Arresting Developments: The Harvard Professor and the Cop
OK, the president said it: the Cambridge, Mass. police department acted “stupidly” in arresting Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates at his own home. Since then, Obama has backpedaled, but the controversy has only heated up. On the surface, it certainly seems like a case of racial profiling: neighbors call the cops when they see two black men apparently trying to break into a house. It turns out the good professor lived in that house–obviously the cop-calling neighbors didn’t know or recognize him–and lost his keys after returning from a trip abroad. His beefy limo driver helped him jimmy the door.
Then the cop came a-calling, and I must digress. My dad taught me how to deal with police officers: respectfully but firmly. Due to this training, I’ve only gotten one ticket in my entire life, despite having been pulled over numerous times. All the while knowing this: if I was a black man driving a nice car, I’m sure there would have been at least one incident of being handcuffed face down on the pavement, for DWB. It’s happened to many men I know, although thankfully, not recently.
But Gates apparently went off on the Sgt. James Crowley, rightly or wrongly, and instead of keeping a lid on it, Crowley whipped out the ‘cuffs and the arrest soon escalated to epic proportions, although the disorderly conduct charges against Gates were quickly dropped. Crowley, wrongly, stood his ground, refusing to apologize. In the course of what agenda, I’m not sure. No crime was committed, no physical assault was underway and there was no real reason to arrest Gates, despite his hot temper, which is not a criminal act. You may have expected more restraint on both sides, but you would have been very wrong. And now, Gates–after backing off from initially threatening to sue the PD– has accepted Obama’s invite (they’re actually friends, so not a big stretch) to come to the White House and have a beer with Crowley. We’ll see if the sergeant can man up, see the larger picture and make things right. They both should. And then maybe we work on the real issue of race relations between law enforcement, and law-abiding citizens.
