The Professor Henry Gates Controversy
This incident is a case of both sides behaving badly.
When Professor Gates was asked by the police officer to show his ID and show that it was OK to be be in that home, he overreacted. He assumed that the police officer was motivated by racism. He overreacted and became belligerent.
The fact is that Officer Crowley was responding to a report of a break-in. Crime in Cambridge is low and it is an overwhelmingly white community. A black man appears out of place.
On the other hand, Crowley overreacted and arrested Gates for disorderly conduct. This charge (along with loitering) has been historically used by police to arrest those they don't like. Unless Gates threatened him with bodily harm, or he feared for life, Crowley should have walked away. Once Gates showed who he was and that this was his home, the incident should have been over.
Although both behaved badly, Crowley had a special responsibility to defuse the incident. Crowley has the legal power to arrest and incarcerate. When that occurs, even if the charges are later dropped, the arrest record can come back to haunt the victim for years to come.
The moral of the story here is that one should keep one's anger in check when dealing with the police, and the police do not have to arrest every belligerent person they encounter.
Since some crucial facts are missing from this depiction I don't see how anyone (including our president) could make a judgment of the appropriate behavior. If either Crowley or Gates was particularly abusive or whether, when confronted with the facts, there was any attempt to lower the temperature of the situation. As I heard it Gates was particularly belligerent and refused to calm down, leaving the officer little choice but to arrest Gates. The same situation would result in the same results if any one of us was pulled over and we were particularly belligerent and refused to calm down. It is usually a good practice to let authority go through whatever they have to (unless there is a clear case of harassment -- which I don't believe was the case here). One of the arresting officers was black and everyone who was debriefed presented a consistent story. Once residence was established, the officer apologized for the intrusion (based on a complaint from a neighbor)and Gates resumed his tirade. Some leeway needs to be given the authorities to protect themselves (and to some degree to keep others from getting the idea that 'venting' at an officer on the scene is appropriate).
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The arresting officer's report is readily available online, so we actually do have Crowley's official story. Even if Prof. Gates acted EXACTLY as Officer Crowley described him, there is no law against being rude and yelling at or insulting a police officer in your own home (or on the street, for that matter). Officer Crowley BROKE THE LAW by arresting Prof. Gates for no legal reason. We are not a police state in which the cops can do as they wish -- they are supposed to follow the law, and Crowley did not here. Gates denies that he acted the way Crowley described, but even if he did, he has a legal right to be a pompous ass. Crowley does not have a legal right to arrest someone for being a pompous ass. (And, on top of all that, in the entire history of the city of Cambridge, I doubt that any white Harvard professor has ever been arrested in his own home for being a pompous ass, and believe me, a lot of them can be pompous asses.) End of story.
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