Racial Profiling a Harvard Professor?

nighttimer said:

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What's next? Barack Obama busted for loitering on the White House lawn?

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Not just loitering, but smoking as well.

This story has a a link to the police report: http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2009/07/harvard.html

Interesting. If the police offficer's account is correct, it would seem Gates was being a complete @ss. If not, then Gates would seem to have a pretty valid complaint, imo. But then, there were other people present for some of this, so I guess we'll get some more info.

What? Like asking Black people to carry their deeds to everything they own in their pocket is unreasonable? Jeez, folks can turn anything into racism.

exhibiting loud and tumultuous behavior

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If it were me being arrested outside of my own home (for nothing)? If race might have been involved?

"A valid complaint" is the goddamn least of it. I'd sue the whole state.



AMC

robeiae said:

This story has a a link to the police report: http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2009/07/harvard.html

Interesting. If the police offficer's account is correct, it would seem Gates was being a complete @ss. If not, then Gates would seem to have a pretty valid complaint, imo. But then, there were other people present for some of this, so I guess we'll get some more info.

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This is definitely a he said/he said situation. Gates sounds like a pompous jerk in the police report; the officer sounds like a racist pig according to Gates. Who knows?

The officer did have to respond to and investigate the call, which has nothing to do with race.

It's a strange one, imho, because there was no offense committed, and the man was in his own house. Can you not be argumentative if you are innocent and just being questioned in your own house?

OTOH, yelling at the police is one of those Just Don't kind of rules.

OTOH, yelling at the police is one of those Just Don't kind of rules.

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Just Don't yell at the police. It should be, IMO, why do you have to yell at anyone to get your point across? I expect eloquence from a Harvard professor. Those police officers are people. Their uniforms shouldn't change that.

But I would be just as outraged and being confronted by a police officer doesn't change that either.



AMC

Different version

"An officer ordered the man to identify himself, and Gates refused, according to the report. Gates began calling the officer a racist and said repeatedly, "This is what happens to black men in America."

Officers said they tried to calm down the 58-year-old academic, who responded, "You don't know who you're messing with," according to the police report."



http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=8127109

If you read the police reports from two different officers they were responding to a call about a break-in in progress, which is their job. According to the reports he became enraged immediately...not after harassment or persistent questioning.

But, like I said it's he said/he said. I'd bet that we'll get corroborating reports from the many witnesses that gathered on the sidewalk, including the woman who reported the robbery.

I kind of wonder why this reporter didn't interview the witnesses and only got the story from the parties involved.

Robert Toy said:

Different version

"An officer ordered the man to identify himself, and Gates refused, according to the report. Gates began calling the officer a racist and said repeatedly, "This is what happens to black men in America."

Officers said they tried to calm down the 58-year-old academic, who responded, "You don't know who you're messing with," according to the police report."



http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=8127109

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Yeah, as a cop I'd be pretty upset about this situation. Being on the wrong end of a racism accusation has to be among the top of everyone's "list of things to avoid".

Maybe if he'd just let the officers do their jobs, it would have been a total non-issue and they all would have gone to bed happy that night.

The professor has issues and he brought them to this situation. You don't start going off on race because somebody asks you to identify yourself. I had the cops show up at my door when I hopped through a window (forgot my keys and a neighbor didn't realize it was me breaking into my own home) they asked me for ID, they were just doing their job.

This is the sort of story where the addition or elision of a single detail can completely change your sympathies -- e.g. the officer had a hand on his service-weapon the entire time, or the resident had white powder under his nose. But that aside...

I've worked with police and university professors, and read the police report. The key indisputable element for me is that the officer was called to the scene, and having been called, was duty-bound to investigate. He had no choice, regardless of what the professor said. Even if he believed that the professor was probably the resident, he had to investigate the facts. That's his job.

Whatever happened after that came down to peoples' behaviours at the time. According to the police report, the incident occurred at 12:44. The incident report was entered very promptly at 13:21. There was no time for the officer to concoct a story about this, and clearly the officer felt that he was acting lawfully at all times -- else he'd have taken more time with his report. He probably didn't even have time to realise that his report would appear in the media.

While ethnicity clearly played a part in the story, I suspect that it was the professor who initiated it. That's evident in the way his responses were documented in the police report -- playing ethnicity, superior social status, disabled and uncomfortable. There's no evidence that he was ever respectful or sympathetic to the officer's job, while there's ample evidence that the officer was respectful and sympathetic to the professor's status as home-owner, and to his comfort.

The alternative version: that an officer was called to a middle-class property where a middle-class and articulate person present was likely to be the resident, and despite that, initiated aggression and harrassment in front of witnesses and thus risked his job, then typed up an incident report exactly as he remembered it within 40 minutes of the arrest, risking a conflict of story with another officer called to the scene -- while remotely possible, just doesn't seem credible.

My reading? The professor was having a bad day, saw a chance to take it out on a public servant who was bound to do his job. He pulled status and superior education, overstepped and the officer did as he lawfully should have done -- and did it reasonably well. He secured the home, got the prof his cane, recuffed him in front for his comfort... the only thing he either didn't try or wasn't able to, was talk the prof. down from his arrogance. Hopefully on reflection, the prof. will do that himself. While public sympathies might convince him that he's a local hero, my hope is that his own good sense might eventually lead him to realise that once police are called to a scene they have to do their job, as frustrating as that job can sometimes be.

I'd like to hope that he'll pull his head in, offer the cop an apology and rethink how he acts in future.

This is the equivalent of DWB.

I do not believe the police report. This is so very much out of character for him--I've had two classes with him.

Ah! What about the 'your mama' comment [or whatever it was exactly]?? I couldn't see that with most professors in a serious situation, but clearly I don't know the man.

ETA: Oh, and the quote-disabled thing kind of got me. I mean, if someone uses a cane and is afraid of falling if handcuffed, maybe that's just true. I'm disabled, and sometimes you do have to bring it up, no matter if you hate the attention it brings.

I've worked with police and university professors, and read the police report. The key indisputable element for me is that the officer was called to the scene, and having been called, was duty-bound to investigate. He had no choice, regardless of what the professor said. Even if he believed that the professor was probably the resident, he had to investigate the facts. That's his job.

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According to the linked-to Police Report, Gates submitted identification. So did he cooperate or didn't he?

playing ethnicity, superior social status, disabled and uncomfortable.

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A case of saying what you mean? Like there was something for him to be guilty of, when there clearly wasn't.

There's no evidence that he was ever respectful or sympathetic to the officer's job, while there's ample evidence that the officer was respectful and sympathetic to the professor's status as home-owner, and to his comfort.

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And you take a police officer's first-person account of Gates' actions as being 100% factual. We don't know how respectful the officer was except on one account (placing the handcuffs in front), but that's after the guy is arrested for disorderly conduct. So after being humiliated in a number of different ways, OK, here comes some respect.

I don't buy it a bit. Disorderly conduct for expressing outrage to a police officer is plain ol' bullshit IMO.


AMC

Gates is a rhetorician. He is precise in his language. This is so very much out of character--and yes, I've seen him at parties.

Gates is a rhetorician. He is precise in his language. This is so very much out of character--and yes, I've seen him at parties.

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Out of curiosity, have you seen him pissed off or humiliated?



AMC

At the moment it may be a he said/he said situation. But according to the police report, there was radio traffic.

There's gonna be tapes. Or, more to the point, digital recordings that either will, or will not back up some of their stories.

AMCrenshaw said:

Gates submitted identification and not without well-warranted outrage. And you take a police officer's first-person account of Gates' actions as being 100% factual.

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When I first read the article I thought it was going to be nasty. Then I read the police report and thought that the article was a beat-up. Other than the circumstance (dark-skinned professor arrested by [presumably] light-skinned cop) appealing to popular biases, I haven't yet seen a shred of factual evidence to support the ethnic angle here. I certainly don't see securing the prof's premises, getting him a cane, handcuffing him in front, and then finishing an incident report within 40 mins of the event as being consistent with ethnic hatred. Where's the scorn? The desire to humiliate? I don't see it.

Home-owners who've lost their keys have bad days, regardless of ethnicity. Home-owners generally don't like cops on their property uninvited, regardless of ethnicity. Cops sometimes have to come onto peoples' premises regardless, to ensure the safety of people and property. People are sometimes cranky enough and/or dumb enough to try to intimidate them while they're doing their jobs, and they sometimes respond by arresting them because cops can't do their jobs properly when citizens think it's okay to intimidate them.

However, I have worked with a lot of academics and alas, I've seen a fair quota of bullying behaviour that later turns into cowardice. Lisa's had the prof. for classes. I'm sure that he's a decent man most of the time. I also know the difference between academic persona and personal behaviour, because I've worked and socialised with academics for nearly three decades. Forget racial profiling, academic psychology frequently to runs to idealism, bullying, self-entitlement and cowardice -- and generally in that order. It was seeing those elements in the police report and in exactly that order that made it ring true for me. I believed the cop's portrayal of the character because of the academic characters I know.

All I can say is that if the cop's lying about the dialogue then he should quit his job and become an author.

Some may disagree (I'm sure), but I think someone should be able to yell at a PO and not get arrested for it. The officer had to go back up the flight of stairs to get onto the porch to make the arrest. This means that the type of yelling Gates was doing wasn't the "in your face" kind. As frustrating as the PO may have found Gates (and I find Gates frustrating to listen to on TV at times) he should have kept on walking.

maybe i'm just being thick, but if a cop's sent to investigate a break-in and then questions a guy who's breaking in, how exactly is that "racial profiling"?

did they by-pass several white guys trying to get in the windows and the chimney to focus solely on the professor?

nighttimer said:

There are too many facts not yet on the table (and only one side of the story being told so far) to jump to Gates defense or the cops.

But I do believe somebody is telling a bald-faced lie here. It remains to be seen whom exactly that is.

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i would hope that you recognize that the wording of your thread title and initial comments contradict the statement above.

escritora said:

Some may disagree (I'm sure), but I think someone should be able to yell at a PO and not get arrested for it.

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Cops are normally good at handling raised voices, but every cop I know bridles at intimidation. Cops can't do their job when citizens try to intimidate them.

It's illustrative that in the police report, this cop didn't consider an arrest until he was leaving the premises and the resident followed, yelling and demanding a name. He also reported that he gave the resident a chance to cool off and back down. That's probably not required by law, but it is normally expected as a matter of procedure.

The 'give me your name' demand is pure threat. A citizen doesn't need to get an officer's name to make a complaint. Just state the time and place of the incident and it will match up with the incident report. In this case, there was only one officer on the scene for most of the time. 'Give me your name' is what people do to waiters and clerks and public servants when they want to make a personal threat. I'm guessing, but I reckon that it was that threat which triggered the arrest.