reminded me of David Cole's book "No Equal Justice." I'm curious if anyone else has read it. He has a really fascinating take on the role of race and class in the criminal justice system. Basically he contends that Fourth Amendment law has evolved to provide just enough protection to make the wealthy racial majority feel as if it works, because at the same time it is providing law enforcement enough power to target the poor racial minorities. Essentially he argues that America has sacrificed its poor minorities for the illusion of security. So of course we wealthy whites are going to think that the cops are right and the black guy is wrong---the system itself has conditioned us to think that way.
Thanks, Samhita, it's been making me bang my head against the wall when people excuse the cop by saying, "He arrested him for disorderly conduct, not breaking into his own house or for being black." To which I ask, what IS disorderly conduct? Really? Just because a cop arrests you for disorderly conduct doesn't really mean you've done something wrong, it's such a vague, catch-all phrase. The only times in my Con Law class that I saw it upheld was when a person was in imminent danger of inciting something like a riot in a public place. Not someone expressing the anger at being accused of breaking into their own home and harassed after showing their ID.
Has anyone on this site ever seen COPS (the TV show)? White men and women who behave poorly get arrested ALL THE TIME. And as far as the argument that Crowley should have "risen above", isn't Gates the one with the Ivy League education and all this extensive knowledge of how cops tend to treat black people? I'm reading a lot here and elsewhere about black citizens' perspectives but very little about the violence and erratic behavior police officers are subjected to on a daily basis. Yes, cops overreact. They're conditioned to do that because they're constantly exposed to situations that are incomprehensible to everyday citizens. Yes, black people are targeted...especially in crime-ridden neighborhoods. Statistically, they commit the majority of violent crimes (albeit black on black). I think they were both wrong. I think they both behaved like children.
Cops who have overreact that strongly to a frail, elderly black man should perhaps choose a less stressful career. Maybe they should better test for temperament instead of letting a bunch of reactionary hotheads in the force, no?
Correction: That was meant to say "cops who overreact that strongly...". I should always remember to preview.
No worries. I got your gist. Couldn't it be, though, that they both behaved badly based on their personal experiences and respective lines of work?
I must concur with Kate...my father-in-law is 72, still runs marathons and is in better condition than me at 45! Being 60 doesn't make you frail.
Let's say they both behaved badly, for the sake of argument. Gates' behavior was the behavior of a private citizen who was not at his job at the time. The cop was WORKING, as a COP, when he behaved badly, and he deserves to be reprimanded and criticized for his bad job performance.
SarahMC, Gates' behavior was that of a scholar of the African American condition which makes him particularly "scrutinizeable". He makes his living based on his exceptional understanding of all of the history and current events that work in opposition to black people. His accusations that Crowley was a racist cop were a symptom of his submersion into all things "victim". He misbehaved. Crowley responded in kind. Period. They both should apologize. In private to one another as human beings.
I think with some groups though, particularly African Americans, Latinos and Muslim, any behavior that might make some folks uncomfortable is "scrutinizable" behavior. I'm not saying this was necessarily the case here, but if Gates was an unknown guy in a poor neighborhood trying to break into his home, I can see the same thing going down, with folks then using the guy's background (maybe a previous tangle with the law or known associations with people in trouble, etc) as an excuse for why the police behavior was acceptable.
I'll give you an example. A while back a woman was gunned down in her own home in a nighttime raid by the cops. And commenters on plenty of sites defended police actions and placed part of the blame on the victim because she was associating with reported thugs. Again, unarmed black woman shot dead in her own home and here come people "scrutinizing the victim."
The fact is over 99 percent of police contacts with black people do not end in a shooting.
There are some tragedies out there, and some jurisdictions specifically that are fucked up, but judging ever police action as if it is lucky that it did not turn into a shooting is an injustice to the police.
Some people are still debating who the victim is in the Gates arrest.
Dr. Gates appears to be the racist one this time around.
"The fact is over 99 percent of police contacts with black people do not end in a shooting."
How disingenuous is your claim that the article you lifted that piece of fact from:
http://www.statesman.com/specialreports/content/specialreports/useofforce/0125force.html
actually talks about police using more violent force against minorities than whites.
Please don't edit out crucial information and then call it a "fact".
Not all force is people getting shot.
The example I responded to was someone being shot in their home.
Nothing I wrote should have been generalized by the weak minded beyond what I wrote. Minorities do have more force used against them, are arrested at high rates and convicted at higher rates.
Once again, that does not change the fact that over 99 percent of police encounters with black people don't end in shootings, and we should not be surprised when a police encounter with a black person does not end in a shooting.
And the report YOU link to is even more instructive, as over 99% of police encounters don't include force at all, from pushing up to getting shot.
And that is in Austin, Texas. Not a bastion of race understanding.
I got my stat from my familiarity with criminal justice data (BA in Justice and with research experience) and have spent enough time working with UCR, NCVS and other BJS data (not some punk ass article in a news paper) that I know what I am talking about.
I understand what you are saying, but this is not something that you can look at in isolation. That is what I think. Saying 99% of confrontations with black people does not end in a shooting has no meaning on its own unless you mention what the percentage is for other minorities and white people. Otherwise it seems like a misleading piece of information. What is the percentage of blacks who are confronted by the police as against whites? What would be the numbers if we look at it in absolutes?
Perhaps it is an "injustice" to the police force if the attitude is that it is a lucky thing that a confrontation did not turn into a shooting, but that is a very academic way of looking at it. What is going to go on in the mind of a POC when they are confronted by the police? They are going to look at the worst case scenario.
Furthermore, to say Gates is racist does not make ANY sense. What makes his actions racist? Do you mean classist? Because I can somewhat see what, but racist? Do you think a black person can be racist towards a white person?
I think we are talking past one another
I responded in a conversation with a certain context, you then took what I said out of context to judge it.
Further, a lot of times what goes through someones mind is the worse case senario, the senario that happens less than 1 percent of the time.
If they react to the worse case senario (that is not happening in the instant case) then they will over react to what is happening.
Do you think a black person can be racist towards a white person?
Um, yes?
I known a white dude that was reduced to tears because some one called him cracker a cracker. He was beaten down by a couple of black dudes. He does not know why they jumped him and used racial slurs till he was unconscious.
There are parts of America if a black guy gets beat down some black dudes will jump a white dude, it does not matter if they get the right guy.
So then the white guys jump another black guy, and the cycle continues.
Thats probably what happened to the guy I know. Or the just jacked him for his wealth.
There is a lot of academic bullshit out there about racism=prejudice+power.
That is a philosophy that minimizes and denies minority racism... and stops meaningful soul searching.
Gotta admit, I do seem to have taken your comment out of context. But I don't think I can still agree with your logic. It doesn't make sense to me that the people who have been provided with arms and ammunition and the legal right (perceived as one, anyway) to use them have to be treated with kid gloves. And I feel like that's what you're trying to do in all of your comments, supporting the police force.
Every job has its assholes.
There was a study way back when that about 6% of people cause about 90% of the crime.
Its useful to remember that the vast majority of fuck ups are concentrated, and I don't think, in this instant, that Sgt Crowley is the fuck up.
I mentioned below I am quite familiar with with police reports from the research I have done with sexual assaults to the police....
And out of all the officers I leaned of through the police reports, two were the kind that people complain about in regards to being insensitive and uncaring... out of a police force of 200, and about 50 first responders or special victims officers.
Thats 4%.
Again, please re-read the comment I'm responding to and then my comment. I'm asking here, what constitutes scrutinizable behavior of citizens. Because it unfortunately seems like there are different standards in our society. Again, it's unfortunate, but it is a reality that needs to be considered here in this discussion.
You've went on a derail about police shootings, which wasn't my point. My point was when police were CLEARLY in the wrong by not doing due diligence in their raid, folks sat back and still blamed the woman simply because of the company that she kept, her lifestyle and "choice" of neighborhood, etc.
So tell me, what is this mystical behavior that won't get a people blamed for their own unwarranted arrests/murder/taser in the rare cases when these things happen?
Spike I do agree with you here. I've also been thinking a lot today about the arrest record. It won't affect Dr. Gates in the least but it could ruin some poor "average Joe" who didn't have the public image or clout to clear his record or his good name. What a fucked up mess. And embarassing.
Gates, however, is frail. He's had a hip replacement (which for all I know may have made him frail as a child), walks with a can, can't walk on ice, is unlikely to jump on a cop, etc.
That cane could be a deadly weapon...
or at least knock out some teeth.
Of course, there was no indication Dr. Gates was going to do that.
But there is an indication that one can be be frail and disturb the peace with disorderly conduct at the same time.
He's walked with a cane due to a poorly healed injury he initially received when he was 14.
If you get a chance to watch any of his documentaries of his travels, you would realize that this in no way made him "frail."
Elderly? Gates is 59. Are you speaking of someone else?
58, rather.
Cops act on behalf of the state. And they carry weapons. THEY are the ones responsible for "rising above" and acting professionally and fairly, not private citizens going about their business in their own homes. Gates is being slammed for failing to "rise above" (not his responsibility) by the same conservatives who'd defend him if he were white ("infringement on his personal property! Creeping state fascism!").
SarahMC, cops are still human beings and as such are subject to poor judgement. Criminals also carry weapons and they act on their own behalf, typically taking whatever they deem is rightfully theirs. I am in no way saying that Dr Gates is a criminal. I'm saying being exposed to something, especially something horrific like what police officers tend to be exposed to as well as what black citizens in crime-ridden neighborhoods are exposed to, constantly can color your perception.
Let's all drop the Socialism, 101, shall we?
So the cop's humanity is his excuse but Gates has no excuse, as he is a Harvard scholar? WTF?
What, exactly, does it have to do with socialism?
Eurekamoment said:
"White men and women who behave poorly get arrested ALL THE TIME."
I am not convinced (although I made the assumption at first blush) that race was directly a factor in Crowley's actions. Obviously any interaction between cops and black Americans occurs under the weight of a long and incredibly tragic history, and Gates obviously was reacting to a personal and community history of harassment and abuse.
"And as far as the argument that Crowley should have "risen above", isn't Gates the one with the Ivy League education and all this extensive knowledge of how cops tend to treat black people?"
You think I meant that Gates was an angel? Where did you get that? I aired the possibility that he was a real jerk, as Crowley reported. So what? He wasn't in his classroom, he was in his house. Crowley was an armed and uniformed cop on duty. Maybe Gates was a real schmo; the guy with the badge, the cuffs and the gun should be able to handle it without an arrest.
"I think they were both wrong. I think they both behaved like children."
I think that's probably true. But I see a difference between a child with a gun and a child with a cane.
aleks, sorry, I was actually responding to several other posts (not yours) which claimed that this was 100% race-related and wouldn't have happened to a white person. I do agree with you about the long & incredibly tragic history but I still maintain they were BOTH reacting to their personal experiences with the other (figuratively).
Please tell me how a police officer would know if a person (black, white, male, female, old, young, strong, frail, etc.) has a weapon. The don't. That's why the can't take ANY bullshit. Their lives are on the line constantly. I couldn't do it.
It is very unlikely that the officer even heard the 911 call. You would need to hear what the dispatcher relayed to him to know if it was him or the dispatcher who added a race. In fact, the information is likely to have gone through at least two levels of dispatchers before reaching the police officer. Of course, I would have to see the facts or logic disrupt anything on feministing.
nestra, ain't that the truth (facts or logic...)!
When I listened to the actual 911 call the caller mentioned what she presumed to be a "hispanic" person & couldn't see the other person. Perhaps they were being targeted, too?
I think, besides a private apology between both "boys", the best course of logic here would be a large dose of empathy from all of us on both "boys" parts.
The neighbor saw two people? Really? And there was only one. Who mistakes one person for two? One person fumbling for keys for two? That’s weird.
And anyway, even if the police officers did not know the race of the person supposedly breaking into a house, then they come across a black man, who identifies himself, who shows ID, who they know lives there, why do they arrest him? Would they arrest a white man? Would they arrest me, a white woman? No they wouldn’t. I bet anything they’d HELP me break into my own house. Did they help him? Did they apologize to him and leave? No.
Yep, no racial profiling here!
There was two people. Gates was delivered by a cab, could not get in the front door, let himself in the back, and then he and the cabby worked form both sides to get in.
And if you had yelled at someone that they don't know who they are messing with you might have been arrested too.
The comments speak my feelings on the matter and I don't care if it was Gates or someone I despise like Limbaugh, you shouldn't be allowed to arrest someone just because you dislike their attitude. That is too much discretionary power for law enforcement to have, further the onus of responsibility has to be on the one with the badge and the gun not to abuse their power.
What I never understood was how defenders of the policeman keep saying that he teaches or taught about racial profiling, as if that means that there is no way he could be responsible for racial profiling himself.
As if a “family values” politician would never have an affair.
As if a homophobic political or religious leader would never have a secret gay liaison.
It happens.
Have y'all read Sgt. Crowley's police report?
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2009/0723092gates1.html
There is no way that if Dr. Gates had acted like that with a neighbor (especially a female one) people would have said he should have gotten away with his behavior.
If Sgt. Crowley had acted like Dr. Gates people would have been howling for his job.
Police are not there to be someones punching bag.
Nothing I have heard or read so far contradicts the police report in a meaningful way.
Steven you are right.
There are none so blind as those who will not see.
Can we get some critical thinking up in here?
Why do you believe the police report?
As I stated, I have not really heard a rebuttal to any facts therein.
I have also read a lot of police reports.
When I was researching sexual assaults reported to the city police I ran into a lot of behavior simualar to Dr. Gates.
Some white sexual assault victims in Alaska were unwilling to participate in a police investigation because they knew the police only cared about Alaska Native victims.
Some Alaska Native sexual assault victims in Alaska were unwilling to participate in a police investigation because they knew the police only cared about white victims.
Some black sexual assault victims in Alaska were unwilling to participate in a police investigation because they knew the police did not care black victims.
So I have read about incidents were people responded like Dr. Gates did, just flying off of the handle as Sgt. Crowley reports.
Now I read thousands of police reports and got some feeling of the officers making the reports therein... and two were complete fuckers when it came to dealing with the sexual assault victims (one was male, the other female). And that was out of a police department of about 200 officers.
For those two, a little bit of asshole stuck out in every police report. I did not see that with Sgt. Crowley's report.
I believe the sergeant's report. I believe that he gave him a verbal warning when they were outside of Dr. Gates residence and Dr. Gates was verbally abuse to the sergeant... intolerably so.
I have no doubt that Dr. Gates would not have acted that way if a black police officer had answered his door... what does that say about him (or my assumptions, if you wish).
Ha, found it!
This also helps:
http://www.thealaskastandard.com/content/cambridge-cops-emotional-response-race-charge-obama
So you always trust police reports because you've read a lot of police reports. Yeah, that makes sense.
Gates' story contradicts the police report. Oh, you wanted a WHITE PERSON to verify his story? Even IF the police report is 100% accurate, the cop still had no reason to ARREST Gates for what amounts to Contempt of Cop. I am done. Good day, sir!
Way to totally gloss over the fact I mentioned the fact I came across fuck up cops.
And what about the Latino that backs up Sgt. Crowley?
Officer Carlos Figueroa backs Sgt. Crowley's account. It was on the last page of the police report I linked too.
You would have known that if you read the report.
Also black officers from Sgt Crowley's police department back up his integrity. One of them, a black female officer said that Dr. Gates is throwing up a smoke screen for his own behavior.
You would have known that if you watch the news feed from CNN I linked to.
That was in comment where I said "Ha, Found it!"
All these facts make things messy, don't they?
And yelling at someone that they don't know who they are messing with is more than "contempt of cop."
There is no way that if Dr. Gates had acted like that with a neighbor (especially a female one) people would have said he should have gotten away with his behavior.
So you're saying that you agreed that he should have been arrested? For essentially mouthing off?
I agree police officers aren't punching bags, but I can think of many public spaces where ordinary people are harassed and verbally abused and need to carry on with no protection whatsoever from the law and very little public sympathy. So why do police officers get more rights than average folk in the street? Isn't part of their training to diffuse situations like this?
Department credibility is further diminished by the fact that charges where dropped. I can imagine a thousand other circumstances where average people would have been sitting in a jail cell over this...
Dr Gates was not "mouthing off" like a teenager does with a parent.
He was being verbally abusive. Sgt Crowley did try and diffuse the situation on the lawn of Dr. Gates house and Dr. Gates insisted on continuing his verbal abuse. How long was Sgt. Crowley suppose to put up with it?
... but I can think of many public spaces where ordinary people are harassed and verbally abused and need to carry on with no protection whatsoever from the law and very little public sympathy.
I think what you are advocating for is the arrest of more people, not less.
And if some of them happen to be Ph.ds that personally know the president, then so be it.
I'm not advocating anything here. I'm questioning why need two standards of behavior from cops and from citizens. It seems again you are taking my comments out of context. Who dropped the charges here, anyway?
And your right since you brought it up. He wasn't mouthing off like a teenager. The last time that was caught on tape, along with a flinging of a sneaker at the cop, a teenager was jumped and beaten in her jail cell.
How long was Sgt. Crowley suppose to put up with it?
He could've simply said, "Sorry for the misunderstanding, sir. Have a good day," and then left. And then he wouldn't have been putting up with it anymore.
Word. Thank you. I've been wondering when somebody was going to bring up that simple point.
"Walk away"--isn't that what civilians are told to do (by law enforcement no less) to avoid escalating confrontations?
He did walk away, Sgt Crowley walked out side and Dr. Gates followed him, not to engage in conversation but to continue to verbally abuse Sgt. Crowley.
Once outside Sgt. Crowley issued a verbal warning to Dr. Gates about his behavior and Dr. Gates continued.
But he didn't leave, which is what he should have done, regardless of what Prof. Gates was saying.
I'm not sure if I believe the police report, but verbal abuse is not a crime regardless.
Really?
Switch thing up in your head, if Sgt Crowley was a female officer would you say the same thing?
And if it is different, why?
Are guys suppose to take more shit because they are tougher? Or women less shit because they are weaker?
Um, no it is not different.
Verbal abuse is not a crime no matter what the gender is of the recipient. It is shitty behavior, yes, but not something that validates an arrest. It is not a crime. Period.
I hereby encourage you to verbally abuse the next person that gets under your skin and don't stop.
Even if the cop come and ask.
You won't be arrested... right?
For your disorderly conduct.
You shouldn't be. That is the whole point.
There is a difference between verbal abuse and threatening/physical abuse, etc. Yelling at someone simply isn't a crime in the United States. There shouldn't even be a debate about this.
P.S. What are you even doing on this website if you feel it necessary to ask questions like this?
"Switch thing up in your head, if Sgt Crowley was a female officer would you say the same thing?
And if it is different, why?
Are guys suppose to take more shit because they are tougher? Or women less shit because they are weaker?"
This whole site is about asking those questions (at least of other people).
People will have an intellectual ideology and fail to integrate that ideology into their everyday lives.
They forget, its to hard to be perfect, excuses abound.
That can be about racism, sexism, maintaining a healthy lifestyle or just driving the speed limit.
If you don't take the time to do those little mental experiments you don't know that much about yourself, really.
Just look at how a lot of people have rushed to judgment on this. Lines were drawn almost instantly along what was 'politically correct'
For some reason it is politically correct to completly disregard one side of the argument and accept whole cloth the other side.
I have to admit, the same thing happened to me. I heard a white cop arrested a black person in their own home and thought "not again, why do the cops keep on doing this stupid shit"
Then I read the police report (with the latino officer backing up Sgt Crowley in his own version of events) and I saw the CNN clip (I linked to it above) were the black officers of the Cambridge Police force backed up Sgt Crowley, and one said that Dr. Gates was effectively using race as a smoke screen for his own bad behavior.
Maybe Dr. Gates has some PTSD. But he does not get to verbally abuse anyone becuase of it.
And in what world is verbal abuse sanctioned under the law?
You can't keep your job, your children or if you are married, even stay in your own home if you verbally abuse the wrong person.
If you verbally abuse someone the coppers will come, try and defuse the situation, and when that does not happen you will get a disorderly conduct.
The police cannot leave a situation that has not been defused. They might be held liable for the disorderly persons conduct and sued.
And then every one would cry out "Why didn't the police stop them? They were there and they just left"
There is no way that if Dr. Gates had acted like that with a neighbor (especially a female one) people would have said he should have gotten away with his behavior.
There is no way that if Sgt. Crowley had acted like that with a neighbor (especially a female one) people would have said he should have gotten away with his behavior.
But Sgt. Crowley encountered a black man. Not a white woman. Do you honestly think he would have acted exactly the same if it were a white woman? Get a clue.
If Dr. Gates would have changed his behavior for a white female or for a black officer of any sex then he was the one that acted racially.
So well put. Of the 5 encounters I've had with police, 2 were legit (I was speeding), 1 the officer was rude as though I was wasting his time by, you know, REPORTING A CRIME, and 2 the officers were actually just plain 100% wrong with what they were telling me.
But I never spoke up, exactly because I'm afraid of this. I'm afraid of looking "disorderly" or "violent" even when I want to scream my head off at an idiot. And I'm a short white girl! Sheesh!
On a tangent, I'm feeling bad for the neighbor who called made the initial call. She's had words put into her mouth and has been unfairly villainized and has apparently been threatened and insulted by strangers over this whole mess.
Is anybody inviting her out for a beer (or cola, since she says she doesn't like beer?).
Gosh, what a lose-lose situation for everybody.
Spike, no kidding. I think I'd rather be hassled by the police than the American press!!!
"...That is not hyperbole. If you are willing to grant any individual with a gun and a badge the authority to arrest people because they don't like them, then you and I share no common principle on liberty and the right of people to be free from oppression. None..."
Right on! I felt bad about the case similarly too, but this says it way better than I could!
Thanks for posting this. That the argument so quickly become one of race indeed missed an equally important aspect of the incident. Obviously, both discussions are vital.
I'm glad that the fact that the neighbor did not refer to race in her 911 call is finally dripping out through the mainstream media. That woman has been subjected to a lot of crap for doing the right thing. It's unfortunate that now, the Gates home is more or less wide open to burglary from just about anyone. Who would call 911 in the future?
And since I'm one of those irritating grammar sticklers: it's "blind sided," not "blind sighted," meaning to that something catches you unaware on your "blind side." Yeah, I know I should just delete this bit and post the comment about the content of the post, but I'm leaving it in in a bro-sisterly spirit of mutual support.