Racialist outrage and embarrassment in Cambridge!
(SEE the UPDATE at the end of the post.)
What an outrage! What an embarrassment! A couple of nights ago [actually it was midday], Cambridge, Massachusetts policemen, responding to a call from a concerned neighbor, arrived at the house of Harvard Prof Henry Louis Gates, Jr., to find a couple of chaps pushing in at the front door.
What, in that policeman’s shoes, would you have done? I would have done exactly what the chap in question did: “Wot’s all this?” followed by a demand for some identification.
Here comes the outrage, and the embarrassment. 95 percent of it belongs to Harvard’s famous Professor of Afro-American studies, who responded to the request for identification with “Why, because I’m a black man in America?” and then, having produced the requested documents, embarked on making a loud scene with the police outside his house. Result: arrest for disorderly conduct, handcuffs, and a free ride in a police cruiser. The other 5 percent of the outrage and embarrassment, I hasten to add, belongs to the Reverend Al Shaprton (I always giggle a little at that conjunction: “reverend” and “Al Sharpton,” don’t you?) and other representatives of what Michael Meyers, in one of the best pieces about the incident, called “the race industry.” Gates should “skip the histrionics,” Meyers advised in his column in the New York Daily News.
Calling the cops when one sees suspicious activities underway is exactly what good neighbors do. It is what a woman who works nearby did – and all indications are she acted in good faith. When cops follow up on such a report by asking suspicious persons who’ve seemingly gained entry to a vacant house to present ID, they are doing their jobs.
Nevertheless, Gates and the race industry spokesmen who’ve rushed to his defense have leaped to the fast conclusion that this was an incident of racial profiling – and that one of America’s most famed black academics was a victim of police misconduct. Choice reaction by the Rev. Al Sharpton: “I’ve heard of driving while black, and I’ve heard of shopping while black. But I’ve never heard of living in a home while black.”
Give me a break.
Mr. Meyers, alas, is unlikely to get a break in this case. Instead, we’re going to get a cartload of hypersensitive articles like this one from The Washington Post, which reports Professor Gates’s side of the story at great length but leaves the police version hanging in a limbo of racist implication.
Let’s be fair Roger, if America had no racialist past, and all traces of racialism (at least white racialism) had disappeared today, then Prof. Skip and Rev. Al would have all the fame and prosperity of your neighborhood garage mechanic. It’s just not fair to expect them to disparage and deny the foundations of their fame and fortune.
Worse, it’s downright heartless.
Gates has made an utter ass of himself, but I fear that no one (that he would actually believe) will have the guts to tell him that. Everybody – including, I suspect, a large portion of the African-American community – is laughing at him, but the powers-that-be at Harvard and the unfortunate local police department will probably just knuckle under, pat him on the head, and ooze sympathy for his dreadful plight. Who knows, maybe Bill Cosby will be the only one to tell Gates that the emperor has no clothes.
I was going to make a comment, but I’ve been checked by John Frary
Who will pay? The police will pay, not only in public and in the press, but in the added stress endured by Cambridge officers of all races who have to weather this fresh onslaught and various demands on their loyalties. It is a price the police pay over and over and over again — with a great deal of graciousness towards each other and the public that goes utterly unacknowledged.
Too bad Gates and that criminal Sharpton do not even aspire to similar dignity.
“…policemen, responding to a call from a concerned neighbor, arrived at the house of Harvard Prof Henry Louis Gates, Jr., to find a couple of chaps pushing in at the front door.”
I dunno. According to the Times report, Gates was already in the house, with the door closed, when the police came knocking.
‘I always giggle a little at that conjunction: “reverend” and “Al Sharpton,” don’t you?’
Yeah, a little, but I positively used to gag at the conjunction, “Rabbi Meyer Kahane.”
“…he is the Yada-yada-yada Professor of racial grievance &c &c at Harvard.”
Ah, Roger, how reassuring! You always manage to take a valid argument and bring it down to the gutter level. Tell me, would you similarly characterize the chairs of Holocaust studies?
Like any other Progressive academic, Gates knows discord and racial division is his business. He is just minding the store- never mind that it dishonors a police officer and tears another hole in the social fabric.
I am becoming convinced that it is not enough to point out the inconsistencies and untruths. We must to the do the deeper work of smashing the bunkers that they retreat to when they are faced with real arguments like this.
In my post of yesterday, A Most Savage Compassion http://www.breathofthebeast.blog…9/07/most-savage-compassion.html I talk about this in some detail. Progressives will still get by with the tired old BS when you try to talk sense to them because they retreat behind their “good intentions” and immunize themselves from evidence with waves of emotion.
Here are the last few lines of the post:
“I look at my fellow classical liberals and say, “you poor bastards”. It is time to break the strangle hold of compassion by showing how savage and deadly it has become in service of a theory of humanity as opposed to a real understanding of and empathy for human beings.”
Unless we can revel “Compassion for Humanity” (read: immunity from suspicion for black people) as the antithesis of “Liberty and Opportunity for the Individual” and convince the old Classical Liberal base to come home from the Progressive camp, all the accuracy and fairness in the world will be falling on deaf ears.
Re #1: John, I guess you’ve been reading radical right literature, Because what you’ve written is exactly how anti-Semites disparage people like Elie Wiesel and what they call the “Holocaust industry.”
CORRECTION: In my latter post, “radical right” could be replaced with “radical left.” I don’t want to slight the morons on either end of the spectrum.
A crackling good tirade, worthy of Mencken. Of course, the real story was a little more nuanced. (See my centrist view of the incident at newmoderate.com.) Sure, Gates made an ass of himself by immediately playing the race card. But why did the cop continue to question the Eminent Professor once he furnished his ID? I think both sides overreacted, and it’s a sad commentary on race relations in Obama’s “post-racial America.”
RACE CRAZE –
California “Apologizes” to Chinese Americans
———
see: http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20090721/us_time/08599191198100
I agree: “Race” has morphed into an industry in the US, in the same way that “Alzheimers” and “Autism” has.
Alzheimers used to be called “memory loss” “old age”, “dotage” “not all there” and so on.
Not anymore.
Now you are “diagnosed” with Alzheimers at the whiff of the simplest kind of forgetfullness – and all kinds of laughable “cures” and “medications” and “care” and so on are immediately prescribed.
Ditto with “autism”. The slightest veering from the “norm” in children is now considered a serious disease, bringing with it all the paraphernalia of “modern medicine”.
As a child, I used to bang my head against walls for long periods of time. Everybody ignored me until – until I grew out of it ! (mirabili dictu)
Were I a child today, you can bet I’d be going back and forth to see doctors, given drugs and so on.
Ditto with “the environment” and the whole “green” moverment, but I won’t go into that here.
I’m surprised two cards have NOT been played in the reporting of this story:
1) The blame the whistle-blower card: Was the cop-caller white or black?
2) The counter-factual card : would the caller have called were it a white man breaking in?
I could go on, and on, and on but, unlike you Americans, when I see a cesspool I don’t want to wallow in it!
The denizens of a remote country pub in Ireland hear screams of “Fire, Fire” from outside.
They rush toward the screams in a drunken en masse, only to discover it’s old Rory who has fallen into the septic tank!
They fish the old bugger out…
“So why did you scream “Fire, Fire”?, you old fart,” they ask, annoyed!
“Well would you have come had I shouted “Shit, Shit”?”
It seems Mr. Gates and Mr Sharpton are shouting “Fire” when they really wallowing in “Shit”
There are undoubtedly cases of rush to diagnosis, but Alzheimers and Autism are real diseases. I’ve observed both up close in my own family.
>>>>I dunno. According to the Times report, Gates was already in the house, with the door closed, when the police came knocking.
As opposed to what? To burglars who force a door into a house and then go away without entering it?
The police got a report of someone forcefully breaking into a house. OF COURSE they’re going to check who is in the house for ID. What did you expect?
>>>>>>>>Ah, Roger, how reassuring! You always manage to take a valid argument and bring it down to the gutter level. Tell me, would you similarly characterize the chairs of Holocaust studies?
Well, I’m Jewish, and *I* would. Don’t tell anybody, but 99% of department who end with “Studies” are not real departments, but rather a shelter for mediocre folks who can’t get a job in a real department.
Where do you think are the good historians found — INCLUDING those historians specializing in the holocaust, women, or black people? In the history department… or in various “black studies”, “women studies”, or “holocaust studies” departments?
Take, for example, Richard Evans, the #1 historian (probably) of the Third Reich nowadays. He wouldn’t be caught dead in a “Holocaust Studies” department — he’s a history professor. Compare him to Deborah Lipstadt, the “Jewish and Holocaust Studies” professor. Read his books and her books — I have — and see for yourself the difference between a first-rate mind and a mediocre one.
Lipstadt became famous when Irving stupidly sued her for libel for calling him a holocaust denier. But just because that trial became a wonderful proof, if any was needed, of the truth of the holocaust and what a racist liar Irving is, should not blind us to the fact that she is, simply, a lousy scholar.
And who did the masterful work proving in detail how Irving distorted the evidence? Not Lipstadt… but Prof. Evans.
bibio44:
Gates was already in the house, with the door closed, when the police came knocking… Ah, then the police had no business asking him for ID?
As for Rabbi Meyer Kahane, was Roger saying something nice about him?
As for the chairs of Holocaust studies, you have some links about Jews asking police, “Is this how Jews are treated in America?”
That is to say, why are you countering his statements with unrelated nonsense? Did Roger even imply that Jews would not have reacted this way?
Perhaps you don’t understand the law. If a police officer issues a lawful order, you are required to follow it, the policeman’s attitude has nothing to do with the matter. If a policeman asks for my ID I do not require a pretty please. Gates is a lowlife race-baiter, accept it.
Future historians may well note that the high-water mark of feeling good and comfy about race in America came at noon January 22nd, 2009 and began to recede shortly thereafter.
Louis Gates seems to be grossly undereducated for his position. For all his talk of scholarship, he only seems to have a B.A. I think if he were 100% Irish, instead of only 50%, he would be teaching high school in the Bronx.
A case like this can be adjudicated only by a wise Latina.
My gut response to this was that it’s a shocking and disgraceful episode. Then I looked at it again and simply dismissed it as pathetic.
But that all changed when I read that Obama said the police acted “stupidly.”
This was an outrageously irresponsible remark that will not soon be forgotten by anyone with a backbone, by anyone not easily intimidated by race-baiters. I realize that we’re not allowed to acknowledge the fact that such people exist today in America, but they do. Lots of them.
In any event, what we do know is that the Boston and Cambridge Police Departments are in an uproar within their ranks. And with good reason. The President of the United States has just served notice to each and every Police Department in the country that he is against them. He has also served notice to unlawful blacks that he is for them.
He even said he didn’t have all the facts, but went right ahead anyway and condemned THE POLICE! Could you imagine if a White President in the same situation condemned the accused on insufficient evidence.
Forget Gates (easy to do), and forget the accusations against the Police. It is the behavior of the President that stands the most.
This is not good folks. Not good at all.
My gut response to this was that it’s a shocking and disgraceful episode. Then I looked at it again and simply dismissed it as pathetic.
But that all changed when I read that Obama said the police acted “stupidly.”
This was an outrageously irresponsible remark that will not soon be forgotten by anyone with a backbone, by anyone not easily intimidated by race-baiters. I realize that we’re not allowed to acknowledge the fact that such people exist today in America, but they do. Lots of them.
In any event, what we do know is that the Boston and Cambridge Police Departments are in an uproar within their ranks. And with good reason. The President of the United States has just served notice to each and every Police Department in the country that he is against them. He has also served notice to unlawful blacks that he is for them.
He even said he didn’t have all the facts, but went right ahead anyway and condemned THE POLICE! Could you imagine if a White President in the same situation condemned the accused on insufficient evidence.
Forget Gates (easy to do), and forget the accusations against the Police. It is the behavior of the President that stands out the most.
This is not good folks. Not good at all.
Hey, all you burglars! Good pickings in Cambridge! And don’t worry about the cops; they’ve been cowed into inaction as in the United Kingdom, especially if you are or can impersonate any minority group. They’ll just keep on driving by while you make out like, well, bandits.
(Here’s the thing: Had the police not responded to the call for whatever reason and it had been an actual burglary, they’d have been racists for not investigating the robbery at a black man’s home. But that wouldn’t have made national headlines. So I’m sure they’ve learned their lesson.)
I was accosted in my neighborhood by a couple of police patrolling in a black and white unit. They came to my door and questioned me in a beligerent manner. They were impolite and bordering on the abusive and I was on the verge of losing it because of my outrage, on my own property, inside my house, etc.
But then I figured that this will get me nowhere, so I offered proper identification and spoke calmly and quietly to them answering their questions. Almost immediately, their confrontational attitude ceased and we closed our episode with their apologizing for “their coffee nerves”.
I did not back down nor did I feel that I lost my dignity in responding the way I did. It’s just that I wasn’t going to get anywhere with these two guys if I chose to confront them.
Oh yeah, I am white and the two cops were black.
So?
Rick – “Sure, Gates made an ass of himself by immediately playing the race card. But why did the cop continue to question the Eminent Professor once he furnished his ID?”
The ignorant professor continued to scream and berate the cop in front of other police and citizens. He was screaming so loud he couldn’t even hear the police officer giving him his name which the ignorant professor repeatedly demanded from him in a belligerent screaming tone. The commotion was so great that the policeman couldn’t even communicate over his radio. Hopefully the police have the commotion on tape. Just for a fun experiment today, pick a policeman at random and scream and shout in his face and call him names and see what happens. VERY many of the problems that “black Americans” have with police stem from their refusal to respect the authority of the police. They may be acting, particularly the dumber ones, out of a true belief that they are being singled out only because of the color of their skin but that is no excuse. This ignorant professor is a sickening example.
SoberHorseThief has this right – there is now a zero chance that a break-in to Gates’ house will be reported by a neighbor or responded to by the police.
Not A Educated Man:
Your comments are perfect for a person with such a moniker.
“Here are some salient facts. The house was Gates’ house. From what I understand, no one disputes that prior to his arrest and while in the house, Gates provided proof that the house was his. When you have those facts and the guy whose house it is ends up getting arrested, I think that’s prima facie evidence of bad police work.”–Josh Marshall
All sides were wrong. Gates was wrong to act like a jerk, the neighbors were wrong in thinking all black people look alike, but the cops were wrong too in arresting a man ON HIS OWN PROPERTY for being an a-hole to them.
Had Gates been Sean Hannity, all the talk would be of the Obama Police State right now.
I have a feeling Prof. Gates now fancies himself the Rosa Parks for the 21st century. I can almost hear the wheels in his head turning with visions of his home being turned into a mini-museum with snapshots of his life and his hardscrabble road to the halls of academia followed up with a nice bronze statue of himself out on the National Mall with him looking longingly towards the Supreme Court building.
The more I hear about this “incident”, the more I think Mr. Gates just saw a golden goose fall into his lap. Work it, Mr. Gates, work it!!
It’s obvious you guys never had to deal with the Cambridge cops. I’ve only had a couple of dealings with them, but the last was an eye rolling doozy over when I did a U-turn to grab an open parking spot on the other side of the street. That very nearly escalated to a Gates-style confrontation when I got a lot of random, Chief Wiggum-style attitude from a Cambridge cop who was heading into a nearby pizza shop.
Dedalus “This is not good folks. Not good at all.”
Perhaps this will finally wake people up. We have got to get to the point that “white” people can stand up for their culture and themselves without being painted as racist or a KKK member, etc. etc. This whole business about minorities claiming special rights, even to the point of getting an undeserved seat on the Supreme Court, has got to stop. Obama throwing in with the ignorant professor should awake a few more. All affirmative action programs should be stopped. Let everyone rise to their natural level. If that means some minorities are less represented in certain professions then so be it.
For those who believe in God, consider this. On Judgment Day many blacks will be very shocked to be condemned for playing the victim and hating whitey and all the rest of it. It is a sin, and they are in danger of losing their soul if they don’t get past this before they die. But they won’t repent of it since they don’t believe it is a sin, they believe they are the righteous victim blameless in every way. Spending their entire life wallowing in this bitterness and hatred of whites will surely bring them to ruin in the end.
#24,
I don’t blame Gates for being angry to be quite honest. If police hassled me on my property, I’d be livid too. I’ve seen white people freak out on police for things as small as traffic tickets, so I can understand why someone might be angry for being accused on breaking and entering on his own property.
Ah the old cry of ‘RACIST’ the last resort of the Charlatan and cheap huckster. So its no wonder our ‘libtard’ friends are all here backing the Charlatan up.
Along with the ‘driving while Black’ charges there is one which Obambi is definitely guilty of ‘ Having an offensive wife’ LOL
Wrong Middleman, the ignorant professor was the entire problem with this from start to finish. The blameshifting onto others for all sorts of problems in the “black” community has got to stop. He calmly explains the situation to the police officers and they leave, that is the end of it. It is downright evil to blame anyone other than him.
Obambi’s part in this is disgusting and unforgiveable opening his mouth and shouting Racism without even knowing the full story is beyond irresponsible it is downwright CRIMINAL
“For those who believe in God, consider this. On Judgment Day many whites will be very shocked to be condemned for playing the victim and hating Muslims and all the rest of it. It is a sin, and they are in danger of losing their soul if they don’t get past this before they die. But they won’t repent of it since they don’t believe it is a sin, they believe they are the righteous victim blameless in every way. Spending their entire life wallowing in this bitterness and hatred of Muslims will surely bring them to ruin in the end.”
Barack Obama has now burned all his bridges with middle of the road and conservative white Americans. His poll numbers with them should drop from 41% approval to under 35%. As a practical matter, his presidency is finished. Obama is already a sitting duck after only six months in office. He may resign before the end of the year.
my two favorite parts of the police report were, “so I told [Gates] was leaving and if he had anything to talk to me about he could do so outside.”
and
“[once he was in handcuffs] I asked him whether he wanted me to [lock] his front door for him because it was wide open. He told me it was unlockable because of a previous burglary attempt.”
lol. jackass.
Mr. Obama’s response to the situation is clearly racist. As the chief law enforcement officer in the country, it is Mr. Obama’s duty to uphold the law and execute justice. In the case in question, without knowing the facts or allowing due process, he has verbally charged the white police officer with acting “stupidly.” Clearly Mr. Obama has sided with Mr. Gates because he is black. Would the incident have merited any outrage from Mr. Obama if the situation had been reversed or if both parties were of the same race? Justice and the law should be blind to both and Mr. Obama should allow due process before he descends from on high with his official ruling.
jharp, your cute twisting of the quote doesn’t work on many levels. Muslims deny Christ and will face Judgment for that, of course, since Islam and Christianity are mutually exclusive, basic logic demands that if the Koran is true, then the Bible is false so any and all blather about anything in the Bible about God or Christ or Judgment day is meaningless. But the fact is that most “whites” or Christians don’t “hate” Muslims, they just, if they know the truth about it, hate Islam. Islam has done more to set back the work of Christ than Satan himself, more lives have been destroyed by Islam than any other ideology in the history of man. And no one wallows in bitterness and hatred more than Muslims themselves, the very ideology of Islam is one of bitterness and hatred, and it will bring them to ruin in the end. Nice try though, cute.
jharp, if you are not a Muslim then based upon your comment you are a dhimmi, look it up.
5. bibio44 wrote:
“…policemen, responding to a call from a concerned neighbor, arrived at the house of Harvard Prof Henry Louis Gates, Jr., to find a couple of chaps pushing in at the front door.”
I dunno. According to the Times report, Gates was already in the house, with the door closed, when the police came knocking.
Peter asks: Does it matter either way? A report of suspicious activity was made by a neighbor. Are the cops supposed to show up at the house, see the door is closed, and say, “Gee, we don’t see any suspicious activity here. Let’s go have a donut!”?
No! They are supposed to do their job, which is to investigate whether the occupants of the house have the legal right to be there!
If the professor (and I use the term loosely) had simply presented his ID and the police confirmed he was home’s owner, everyone would have gone about their business QED.
But no, this so-called professor who has built his entire career on mining racialism and ‘white guilt’ starts yelling at the police who were only doing their job, calling them racists because a concerned neighbor filed a report.
What would he have done if the closest police that had responded were black? Would he STILL have cried out racism?
Or perhaps he would prefer the next time someone reports suspicious persons breaking into his house that the police simply ignore the report and let all his possesstions be stolen?
Or would he call that racist too?
WELL PROFESSER GATES SHOULD BE GREATFUL TO THE COPS BECASUE BASICLY HE HELPED THEM TO SOLVE A CRIME THAT WOULD OF BEEN PERPATRATED AGAINST HIM. WELL DID’NT PROFESSAR GATE SAY THAT HIS FRONT DOOR WAS DAMAGE? AND DID’NT HIS NEIGHBOR’S SAY THAT TWO BLACK MEN WERE TRYING TO BREAK IN TO HIS HOUSE? WELL IT SOUNDS LIKE THE FRONT DOOR WAS DAMAGED BY THE BLACK MEN, AND PROFESSOR GATE ARRIVED, JUST IN TIME, WITH THE POLICE RIGHT ON HIS TRAIL. WELL LIKE THE IRAQI PEOPLE, PROFESSOR GATE’S JUST IS’NT VERY GREATFUL TO THE WORK OF OUR MEN IN UNIFORM.
To Comment #26, The Shadow:
Go ahead. List Gates’ academic achievements. Where did he get his Masters? Journalists often call him “Doctor Gates.” Does he have a PhD? As Obama would tell you, “Honorary Degrees” don’t count.
Louis Gates Jr. is not an academic. He’s a high school teacher who knows Oprah.
Rick Bayan (9):
Mark Levin covered this pretty well on his radio show last night.
1) The neighbor calls the cops to say that two men (in sweatshirts, not suits and ties) were breaking into the house next door.
2) The police cruiser responds, knocks on the door, and asks the person who answers for ID.
3) Gates did not furnish a picture ID, but rather his Harvard ID, which did not have a picture or an address on it.
4) Things get out of hand, as described.
Now let’s switch things around and suppose that the men in the house had been burglers. [This is what the police must assume is going on, since they don't know Prof. Gates by sight.] They enter the house (the police not knowing that Prof. Gates’ driver had gone home must assume that the second person could still be in there) and are looking around for goodies when the cruiser shows up. The police knock at the door and one of the burglers, deciding to brazen it out, answers. When asked for ID he looks around and grabs the first ID that he can find which (hypothetically) the occupent left lying on his dresser.
Now when a cop asks me for an ID, I make bloody sure that I hand him my driver’s license with a picture and an address on it; not something that could be anybody’s. First strike against Prof. Gates. Remember, the police don’t know him from Joe the cat burgler. Strike 1 against Prof Gates.
Also, being a law abiding citizen and sane, I have a rule which I have always impressed on my children: always be courteous to police and soldiers, especially when they have guns. Even, perhaps especially, if there is a misunderstanding being rude only makes the situation worse. Strike 2 against Prof. Gates.
Again: what would our hypothetical burgler do? He would kick, scream, and try to brazen out the situation. The police knew this and acted accordingly.
Finally strike 3 against Prof Gates: never, never (even when confronted by a policeman of another race) play the race card. That will only serve to really piss them off. What are the odds that a police cruiser will respond in a timely fashion to Prof Gates residence in the future? I would think that every cop in town has his picture on the dashboard of their car with a note on it to “avoid this idiot at all costs.”
I hope jharp and the shadow live in an inner city. Moreover, I hope the day is coming that police officers will not respond to criminal activity in these areas. Then what?? Cry me a river. You and the rest of the inner city folks deserve what you get.
At some point police officers both black and white will simply let the inner city take care of itself. Their careers and lives are not worth going into those areas.
Where is the progressive outrage when POs are killed by blacks or Hispanic criminals-in the line of duty? crickets chirping!!!!
“Driving while black.” Okay PO should stop this and let the inner cities be over run by drugs and gangs. Again, then what?
You progressives cannot have it both ways. Either you want PO protection or you don’t?
And don’t say, we want good PO protection and use this as a means of saying all PO are idiots and criminals themselves. Gates is a race artist and when you defend him, you are simply saying I’m a white race artist seeking the good will of blacks. He was arrested for disorderly conduct the same charge you and I could be arrested for-anywhere.
28. Middleman wrote:
All sides were wrong. Gates was wrong to act like a jerk, the neighbors were wrong in thinking all black people look alike, but the cops were wrong too in arresting a man ON HIS OWN PROPERTY for being an a-hole to them.
Peter writes: Sorry, but you’re only correct on your first assertion.
The neighbor was not wrong in any way. They saw two people they did not know attempting to bust through a door of a house known to be unoccupied at that time. It mattered not whether they were black, white, or purple with pink polkadots. The neighbor saw a suspicious act and reported it, like I would hope my own neighbors would.
Local radio reported (and I live in the Boston region) that in terms of crime statistics for Cambridge, the vast majority of home burgleries occur during the mid-day period, when most people are away at work.
This incident occured mid-day.
The statistics also show that a vast majority of those break-ins are conducted by pushing in through the front door.
Guess which door the neighbot saw Gates and his friend thring to push in through?
Were you in this neighbor’s shoes, what would YOU do?
As for the police overreacting, from what I have read and heard, they had every right to do what they did to Gates. They requested ID to confirm he was the owner as he claimed he was. He immediately started his ‘racist’ tirade. The tirade continued even beyond when he finally relented and showed ID, to the point (as has been pointed out by previous posters) that he could not even hear the officer reply as he loudly demanded his name and badge number over nad over and over.
This incident was the fault of Gates 100%, and nothing short of a video showing the police beating Gates like Rodney King would change my mind.
Christians deny Allah and will face Judgment for that, of course, since Islam and Christianity are mutually exclusive, basic logic demands that if the Koran is true, then the Bible is false so any and all blather about anything in the Bible about God or Christ or Judgment day is meaningless. But the fact is that most “arabs” or Muslims don’t “hate” Christians, they just, if they know the truth about it, hate bigotry. Christianity has done more to set back the work of Christ than Satan himself, more lives have been destroyed by Christianity than any other ideology in the history of man. And no one wallows in bitterness and hatred more than Christians themselves, the very ideology of Christianity is one of bitterness and hatred, and it will bring them to ruin in the end.
30. BC wrote:
It’s obvious you guys never had to deal with the Cambridge cops. I’ve only had a couple of dealings with them, but the last was an eye rolling doozy over when I did a U-turn to grab an open parking spot on the other side of the street. That very nearly escalated to a Gates-style confrontation when I got a lot of random, Chief Wiggum-style attitude from a Cambridge cop who was heading into a nearby pizza shop.
Peter writes: So you admit you broke the law by conducting an illegal U-turn and wonder why the cops gave you a hassel?
Pretty much the same class as people who double park or park on fire hydrants and yell and scream when the police give them parking tickets.
Don’t do the crime if you don’t want to pay for it!
Hey Bibio44,
“Rabbi” was assassinated “Reverend” is still alive and kicking. If Rabbi Kahane, who predicted the dilemmas du jour, had an affirmative action G-d, he’d still be alive today.
Blacsk studies? Wazzat? I respect professors in Maths, Physics, Law, History but Black studies? Pleaaaaaase. Ditto for woman studies and in case there is any WASP studies. Utter crap for rich kids who have no need to learn marketable skills.
Here is a quote from Booker T. Washington over a 100 years ago.
“I’m afraid there is a certain class of race problem solvers who don’t want the patient to get well, because so long as the disease holds out they have not only an easy means of making a living, but also an easy medium through which to make themselves prominent before the public”.
Can you be any more prominent than the POTUS?
With BHO as President, the race hustlers have been emboldened. I really think that most Americans are becoming increasingly tired of the cries of “racism”.
Imagine a man and women have an acrimonious divorce, and she, fearing her ex could be crazy, slaps a restraining order on him and changes the locks. He, drinking, sees her car not there, wants to get some things he claims are his. He goes to the house he paid for, and, his key does not work. Angry, he gets his friend to help him force the door. A passerby sees this and calls the cops. Is this a plausible scene? Of course. I could think of a hundred like it. When the cops arrive, they do not have a back-story narrative there to help them, they have to go round people up and ask questions, establish identity and make reasonable decisions. Gates went nuts from arrogance, a life-long chip on his shoulder, and a need to feel put-upon as a black intellectual who lives a very privileged and coddled life. Gates doesn’t have much to bitch about, and this finally gives him the opportunity to play out his high-drama fantasy of the dignified and principled black egghead vs. the racist, cracker cop. Pathetic. Right out of a Tom Wolfe novel.
There was a report of a break in. If someone breaks in, and manages to get inside before the cops get there, then the cops are supposed to leave? Is this Calvinball?
And I’ve seen the cops haul them away for disorderly conduct. So where’s the racism?
jharp is just playing around now and being silly but for the fun of it I will respond, “Christians deny Allah and will face Judgment for that” no, Christians know that Allah of the Koran is Satan of the Bible. They don’t deny he exists just who he is. The next quote wasn’t even changed so I will change it for you “of course, since Islam and Christianity are mutually exclusive, basic logic demands that if the Bible is true, then the Koran is false so any and all blather about anything in the Koran about Allah or Issa or judgment day is meaningless.” which is true. “But the fact is that most “arabs” or Muslims don’t “hate” Christians, they just, if they know the truth about it, hate bigotry.” That is actually false, the Koran itself and the religion of Islam is filled with hatred toward Christians and especially Jews. And in Genesis in the bible it tells that those who curse the Jews will be cursed. “Christianity has done more to set back the work of Christ than Satan himself, more lives have been destroyed by Christianity than any other ideology in the history of man.” Too silly to respond to. “And no one wallows in bitterness and hatred more than Christians themselves, the very ideology of Christianity is one of bitterness and hatred, and it will bring them to ruin in the end.” Again, just silly. At least the first quote twisting was cute, this one was just lame.
FWIW, the police union is backing up Sgt. Crowley. This is going to get very interesting.
Also FWIW, the officer who wrote the report is Hispanic.
The case before a “wise latina women” has 4 men that were in a lineup – 3white one black. A white man was picked. The black man protested. The “wise latina” ruled against the white man. Mr Gates and Rev Sharpton concurred the fairness of the decision. This racial profiling is called affirmative action.
Walter Williams would call the police response a Baysian response. Statistically they would be right. The same argument that is used in affirmative action
I tend to suspect that the question lobbed at our racist, America hating President [gag] was a set up. Not unusual in pressers but more important to this disgrace of a human being.
And so Hussien couldn’t resist leaping in to the middle of something that shouldn’t have been allowed the light of day in the WH, and smothering this trivia with his race bile.
Jaws, his wife, is glad he did though.
Why for you poke troll eyes?
“I really think that most Americans are becoming increasingly tired of the cries of “racism”.
I have never considered myself racist. That is changing and if it upsets some people, I really do not care very much.
“At least the first quote twisting was cute, this one was just lame.”
Just trying to make the point that it is silly to paint either religion with a broad brush As well as folks with different colored skin. (for the record there is only one race, the human race)
I have equal respect for all religions. (I consider it a very private matter between a man and his deity)(or non deity if he pleases)
And I have equal respect to all nationalities and skin colors. (or sexual preference)
None of it makes any difference to me.
NO!!! And Sgt. Crowley should be commended for doing his job. And Obambi should stay out of it.
He’s darned lucky a neighbor thought enough to call the police. AND didn’t I see a big black policeman in the picture???
Gates should have provided picture I.D., and thanked his lucky stars that someone was looking into the situation. Of course if he had been robbed he would have yelled that police ignored him, because he was black. Little man with a BIIIIG chip. He appears to be snnotty and rude. Gates was not endangered, just got his huffy feathers ruffled
Of course Obama was out of line mentioning the situation of his dear friend, but what can you expect from him. Obama is the ultimate racists, one with a platform.
Blacks choose NOT to make the situation better. Look at ACORN> The flames of racism are fanned by Jackson, Sharpton etc..otherwise they would not have a job. It’s only going to get worse.
If Gates thinks things are bad here, he should go to Africa and teach black studies and get a taste of the “good life”.
plus, how the hell do any of you know what judgment day with blacks, whites, muslim, christian day will be? Go back in you hole. eewww the boogie man’s gonna get ya…bull$$$$. This is about a snotty race mongering little man, not his religion.
The police did exactly what they are supposed to do, namely investigate a possible robbery in progress. This Harvard has-been hasn’t got a leg to stand on, and I hope the bigmouth race-baiter gets squashed for inciting bigotry!
Compare this professorial a$$hat’s behavior with those who’ve really experienced the lash of racism, like Ryan Moats did last March. An a$$hole Dallas cop acting like BMOC prevented Moats from being with his dying mother-in-law while he took his sweet time writing a ticket that Dallas PD promptly dismissed.
Moats, who’s a much better man than I am, actually forgave the pig-headed patrolman, an act of kindness I doubt I could muster had it been me in his place. Moats didn’t play the race card, even though IMHO he would’ve been totally justified doing so.
As for Obama’s reckless comment about police stupidity, what is he trying to do, start a race riot in Boston?
What a stupid thing to say!
Middleman:
#24,
I don’t blame Gates for being angry to be quite honest. If police hassled me on my property, I’d be livid too. I’ve seen white people freak out on police for things as small as traffic tickets, so I can understand why someone might be angry for being accused on breaking and entering on his own property.
Hmmmm. I remember an interviewer asked Alfred Hitchcock something like,
“You make scary movies. So, what scares You?”
And Hitchcock said, “The Police. Because they are the only people in the world who can say, “Hey you! Come here.” And you have to do as they say.”
Personally I don’t know many White people who gave the Police a hard time and got away with it. Even if the Police overstep their boundries, to give them a hard time about it is not going to illicit a sympathetic response. Right or wrong (and I’m not saying the Police can’t be wrong) it just shows an extraordinary lack of good judgement to respond to their requests with beligerence.
more lives have been destroyed by Christianity than any other ideology in the history of man.
Over one hundred million lives by Islam in India alone. And these were not accidental deaths due to Amerindians dying from european diseases, these were from horrendous, sadistic massacres. Cf Mahmoud of Ghazni.
Also you forget the two hundred millioon lives taken by your communist or fellow travelers a la Billy Ayers friends.
Does no one see the big picture here? Professor Gates and our “uniting” President have taken the focus off of our current, national problems and are directing a movie about the rampant evils of racial hatred. From what I’ve seen, this simply tells of a policeman arresting an angry, hostile and noncompliant individual. This could happen to me if I acted in this way toward the police—and I am a white, middle-aged woman.
THE SMOKING GUN -
For an objective description of the incident (which shows that Gates is a hysterical loud-mouth, possibly high at the time of the incident, go to the SMOKING GUN which has posted both Crowlwey’s and Figueroa’s arrest reports.
While the reports haven’t so far been redacted by Tawna or Nifong, one dba as Barack Obama is already nuancing the situation.
This is turning into a major national news item, and fanned by the oval office.
It is a smoke screen to take your mind off the “medical” plan they want to a pass.
Keep your eyes on the prize.
That our esteemed post-racial president should comment on this incident although completely ignorant of the facts (or despite them) is profoundly disturbing. Our noble leader is a racist in the best Reverend Wright tradition. Shameful. Another Al Sharpton, but with a Harvard degree.
jharp, sorry but that is lame, “Just trying to make the point that it is silly to paint either religion with a broad brush As well as folks with different colored skin. (for the record there is only one race, the human race)” It is true that Islam is not a race, but it is an ideology, and to the extent that words have meaning, that anything has any meaning beyond being completely relativistic and therefore any discussion of anything is not possible, only “emotions” are possible, no facts, just feelings, and to the extent that one subscribes at all to the values and beliefs of Western civilization, what “lie” means, what “good” or “evil” mean, then based upon those criteria, and factual analysis, Islam is an evil ideology, a bigoted ideology, an intolerant ideology. That some “nice” people call themselves Muslim does not change that. There were no doubt many “nice” people who were Nazis, who did not believe in all of what it taught, they just went along to make a living or to “get along” whatever.
“I have equal respect for all religions. (I consider it a very private matter between a man and his deity)(or non deity if he pleases)” Well then you are very naive, clueless, and I would use stronger language but don’t want the post to be removed. The foolish multicultural belief that “all religions” are equally due respect etc. etc. is what will destroy the freedoms of the West since once Islam has enough power it will ELIMINATE that quaint notion of respect for all religions that you like so much. The central problem with Islam is that it is NOT a private matter, it is a complete and total belief system that seeks to rule over every single aspect of society including those who are NOT even Muslims!!! Don’t be a fool man.
“And I have equal respect to all nationalities and skin colors. (or sexual preference)” Not surprising, you have been brainwashed. Everyone must discriminate between what is good and what is bad. Some things are better than others. But I agree that discrimination based solely on skin color is wrong.
“None of it makes any difference to me.” That is sad and tragic. Be a man, stand up for what is right, don’t just follow the liberal multicultural brainwashing. Think for yourself.
Personally, if I was a thief working the cambridge area, Gates house would be my number 1 target. Who’s going to call the police now ? And if you’re the Cambridge police, do you really give a crap if this race hustler gets his stuff stolen ?
From what I’ve heard of the incident, the professor does not OWN the house, nor the property, he rents it from the University.
That fact alone discredits many of the remarks made by some in previous posts.
Two facts remain:
1. This “professor” would feel very much at home in Jeremiah Wrights “Church”. He may even be asked to “Speak”!
2. Our President speaking, publically, via the set up question, on National Television….This has been the longest period America has seen him with his mask slipping, to date.
Please — as I pointed out, it’s obvious you guys never had to deal with the Cambridge cops, or cops in this area in general. And you forget who did use to live around here and probably has some first hand knowledge of how the cops behave here: Obama himself.
Seriously, I thought the Springfield police, as depicted in The Simpsons, was based on the Boston police department, but then toned down as to not make them seem too ridiculous. The Cambridge police aren’t that bad, but they have their moments (and you probably won’t find safer donut shops at night in any other town in the country.)
I can’t believe I agree with Peter the Bubblehead at 48.
Gates was an ass. But the cops ought to have left in disgust and let it go.
Anyone who thinks Gates was right need only wonder what would have been said if Gates been the victim of a home invasion and the police left w/o investigating. Then, they’d have been “criminally indifferent.”
#46 – Excellent points. Innocent and rude can look a lot like guilty and ballsy. Showing a non-photo ID to a police officer is clear example of either extreme ignorance or extreme arrogance. Either way, it is absurd to suggest that the police should have concluded their investigation at that point.
By the way, since it has no photo or address, is his “Harvard ID” what you and I would call a library card?
One other thing: if any of you think that it was wrong to arrest Gates for actions which occurred during what proved to be an unnecessary investigation, I have only two words: Scooter Libby.
Typical misdemeanor disorderly conduct per common law statutes in most states, including Mass:
A person who recklessly, knowingly, or intentionally:
(1) engages in fighting or in tumultuous conduct;
(2) makes unreasonable noise and continues to do so after being asked to stop; or
(3) disrupts a lawful assembly of persons;
commits disorderly conduct. . .
Well, folks, I see nothing in the above that mentions the race of the alleged perp. Prof. Race Card did 2 and 3 above. Tough luck, moron.
I don’t know if cussing out and screaming at a police officer like a petulant child as the officer is attempting to stand down “is a black thing so I wouldn’t understand,” but it does strike me as an efficient way to get a free ride downtown. Way to step in the burning pile of excrement President Chip-On-The-Shoulder!
i’m pretty sure the report states that the cop did try to leave but gates followed him outside and kept yelling about “how a black man is treated in america,” etc.
“I can’t believe I agree with Peter the Bubblehead at 48. Gates was an ass. But the cops ought to have left in disgust and let it go.”
So lets see, police now have to just take whatever verbal abuse black people want to dish out since doing anything else will cause some sort of problem? WRONG, this sort of incident should lead to the point that whites start shouting back in the face of black people unfairly shouting racist. And allowing our police to be so publicly disgraced and humiliated would only lead to more lawlessness, the problem already is that too many blacks do not respect police as it is. Forcing cops to just walk away in situations such as this would only make it worse.
Surely you mistake the Institution of Higher Learning at which this ignorant prof. gates spews hatred. Surely you mean Howard U not the revered Harvard U.
#68
I’ve had numerous run ins with the police, I’ve yet to be arrested BTW, and in my younger years I would walk the line as far as pushing buttons. Now that I am older and wiser I know that being polite is the best way out since you’re not going to win against a cop in an argument. This was learned from my own personal experiences, and your average person might not act the same way, especially when they are on their own property.
Gates just might have talked himself into jail, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the cops were out of line themselves. If there is one thing cops love to do it’s exert their own self-inflated sense of authority.
#48,
The neighbors were right to contact the police, however I would expect my neighbors to recognize me when I’m at my own front door.
BC,
Obviously, as a non-law abiding person of color, please enlighten us as to the brutality you have suffered while perpetrating your misdemeanors and class D felonies….otherwise, take the POTUS’s advice, take the blue pill and go away.
Gates has now “vowed” to “not let this go”. A$$ that he appears to be.
Cops are cops, everyone thinks the cops in their area are the worse. If there had been a burglarly and they had just let it go with a “pictureless” school I.D., Gates would have really screamed. Jerk that he seems to be.
He’s trying to be a “black victim” and milk this, a victim of “the man”. Maybe he wants to feel “important” in the national spotlight.
GATES DIDN’T GIVE THEM PICTURE I.D. THAT THEY ASKED FOR!! Obama needs to stick to what he knows best, nothing.
I can give you an example of libs pulling the same crap in a non-racial situation.
Our police officer son was the first officer on the scene in a armed-intruder, home invasion. He arrives on the scene. Unable to get a response at the front door, he looks through a bedroom window (with security bars on it). Two individuals are on the floor fighting: one of the individuals is straddling the other and holding a gun at his head. Neither of them will respond to his shouts and pounds on the window. He shoots the one who is holding the gun at the head of the other.
Turns out the guy with the gun was the homeowner. The guy survives surgery. He sues our son personally and the city for $5,000,000. He doesn’t get a dime, thank God. The police agency was anxious to settle, but our son absolutely refused. As he pointed out, if that guy gets one thin dime, it indicates that the police action was wrong, and it was not.
In that case, the homeowner thought that the cops should just “know” he was the good guy. Excuse me? Not that simple.
It doesn’t take a lot of common sense to know that if you’ve called the cops, you might want to pay attention to their pending arrival, and not be the one holding the gun to the head of someone else when they do.
The thought processes of libs are amazing to behold, a little nauseating to try to comprehend and like taffy and molasses if you have to actually try to interact with them.
It’s the same process with Prof. Gates. He thought the cops “should just know he was a good guy” and, because they didn’t, and proceeded with normal police procedures, wow: EVERYTHING THEY DID WAS RACE-BASED.
What a bunch of idiots.
I wonder when they are going to figure out that the pitchfork citizenry (clinging to their Bibles) are really getting sick of having to tiptoe through the tulips 24/7.
This came across AP a couple hrs ago. I’m a white man in NYC; there should be more black men with this attitude. I’ve never met Rev. Peterson but I’d like to…
Sharpton, Harvard Prof ‘Abusing Police While Black,’ Says Rev. Peterson
PR Newswire
LOS ANGELES, July 23
LOS ANGELES, July 23 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ –Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson,
Founder and President of BOND, the Brotherhood Organization of a New
Destiny, today repudiated Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Al
Sharpton for their “unfounded and reckless” allegations of racism against
Cambridge, Massachusetts police. Cambridge police dropped a disorderly
conduct charge against Gates yesterday; he had been arrested at his home
on July 16 after police responded to a break in. Gates had locked himself
out and reportedly forced his way inside.
When officers asked him to show identification Gates reportedly snapped,
“No, I will not!” When an officer asked to speak to him outside, Gates was
heard shouting, “Yeah, I’ll speak with your mama outside” and “This is
what happens to black men in America.” Al Sharpton and Gates falsely
accused the police of racially profiling him. Sharpton proclaimed, “I’ve
heard of driving while black, but I’ve never heard of living in a home
while black.” He added, “If they can do this to him [Gates], imagine what
they can do to a kid in Roxbury.”
“Henry Gates and Al Sharpton are abusing police while black,” said Rev.
Peterson. “Their false allegations say to young blacks that they too can
abuse police and cry racism. Gates was abusive and disorderly and the
police dealt with him accordingly–where’s the racism? This is a case of
black males gone wild.”
Police in Cambridge bowed to pressure from liberal black leaders and
issued a statement yesterday calling Gates’ arrest “regrettable and
unfortunate.”
Rev. Peterson said, “What’s regrettable is that the city of Cambridge and
the police have allowed themselves to be intimidated by a race hustler
like Al ‘The Riot King’ Sharpton. The race card has once again been used
to unjustly smear law enforcement and thwart justice. This is Tawana
Brawley all over again!”
Sharpton gained national notoriety after his involvement in the Tawana
Brawley rape hoax — where he took up the cause of a 15 year-old black
girl from New York who falsely accused six white men (some were police
officers). The allegations were tossed out, but Sharpton never admitted
wrongdoing, nor has he apologized to the men in that case.
BOND, the Brotherhood Organization of A New Destiny, is a 501 (c) (3)
nonprofit organization dedicated to “Rebuilding the Family By Rebuilding
the Man.” http://www.Bondinfo.org
SOURCE Brotherhood Organization of a New Destiny (BOND)
Website: http://www.Bondinfo.org
Contact: Ermias Alemayehu of BOND, +1-213-804-1872, bond@bondinfo.org
-0- Jul/23/2009 15:09 GMT
77. BC wrote:
Please — as I pointed out, it’s obvious you guys never had to deal with the Cambridge cops, or cops in this area in general.
Peter writes: As I wrote before, I live in the Boston region. I’m respectful to the police. I’m friendly to the police. I respect the law and, to the best of my ability, obey it at all times. I have never had any incident with the police as a result. I have not had a parking ticket since 1989 (and that as a result of not reading the signs when I parked), and I have never on my entire life received a moving violation because I do not go out of my way to break the laws, park illegally, or perform illegal maneuvers.
Tell me with a straight face that you have had any problems with the police simply minding your own business and not breaking any laws. I would have to call you a liar.
You yourself admitted in your previous post that you were breaking the law when you were ‘hassled’ by the police. What were you expecting them to do? Ignore you breaking the law? How about they ignore the guy breaking into the parked car too? Or the guy shooting his former girlfriend? Those are just pesky nuisance laws too, right?
It’s discouraging to note that Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s name is still offered as a somewhat embarrassed disclaimer re the right’s sins of the past.
McCarthy’s claim was that there were Communists, beholden to the Kremlin, employed in the State Department. He has since been proven resoundingly correct in his accusations. Coincident with this, the House Un-American Activities Committee had the temerity to suggest that there were Communists employed by the Hollywood Dream Machine (and let us not forget that McCarthy was a Senator, not a Congressman,) and the cries of victimhood are still heard over 50 years later.
The apologies for “McCarthyism” need to die a belated and much-deserved death, and the “victimhood” of Hollywood and the Upper West Side needs to be held up to public ridicule once and for all. The tactics of the Race Industry are indistinguishable from this fraud that has been allowed to flourish for a half-century.
My Dad told me a long time ago to deal with policemen just as I should with my wife,,,Yes M’aam, No M’aam,,,Yes Sir , No sire. It has worked every time.
Yeah, a little, but I positively used to gag at the conjunction, “Rabbi Meyer Kahane.”
Only because you believed what the MSM said about him and didn’t bother to examine what he actually said.
As far as his rabbinical credentials, unlike Sharpton, who has the equivalent of a CrackerJack box degree, Rav Meir ben Yechezkel Shraga HaKohein Kahane, was musmach (ordained) by the renowned Mir yeshiva in Brooklyn. While his political positions put him at odds with some orthodox rabbis, nobody, I repeat nobody, ever questioned his credentials or authority as a rabbi. He had far more claim to use the title “rabbi” than most members of the Reform rabbinate.
While still at Mir his brilliance as a talmudist was acknowledged.
You can find, on YouTube, an extensive shiur (lesson) he taught at Yeshiva University, where he speaks at length, using no notes, accurately citing numerous rabbinic and halachic sources.
Rabbi Kahane was a prophet. Long before Mark Steyn or Bruce Bauwer (sp?) raised the issue of the demographic threat to Europe from a hostile and growing Muslim population, Rabbi Kahane had raised the issue concerning Israeli Arabs. It must be noted that this demographic issue has been embraced across the Israeli spectrum including by lefties like Shimon Peres. Soviet Jews got out of Russia in no small part to Rabbi Kahane’s activism. He was also the Bin Laden organizations first victim in the United States.
It was Rabbi Kahane who popularized the phrase Never Again, the title of one of his books.
I knew the man personally. He was warm and loving and a tremendous role model. I know Jews who embraced their own Judaism after watching Rabbi Kahane be a father to his children.
Did he say stuff that annoyed liberal Jews? Sure. Was he a racist? Hardly. He openly decried racism, saying that it was a violation of Torah. He warmly embraced Jews of every racial background. He also was complimentary to non-Jews, at least those he didn’t regard as a threat to Jews.
Sharpton is a clown. Rabbi Kahane was a giant.
R’ Kahane told a story once about one of the rebbes of the Gerrer chassidim. The Torah commentaries say that God chose Sinai, a lesser mountain, to teach the Jews humility. The Gerrer rebbe asked, if so, why a mountain and not a valley? The answer is that he wanted the Jews to be humble, but not too humble.
As for Professor Gates, he acted badly, but the cop acted worse. Gates got arrested because he didn’t act deferentially to a cop. Giving a cop attitude unfortunately will get you arrested in this country.
The matter should have been over when Gates proved that he was in the house legally. That wasn’t enough for the cop, since cops have to always assert authority. So he baited Gates to leave the legal sanctuary of his own home, to come out on the porch where the cop could claim he was making a disturbance.
My guess is that the charges were dropped because of entrapment issues. The cop told a screaming man to come outside.
Now does anyone really believe the cop didn’t do that specifically to be able to arrest some arrogant Harvard prof who just insulted him?
Frankly, you should be able to give any government employee attitude without fear of arrest.
Cops are just a particularly annoying form of public employee. Their unions are the first to use scare tactics when budgets must be cut. They are among the worst abusers of public pension and disability plans around. Ask any prosecutor and they’ll tell you that 99% of cops will lie on the stand.
Hell, my buddy’s a lawyer and when he gets pulled over for speeding he hands his bar card along with his license and paperwork. Says it works most of the time because the cops figure that if they give lawyers a break, when they testify on the stand, the lawyer will be friendly.
Cops are the only profession that thinks that corrupt activities (including discretionary courtesy for cops and cop families) are a perk of a job. I’ve had cops literally say that other professions extend professional courtesy, so why should they. They don’t understand that it’s corrupt.
Just like cops don’t understand that not acting deferential to them and mocking their authority is not a crime.
Too bad the good professor never paid attention to modern black culture….he may have run across this highly informative video; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOx6OM01M5M
THE BENEFIT:
Gates can relax. His neighbors won’t call the police next time they see someone breaking into his house. Officers dispatched to his house will drive as slowly as possible-who needs a career ruining incident like this?
THE LOSS
Police see blacks in general as inclined to complain of “racism” for any misunderstanding. Seeing a black mugging another black do they get out now– or drive by? Dispatched to a black neighborhood and knowing they may have to cuff a suspect they find, do they drive fast or slow? Sent to a house where someone was “breaking in” do they burst in and save the family from a home invasion? Or avoid the Gates scenario, and wait outside?
THE LOSERS
All law abiding blacks who will suffer for the foolishness of this race-baiting professor. The law abiding blacks don’t deserve this but cops will avoid risking accusations like this.
In Los Angeles after Rodney King, officers were felt to have eased of some neighborhoods. Avoided confrontations inside some neighborhoods. An escalation in black on black crime is the result no one wnats to discuss. Law abiding blacks don’t get protection they ought to have because of the race-baiting nonsense.
Obama missed a chance to slap down this nonsense. Too bad.
“Be a man, stand up for what is right, don’t just follow the liberal multicultural brainwashing. Think for yourself.”
I am a man and do think for myself. It is you who blindly follows others.
You know nothing about Islam.
And a little reminder about your holier than thou Christianity.
How the Bible was used to justify slavery:
The Christian church’s main justification of the concept of slavery is based on Genesis 9:25-27. According to the Bible, the worldwide flood had concluded and there were only 8 humans alive on earth: Noah, his wife, their six sons and daughters in law. Noah’s son Ham had seen “the nakedness of his father.” So, Noah laid a curse — not on Ham, who was guilty of some type of indiscretion. The sin was transferred to Noah’s grandson Canaan. Such transference of sin from a guilty to an innocent person or persons is unusual in the world’s religious and secular moral codes. It is normally considered highly unethical. However, it appears in many biblical passages. The curse extended to all of Canaan’s descendants:
bullet
Genesis 9:25-27: “Cursed be Canaan! The lowest of slaves will he be to his brothers. He also said, ‘Blessed be the Lord, the God of Shem! May Canaan be the slave of Shem. May God extend the territory of Japheth; may Japeth live in the tents of Shem and may Canaan be his slave’. ”
Christians traditionally believed that Canaan had settled in Africa. The dark skin of Africans became associated with this “curse of Ham.” Thus slavery of Africans became religiously justifiable.
http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_slav1.htm
No matter what the situation was… even if the Prof acted like an asshole… The Cop was wrong. Simply put, as soon as evidence of residence was given. The matter was closed. Beyond that it was ego on both sides.
In all honesty, there are a lot (not the majority, but a lot) of Cops that think responsibility = I’m The BOSS, rather than I’m The EMPLOYEE. I have no respect for cops that behave as though they are in charge and we must cower and simper. This isn’t the Middle Ages and we are citizens, not serfs. Gates may have been an asshole, certainly there are a lot of assholes who hold citizenship in this country. HOWEVER, being an asshole, even an asshole to a cop isn’t illegal. Hitting a cop is, refusing to cooperate in an investigation might be (no one disputes Gates grudging cooperation)… but, either way, the Cop needed to keep his head and diffuse the situation. Taking Gates to jail didn’t diffuse the situation. Indeed, both men claim that the ‘investigation’ was over before the issues that brought about the arrest (even Crowley says he didn’t doubt that Gates was the proper resident).
I don’t buy that it was necessarily race. I have a lot of friends who have been treated badly by cops… one cop I know once made a joke about the “contempt of cop” rules… that is, if you piss off a cop, even if you don’t break the law, they can haul you downtown and make life hell, for your disrespect. That should be completely unacceptable in our society.
As such, I’m fine with what the President said, the cop behaved stupidly. The cop could have simply said “Here’s my badge, here’s my name, here’s the number to call and complain… have a nice day” and left. But he didn’t. He got pissed off that this guy was in his face. Stupid Move by Cop.
For a bunch of freedom loving, self-reliant individuals, I’d think you’d pay more attention to the actual issues here, rather than the MSM noise.
Basically, you’re saying if a cop comes to your door and you aren’t as polite as he thinks you should be, he can arrest you. Not you, of course; if it was you, you’d sue them from dawn to sunset.
I have been pulled over by police for no other reason than my car fit the description of a vehicle they were looking for related to a crime. No big deal, I showed ID, they made a report of the stop asked a few question which I politely answered and that was the end of it. Another time I was uloading rocks at my home over my backyard fence, a police cruiser thought I looked suspicious, and asked me for ID, asked some questions, made a report and moved on. No problem. In all my dealings with law enforcement I have found that generally if you are respectful and polite you will recieve the same in kind.
So when I hear about an incident like this, I tend to think the guy must have really created a situation with the police. If you immediately start telling cops that they are racists and only hassling you because your black, your probably not going to get a great response. Had the Prof. been respectful and polite… answered a couple questions the whole event may have lasted about 10 minutes. I think the guy got what he deserved and the police have nothing to appologize for…. based upon my knowledge of the events that is….
Perhaps you don’t understand the law. If a police officer issues a lawful order, you are required to follow it, the policeman’s attitude has nothing to do with the matter. If a policeman asks for my ID I do not require a pretty please. Gates is a lowlife race-baiter, accept it.
Perhaps you don’t understand the law. Just because someone enters my house wearing a uniform is no reason why I have to obey his orders. Plenty of home invasions by police impersonators happen in the US.
Gates was well within his rights to ask the cop for his name and badge number to verify that he was indeed a LEO. Remember, Gates was in his own home, committing no crime.
The sad truth is that challenging a cop, asking for his badge number, will invariably result in bad cop behavior.
True story:
Me: Officer, you parked unsafely when you pulled over that car. I almost rear ended you when I turned off a major road onto a sidestreet, where your cruiser was parked in a traffic lane.
LEO: Kiss my ass.
Me: What did you say to me? What’s your badge number?
LEO: Leave or I’ll arrest you for interfering with a police stop.
Me: Fine, I’m leaving but I know your cruiser # and you can expect a lecture when you get back to the shop.
To his credit, the duty officer did apologize and say that officers have no right to talk like that to civilians and would get a reprimand.
Of course, now I have to worry about that cop and his buddies singling me out.
BTW, the major road was a border road between two suburbs. The cop was technically out of his jurisdiction, at least concerning me. I was just a citizen exercising my First Amendment rights.
Bottom line is that a lot of cops are jerks. They make the job harder for the good ones. The good ones tolerate the jerks, so I’m not sure how good they are.
And it’s a government monopoly, so you can’t choose a better police force.
The thing I enjoy most about watching racists defend racism is their logic!
“Nobody knows what happened in that house…” but then they go on to defend the cops while calling Professor Gates an “ass.”
Racists are FUNNY!
Hopefully the police have the commotion on tape. Just for a fun experiment today, pick a policeman at random and scream and shout in his face and call him names and see what happens.
Did someone repeal the First Amendment?
You mean we don’t have the right to berate a government official for the sheer joy and liberty of it?
As a poster on another site said, I should be able to tell a cop that I’d love to screw his wife with his daughter participating and suffer no recriminations.
Is this a free society or is it a police state?
FWIW, the police union is backing up Sgt. Crowley. This is going to get very interesting.
And we all know how honest public employee unions are.
Cops are just a more annoying form of DMV worker who can take away your liberty and your property.
Gates was a jerk, but the cop baited him outside, most likely was guilty of entrapment, and basically arrested a guy to put him in his place.
This wasn’t racial, just a cop acting like a jerk, which is what most cops do.
Right or wrong (and I’m not saying the Police can’t be wrong) it just shows an extraordinary lack of good judgement to respond to their requests with beligerence.
So tell us, to which government employees are we allowed to be belligerent?
It wasn’t good judgment to tell King George that you didn’t want to quarter his troops in your house. It wasn’t good judgment to dump tea in Boston Harbor and provoke an empire.
But aren’t you glad the founding fathers had bad judgment?
Mobuscon:
From what I’ve heard of the incident, the professor does not OWN the house, nor the property, he rents it from the University.
That fact alone discredits many of the remarks made by some in previous posts.
How so? Renters have the same constitutional rights as home owners. The cop was not there with the permission of the landlord. For the purposes of search and seizure, without getting permission from the landlord, a rental unit is legally the same as an owned property.
Once it was determined that Gates was a lawful resident, the matter should have been over. The cop should have left. Instead he baited Gates to come outside, specifically so he could arrest him.
I know an easy house to burglarize in Cambridge! The neighbors won’t call the cops, the cops wouldn’t come anyway if called, and the occupant doesn’t own a gun.
I dunno… call me a patsy. But, if I am breaking into my own house, I would be perfectly prepared to be confronted by police. In a way, I would be glad to know that “the system” worked. (The system being, either my alarm system, or an alert neighbor.)
Granted, I can’t imagine what I would have said to the responding officers. But, I would have patiently waited until they let me know whether it was going to be a problem. “If you need me to come down to the station, just let me grab my cell phone.”
Then, maybe the next time, I would NOT FORGET MY KEYS. Life’s rough. (Especially when you’re a race-baiting has-been suffocating under the weight of his own diminishing relevance.)
Press on Cambridge cops.
It sounds like all Gates has is his race baiting. After reading the police report, the first words out of his mouth to the cop were a race baiting attack on the cop. He obviously is going to decorate his office in the media clips of this horrible act of racist brutality he suffered at the hands of evil white mobs. If his behavior holds true to form, he’ll offer a class on his personal struggle against racism, showcasing this episode so that it appears he is as victimized as a white voter trying to slip past racist black pathers holding weapons and cursing the ‘crackers’.
Whites are the only people who suffer abuse by the system anymore, really. They are the only ones denied jobs and physically intimidated while trying to vote, while those who commit the crimes receive the blessing of government. I guess whites decided to vote themselves off this particular island lol.
38. David Thomson writes:
“Barack Obama has now burned all his bridges with middle of the road and conservative white Americans. His poll numbers with them should drop from 41% approval to under 35%.”
I think David has nailed one of the more interesting underlying themes here: the consummate stupidity of the man who was elected to be president of all Americans irrespective of race or creed.
Why, in the middle of a tenuous struggle to get the set piece of his nascent presidency approved, would this supposedly wise, Harvard-educated man (I know, I know, David, a contradiction) broach such an inflammable anecdote?
Like many, I do not ascribe some deep motive to this and the other blunders The Boy King has made in the past half year..
..he is just plain stoooooooopid.
Gates needs to count his blessings. Cambridge has good cops. If a “bad cop” had rolled on that burglar call and taken the verbal abuse that Gates was dishing out, Gates might have found himself on the floor, deceased, beside a “throwdown” gun with his fingerprints all over it.
Clearly, since the Cambridge police are unable to distinguish law abiding African-Americans from criminals, they should no longer be permitted to arrest any African-Americans.
Obama brought back his community organizer role last night. Also he is showing a horrible example to the youth by telling the the officers were stupid. Mr. Racial Profie is showing his real face.. How sad. This is what you call a president!
Skeptic,
And when he provided them with ID, why didn’t it end there? Why didn’t they thank him for his cooperation and be on their way? He didn’t get belligerent with the officer until the officer kept questioning him AFTER he gave him the IDs and was told to go outside (where any heated exchange could be classified as “disturbing the peace.”)
Gates has spent his life hating white people. He’s a no account professor of nothing but racial hatred. These are facts.
This case smells to high heaven. Why didn’t Gates neighbor in this PC Leftist neighborhood not recognize him? Possible but unlikely.
The subsequent events gave the despicable Gates his opportunity for fame. Set up? Damn good chance.
We know Gates is a liar already about his inability to yell due to a severe bronchial infection. Here’s photographic proof:
http://www.amnation.com/vfr/archives/013760.html
Poster #1 John Frary states:
“Let’s be fair Roger, if America had no racialist past, and all traces of racialism (at least white racialism) had disappeared today, then Prof. Skip and Rev. Al would have all the fame and prosperity of your neighborhood garage mechanic.”
Hate to tell you Johnny but white racialism is LONG gone. America has been practicing institutionalized racism against WHITE working and middle class people for almost 40 years. This discrimination has permeated government, media, sports, academia and corporate America.
Blacks and white leftists teach racial hatred against whites every chance they get.
#48 is wrong. The Cops can’t leave the house in possesion of someone who refuses to identify himself. Gates was in the wrong the cops in the right. The neighbors in the right. Gates was arrogant. Obama is arrogant. They think the stupid cops should have known the all important Gates by sight. Sure! Stupid Gates and stupid Obama. Racist Gates and Racist Obama. Might as well have been Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton in the house.
Accused of breaking into a home and refusing to show his ID.
Black or White
He is lucky-
In my neck of the woods someone would have shot him and checked his identification later.
I’ve seen the same thing happen white on white.
Racism isn’t even an element to this. It’s all about cooperation. If you don’t cooperate in an investigation, you lose especially if you don’t have sufficient proof of your iedentity.
In the experience I witnessed, it was the neighbor that set the whole thing off…(much to their delight).
Besides, isn’t disorderly conduct just a violation? He wasn’t being arrested for burglary, just for being loud and unwieldy.
The reason Obama jumped into the ring is to get peoples mind off the economy, job declines, and the insane Health Bill. Obama shows his lack of maturity by even making a comment on national TV about a small community situation. A real President would have said “no comment, I have other pressing matters to talk about in this press conference.” It’s a pathic discussion on his level.
Is anyone surprised that Obama commented without knowing (or maybe caring) about the facts of the case? He has been commenting on re-doing 16% of our economy without knowing what’s in the bill. Small wonder he never released his college transcripts
Thought experiment of the day:
Compare and contrast in your mind this case with the Duke ‘rape’ case.
I assure you if the police had found George Clooney in the house or even say Will Smith they would be asking for pictures and not identification. I locked myself out of my house once. It was 3am. I walked over to the police precinct. I told them what had happened. And they very kindly followed me home and jimmied the door. They didn’t ask for identification. Not even once. But then again I’m a young attractive blonde white girl. The Cambridge cop should be ashamed. And then to add insult to injury he says he’s not a racist because he had once recessitated a black man nearly 20 years ago. Huh? Isn’t that kind of like saying I’m not anti-semitic, my accountant is jewish? He owes the Professor an apology. It’s an embarrassment to all cops. I should know, my dad and two brothers are cops. Thank you.
Karlinsync I thought the same thing when I first heard of this Zero is taking our attention away from the mess in DC
Smoked you out jharp, from the tolerance act in #64 to the Christian bashing in #96. Good one. Luckily people are finding out the truth about Islam due to the internet and more scholars refuting the politically correct tripe that has passed for scholarship the past few decades. The comparisons to Christianity all fail upon inspection. The problem is Islam not Christianity.
http://www.politicalislam.com/blog/shaming-the-muslims-out-of-islam/
People who have an attitude usually get one back. It isn’t very bright copping an attitude with a cop. Had Gates showed ID and remained quiet or cordial he would have only had to clean up and pay for a new lock but his attitude compounded the situation. Obama should have kept his mouth shut too.
Talk about art imitating life, this sounds like the start of the movie “Amos & Andrew”, where Samuel L. Jackson gets shot at by local yokel cops because he’s black and moving into a house without the lights (because his power wasn’t on). Funny movie, btw.
I am sick to death of the whiny Black complaining endlessly about “Whitey”. Look, we just elected a Black male as our President. Stop it. Now. It is over. The only victim in this mess is the moron Gates. His reputation as a limp wristed, girly man is assured. Ignore this moron, and he will go away.
To Peter the Bubblehead: no, if you really have dealt with cops, as in trying to get them do their job, you get a feel for what they are about. I always try to be polite, but at some point, if they are going to give me attitude, cop or not…. Traffic design and rules around here, for instance, are a joke and the more savyy residents, as well as the cops themselves, regularly ignore the dumber ones, like when closely obeying all the “No U-turn” rules would put you on a half-mile detour to get where you want to go. As long as you show some semi-good judgement, it’s understood to be OK. Selectively deciding on which never-usually-enforced rules to enforce is an old intimidation/bitch-slap trick by bad and arrogant cops.
Like I said, it’s very, very likely that the Cambridge cop in Gates’s case said something really stupid, one of those things you might feel bad about yourself later if you let it go, as most people people probably would. But Gates didn’t and that became something that just escalated until the cop decided to pull a fast one that would have been laughed out of court if it had gone that far. That the Cambridge Police Superior Officers Association is fully behind the cop, including their lawyer saying “he will regret the remarks he made” in regards to Obama is a sure sign that the cop is mostly at fault.
Brain Diarist:
By your logic are you calling President Obama a racist? Did not know the facts but called the poice stupid
Timmy:
“Smoked you out jharp, from the tolerance act in #64 to the Christian bashing in #96.”
What the hell are you talking about?
My point is there are rascals in both religions.
I hope I live long enough that religion or non religion becomes a very private matter with no government involvement. To each his own.
And I’ll include my favorite quote from the Bible.
What the Bible says about public religious activities
“Fortunately, there is a Biblical passage which precisely defines “What Would Jesus Do” about prayer in public with fellow believers. He specifically prohibited public prayer, and stressed that prayer is to be performed only when one is alone:
Matthew 6:5-6: “And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men….when thou prayest, enter into thy closet and when thou has shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret….”
The synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) contain many references to Jesus praying. In each case, he withdrew from others and went off by himself to find an isolated place where he could pray alone. Other passages indicate that it is permissible to give thanks to God before a communal meal. More details.
It would appear that Jesus promoted private prayer only, while condemning prayer in public.”
http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_syatp.htm
123. claire writes:
“He owes the Professor an apology. It’s an embarrassment to all cops. I should know, my dad and two brothers are cops. Thank you.”
Then you mibght want to check again with your dad and two brothers because this Cambridge policeman is one cool, calm, collected individual and — based on the way he comports himself in an interview — gives no indication that the would lose it under such routine circumstances. Hell, I would prefer this cop to the boob who dwells in the White House.
Generalizing without knowing all of the facts am I? Well, you might want to re-examine your comments as well, young lady — and carry a spare set of house keys (and a picture ID) with you.
@#123, Claire:
I’m a young attractive blonde white girl.
Well, ok, sugarshorts; I’ll take your word for it. But how likely do you think it is that you were able to get along so well with the local constabulary because you 1)went to the police with your problem first, instead of breaking in on your own (in a neighborhood with a recent rash of break-ins) and being reported by a neighbor; 2)didn’t scream at and abuse the officers and accuse them of racism after they responded to the burglary call?
Just from your description of your behavior, you sound like you were very well brought up, unlike Prof. Gates. I think it’s at least very likely that your polite, reasonable behavior, and not your looks, was the key to you having a good experience.
What I keep going back to is Gates repeated “how could this happen to ME” type lines. He seems to have a big ego and how dare a cop not know who he is (there was even a ‘you don’t know who you are messing with’ line from him).
Gates hasn’t disagreed with the officers telling of the story, and for Obama and any other black leader to just agree with Gates is absolutely awful. I don’t care who you are, if a cop asks you to step outside and show some ID, you do it. And you do it calmly. Anyone who doesn’t know that gets what they deserve.
Jack
jharp, no point in going back and forth, I don’t care what you believe, but you don’t seem to get the point about Islam, if you are not a Muslim defending Islam then you are a dhimmi, and that is not a good thing. And while I don’t care about what you personally believe it is important to the survival of the West that not too many people continue to be a dhimmi and apologists for Islam. Islam is the problem not any other religion.
All Gates had to do was show a “picture” I.D.,
….say “thank you officer for responding to protect my home”,
….and it would have been over with.
Instead he goes on the “you don’t know who you are dealing with” b.s.
This won’t go away soon. The dirtbags in the press , Sharpton, etcetc will NOT let it go.
Gates has done a big disservice to black men in America. He lost his integrity.
49. jharp:
Christians deny Allah and will face Judgment for that, ……..
Your assinine “quote” from Jimmy @ #41 couldn’t be more immature. Why not just say “I know you are, but what am I?”
You are an idiot and have ABSOLUTELY nothing of value to add to this conversation.
97. Ratatosk wrote:
No matter what the situation was… even if the Prof acted like an asshole… The Cop was wrong.
Peter writes: Try readin the police report before you start making accusations.
http://www.myfoxboston.com/dpp/news/local/henry_louis_gates_arrest_reports_062109
The police officer was NOT wrong. The police officer did exactly what it was he was supposed to do, in front of not only fellow Cambridge officers, but officers of the Harvard University Police, the witness who filed the original break-in report and aproximately 7 civilian witnesses.
Yes, it is true, Gates EVENTUALLY complied with the police officer’s request and provided ID, but then continued to harass the officer loudly, thus causing a disturbence and being arrested for disorderly conduct. As donttreadonme wrote up at #81:
Typical misdemeanor disorderly conduct per common law statutes in most states, including Mass:
A person who recklessly, knowingly, or intentionally:
(1) engages in fighting or in tumultuous conduct;
(2) makes unreasonable noise and continues to do so after being asked to stop; or
(3) disrupts a lawful assembly of persons;
commits disorderly conduct. . .
Just face the fact, Gates was being a racist a$$ and the police officers were simply doing their job to the best of their ability.
100. Ronnie Schreiber wrote:
Gates was well within his rights to ask the cop for his name and badge number to verify that he was indeed a LEO. Remember, Gates was in his own home, committing no crime.
Peter writes: And the sergeant GAVE his name and badge number, TWICE, in full view and hearing of multiple witnesses. Yet Gates continued to yell racial accusations and epithets at the officer and either could not hear the sergeant or chose to ignore him.
Again, read the police reports.
101. Deep Brain Diarist wrote:
The thing I enjoy most about watching racists defend racism is their logic!
“Nobody knows what happened in that house…” but then they go on to defend the cops while calling Professor Gates an “ass.”
Peter asks: And what would you call a person whose first reaction to someone who is investigating a potential crime and is trying to ascertain the facts is to yell that he is a racist and make dispariging remarks about his mother?
In my book, he’s an a$$.
Read the police report.
104. Ronnie Schreiber wrote:
So tell us, to which government employees are we allowed to be belligerent?
Peter asks: So, in your twisted interpretation of reality, I should be allowed to just walk up to anyone and start shouting in their face and insult their mother? I should be able to walk up to the manager in the grocery store and start berating him as racist because he ran out of vanilla ice cream today? I should be able to yell at the bank teller at the top of my lungs because I was charged fees on my bank account? I should be able to yell at the server at McDonalds because I got a pickle on my Big Mac and I didn’t want one, even though I didn’t bother to tell them?
Then why should I be able to yell at any government employee without repercussions? There are laws against disorderly conduct. Gates broke the law. Case closed.
I was living in Menlo Park, Ca in 1981. If anyone is unfamiliar with Menlo Park, it is a…ahem…heavily policed enclave near Stanford University where you will be ticketed for parking your own car overnight
on the street in front of your own home. I came home early one day to run some errands and inadvertently locked my keys in the car. While I was trying to get into my locked car using a coat hanger, neighbors called the police and I was questioned by the responding
officers. I willingly produced my California I.D. card and politely explained my situation to the police. They helped me open my car and retrieve my keys. There were no raised voices and no drama…in fact, I thanked the cops for responding so quickly to a call about somebody breaking into my car! No ticket, no arrest, no drama…In fact we all had a good laugh. That’s the way most adults that I know respond in these situations. Professor
Gates seems to have some issues with authority that I suspect transcend race. It may be time for him to grow up. For the record, I met the physical description of an outlaw biker more than a banker at that time.
“I don’t have an affinity for the great Urdu Poets, but I did stay in a Holiday Inn Express last night.”
Gates has spent his life hating white people.
Actually, he’s pretty fond of at least one white person, his mom.
You probably don’t know it, but Gates strongly rebutted Louis Farakhan when the NOI claimed that Jews were behind the slave trade. Gates may have his biases and some baggage over race, but he’s a pretty serious historian.
He acted badly here, but the cop was in the wrong.
114. Mike T:
And when he provided them with ID, why didn’t it end there?
Peter writes: Because Gates would not let it end there. He continued to be belligerent, and as a result was arrested for his behavior.
Read the police report.
115. Steve wrote:
Why didn’t Gates neighbor in this PC Leftist neighborhood not recognize him?
Peter writes: Perhaps, because, according to the report I read, the witness who reported the possible crime did not LIVE in the area, she worked there. In the process of being somewhere going into or leaving her job, she witnessed what appeared to be two men wearing sweat shirts and backpacks literally forcing their way through the front door of what appeared to be an unoccupied home. In the same circumstances, I would likely do the same.
123. claire:
I locked myself out of my house once. It was 3am. I walked over to the police precinct. I told them what had happened. And they very kindly followed me home and jimmied the door. They didn’t ask for identification. Not even once.
Peter wrote: I find that hard to believe. You did not offer any ID? They didn’t know who you were from Adam? If that is truely the case, the cops you dealt with were in the wrong and should be disciplined. What the officers in Cambridge did was by the book and completely in the right.
Peter writes: And the sergeant GAVE his name and badge number, TWICE, in full view and hearing of multiple witnesses
That’s a lie. The police report says nothing about providing a badge number. The cop said he gave his name and said nothing about his badge number. Furthermore, the police report only has statements from police, with no witness statements to verify what the police claim.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t let agents of the state in my domain without first ascertaining that they are who they say they are. That’s just prudent because of police impersonators. There was just an attempted carjacking by a police impersonator in Detroit last week.
How many times have you heard women get advised to drive slowly to the nearest police station if they believe they are being stopped by an police impostor?
129. BC wrote:
To Peter the Bubblehead: no, if you really have dealt with cops, as in trying to get them do their job, you get a feel for what they are about.
Peter writes: I have dealt with cops. I do know cops. My cousin was an officer with the NYPD for more than 20 years. My best friend is a Lieutenant with the Iowa State Police. I myself worked closely with NYPD as a Traffic Enfocement Agent in NYC for five years before joining the Navy.
If you are having a problem with police officers, I can bet with 99% certainty either YOU have done something wrong, likely unlawful, or you’re the one starting with the attitude that causes the police to treat you differently than they would a respectful, law-abiding citizen.
Peter asks: So, in your twisted interpretation of reality, I should be allowed to just walk up to anyone and start shouting in their face and insult their mother?
Shouting in their face might indeed be a disturbance of the peace or verbal assault but it’s my first amendment right to insult anyone’s mother, particularly those, like cops, who are leeching off the taxpayers.
Cops routinely abuse disability pensions.
You may not like it if I say I think your mother and sister like having sex with each other. Too flipping bad for you. This is still a free country.
As long as I’ve not violated any other laws, I can be as belligerent as I want to be.
The next time some asshole cop decides to start screaming and ordering folks around, I’m sure you’ll say that he’s creating a disturbance.
See, I’m funny like that. I think the same laws apply to folks on both sides of the thin blue line. You want to give cops a pass for bad behavior. You think any cops would refuse to implement authoritarian laws enacted by Obama and the Dems?
The thing they care most about are their salaries and their pensions. Your safety and well being may not even be on their list.
143. Ronnie Schreiber wrote:
Actually, he’s pretty fond of at least one white person, his mom.
Peter writes: Yeah, I’m pretty sure Obama was pretty fond of his Granny too, but that didn’t stop him from throwing her under the bus and calling her a racist when it seemed it would help him prove a point.
cops don’t even need a reason to arrest you? They can do it just for the hell of it, detain you for 72 hours and not charge you with anything… Completely LEAGALLY… Black, white or green, makes no difference. So My suggestion is, be polite and respectful.
she witnessed what appeared to be two men wearing sweat shirts and backpacks literally forcing their way through the front door of what appeared to be an unoccupied home
No, she said she witnessed that. Photos of Gates being led away in cuffs show that he was not wearing a sweat shirt. They had already brought the luggage in via the back door, so they were also not wearing backpacks.
Cops show up looking for two young black men in hoodies with backpacks on, and instead find an older black man in a sport coat with luggage from an overseas trip.
Yep, fine police work.
I will say that it’s entirely possible that the witness observed two other men before Gates and the driver showed up. That might explain why his door was jammed.
If you are having a problem with police officers, I can bet with 99% certainty either YOU have done something wrong, likely unlawful, or you’re the one starting with the attitude that causes the police to treat you differently than they would a respectful, law-abiding citizen.
That’s pretty much the attitude you holster sniffers have for the “rat squad”, i.e. the internal affairs bureaus that every major police department needs to have because so many cops are in fact criminals.
Cops can do no wrong and the only folks who don’t like them are criminals. Right.
I have no legal obligation to give respect to cops. They have a duty, under the terms of their employment, to treat civilians with respect.
I bet you have no problem with illegal searches and seizures because the only folks who complain about the 4th Amendment are folks with something to hide.
So what were the founding fathers trying to hide?
147. Ronnie Schreiber wrote:
That’s a lie. The police report says nothing about providing a badge number.
Peter writes: I found the full Sergeant’s report, what I thought I was linking to the first timke earlier.
Try reading the second paragraph of page 2, then tell me it’s a lie.
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2009/0723092gates2.html
Try learning the facts before you call ANYBODY a lier.
149. Ronnie Schreiber wrote:
Shouting in their face might indeed be a disturbance of the peace or verbal assault
Peter writes: Thank you for agreeing that what Gates did is illegal and he was in the wrong.
The absolute worst thing about this incident is that, after acknowledging that he knew Professor Gates, and that he didn’t know all the facts of the case, President Obama proceeded to lecture the entire country on racism in America. This was precisely NOT a case of racial profiling. It wasn’t the police who acted stupidly, it was Gates and the President. In doing so, he revealed his utter inability to “remain silent an be thought a fool” and instead “opened his mouth and removed all doubt”. He also revealed that there seems to be no end in sight to the “chip on the shoulder” attitude that blacks carry around with them, despite the evidence that this country has made huge progress on the issue of race. Time for such people to do their part to reduce racial tensions. That goes for Professor Gates and President Obama.
Guys, guys, jharp is a troll. Do NOT feed the trolls. Looks like he may be a Muslim, too. At the least a dhimmi.
152. Ronnie Schreiber wrote:
No, she said she witnessed that. Photos of Gates being led away in cuffs show that he was not wearing a sweat shirt. They had already brought the luggage in via the back door, so they were also not wearing backpacks.
Peter asks: Who are you? Obama? Were you there to see what happened?
The witness, as stated in TWO POLICE REPORTS, reported “She went on to tell me that she observed what appeared to be two black males with backpacks…” and that “…she observed one of the men wedging his shoulder into the door as if he were trying to force entry.”
The police booking photo of Gates shows him wearing a polo-type t-shirt. Are you saying it’s impossible that he could have been wearing a sweat shirt over it and merely taken it off when he got into the house? Were you there to see if he did or did not in fact wear a sweat shirt? Are you saying it’s unlikely he would wear a sweat shirt over another lighter shirt? Why would you say that? I know I have personally worn such clothes in the past, and I’m sure many other men have as well.
All you have proven is how idiotic you appear when you make accusations not backed by facts.
>>>>>>>>>>Louis Gates seems to be grossly undereducated for his position. For all his talk of scholarship, he only seems to have a B.A. I think if he were 100% Irish, instead of only 50%, he would be teaching high school in the Bronx.
I know many high school teachers (in the Bronx and elsewhere) and, for complicated reasons, many people in “Black Studies”, “Women Studies”, and similar nonsense departments.
Let me tell you: the high school teacher usually teaches things that are a lot more important, in a much better way, than the average “[whatever]-Studies” dept. professor.
In some ways this reminds me of the former congresswoman Cynthia Mckinney’s episode with the Capital Police a few years ago. She turned out to be quite the liar, and we received the typical “never mind” from the MSM.
I have read the police report, and am inclined to agree with Peter the Bubblehead on every account.
The Boston Herald
July 23, 2009
Crowley Teaches Racial Profiling Class At Academy
By O’Ryan Johnson
Cambridge police Sgt. James Crowley, the cop at the center of a firestorm over the arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., has taught a racial profiling class at the Lowell Police Academy for five years.
His academy class, which he teaches with a black police officer, instructs about 60 police cadets per year who spend 12 hours in the classroom, said Lowell Police Academy Director Thomas Fleming.
“He’s a very professional police officer and he’s a good role model,” Fleming said. “Former police commissioner Ronny Watson, who is a person of color, hand-picked Sgt. Crowley. … I presume because he would be the most qualified and most professional. He’s a very good instruction. He gets very high reviews by the students.”
Watson, who is black, is the former Cambridge police commissioner.
Fleming said the course meets four times, for three hours a session. The students go through written material, then watch videos that portray scenarios a police officer may encounter. The videos are then discussed in class.
“He’ll have the students talk about how the different situations should be handled,” Fleming said. “I think he does a great job.”
Lawrence Hickman, a black Boston police officer who also teaches at the academy, said he’s worked alongside Crowley for years now and has nothing but the highest respect for him.
“He’s well versed in the subject matter he taught,” Hickman said. “He is the right instructor for the subject material … I’m an African-American police officer, If there were any issues or if I thought he was biased, I would have addressed that. We all do the same job and we all know how things get spun out. The bottom line is he was there answering a call for help, he responded as a professional police officer.”
Fleming said Crowley gets no extra money for teaching the class, which requires him to drive from Cambridge to Middlesex Community College in Lowell. He said the academy is well respected and it is used by cops from 53 communities across the state, including Lowell, Cambridge and other cities and towns.
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1186708
===========================
From The Boston Globe
July 22, 2009
No Charge, But Gates Case Seethes
By Tracy Jan
Globe Staff
. . . “I believe the police officer should apologize to me for what he knows he did that was wrong,’’ Gates said in a phone interview from Martha’s Vineyard. “If he apologizes sincerely, I am willing to forgive him. And if he admits his error, I am willing to educate him about the history of racism in America and the issue of racial profiling.
“That’s what I do for a living,’’ he added. . . .
–Henry Louis Gates, quoted in the Boston Globe
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/07/22/no_charge_but_gates_case_seethes/
“I have no legal obligation to give respect to cops. They have a duty, under the terms of their employment, to treat civilians with respect”
it is called a little common courtesy for the indivdiuals willing to do the dirty work.
Here we have a president of the United States who last night intentionally took a dump on all the work of MLK and anyone else who has tried to improve race relations in this country.
He is on the same level as Sharpton, David Duke, et.al.
After his excuses and dodges, and b.s. claims that he slept through the Rev. Wright’s sermons for 20 years and all the other lies, there is only one plausible explanation:
The president is an unreconstructed racist who is committed to getting even with whitey for all of his “crimes.”
To Peter the Bubblehead: Ummmm…no. I can tell so many stories, but this isn’t the venue for it. And NY cops are TV cops compared to Boston’s. I’m just going to only say that the odds vastly favor Gates as being correct in this case and leave it at that.
1. Suspect identified as male/black
2. active break-in in progress
3. same address experienced recent break-in
4. Gates was warned at least 3 times (a racist would have hooked him on the first chance)
5. 7 witnesses, plus police were there
6. Gates never denied the facts in the report
7. The facts don’t lie…
Professor Gates seems to have taken a course in civility and veracity from Nancy Pelosi. Or perhaps Rodney King ( “Can’t we all just get along?” )
People bring up the notion that cops (a few, some or many) are bad and that therefore they don’t deserve respect. But even if we concede that there are bad cops, lets take it to the absolute limit and say who knows, maybe they just randomly pick people up on the street and do who knows what with them. Well even in that case it would be more important than ever to be polite and courteous to the officer since you don’t want to do anything that would give him any idea in his mind that you might be a good one to take away. There just is no “rational” reason to mouth off at any cop any time, even if you know you are dealing with a corrupt cop, especially if you are dealing with a corrupt cop. You want to have the shortest possible interaction with them, give them what they want, get them on their way.
It is almost some sort of pathological need that some people have for attention or some freaky thing going on where they need to prolong the interaction and make it as dramatic as possible to somehow fill some pathetic need in their own life.
“And no one wallows in bitterness and hatred more than Christians themselves, the very ideology of Christianity is one of bitterness and hatred, and it will bring them to ruin in the end.”
Like you would know Mr. brainwashed! What a blind hater you are jharp!! LMAO Of course you believe Islam is a religion of peace? Right? ROTFLMAO!!!
Look in the news dumbass! How many Christian suicide bombers do you hear about? You’re not exactly someone to be preaching on the violence in religion today when you are a member of the most hate filled, violent, misogynistic, backwards religion in all of the universe! What a tool you are, why don’t you go to Pakistan and die in the fields fighting our brave US soldiers. I hear they need some fertilizer over there!! LMAO !!!! : D
Muslim news today:
Man Loses Tongue in Acid ‘Honor Attack’ by Woman’s Family
Bin Laden’s Son ‘Killed By Missile’
AS SHE LAY dying in a Mogadishu hospital, Sister Leonella forgave her killers. She had lived in Africa for almost four decades and could speak fluent Somali, but her last words were murmured in Italian, her mother tongue. “Perdono, perdono,” she whispered. I forgive, I forgive.
A Jeddah court judge’s approval of husbands slapping their wives on the face if they spend money lavishly on unnecessary things triggered a hue and cry during a seminar on domestic violence here recently.
notorious Muslim extremist told a demonstration in London yesterday that the Pope should face execution.
Anjem Choudary said those who insulted Islam would be “subject to capital punishment”.
Such love and peace Islame promotes!! jharp you’re a dweeb.
164. BC wrote:
I’m just going to only say that the odds vastly favor Gates as being correct in this case and leave it at that.
Peter wrote: So you’re saying you believe a person who has spent his entire life being a racist and divider over those of two dedicated and decorated police officers in their written reports, reports that Gates has NOT, BTW, refuted!
And while you’re so ready to believe the racist professor, have you even bothered to learn what the witnesses to the event have said? From the reports I have read and heard, they agree more closely with the official police reports than with the lying Gates.
“Because of his false and irresponsible charges of communism against liberals, socialists, and others among his critics, many communists and agents of communist influence sought to pass themselves off as Jeffersonian democrats or merely idealistic reformers. They would all complain they were victims of red-baiting to prevent criticism and exposure.”
Well, Joseph McCarthy was a man ahead of his time, but he did lay it on too thickly. Now the neo-Communists are in power in Washington.
BTW, whenever you see that someone specializes in “insert identity group here” + “studies”, they are trained to be professional grievancemongers. They produce no utility other than to try and get benefits for themselves at the expense of society.
Mr. Schreiber is a certain type of idiot that only liberal democracies produce; for those of you who have not met with this sort of idiot in you path of life, count yourself lucky. If you do meet with this sort of idiot, please take my advice and steer clear of him before something bad happens to you. Idiots like Mr. Schreiber usually end up dying on a barroom floor from a knife wound. And the funny thing is, they never see it coming.
RE #110/Войска ПВО RE #38/David Thomson :[...] the consummate stupidity of the man who was elected to be president of all Americans irrespective of race or creed. Why, in the middle of a tenuous struggle to get the set piece of his nascent presidency approved, would this supposedly wise, Harvard-educated man (I know, I know, David, a contradiction) broach such an inflammable anecdote? [...]
Stupid Obama is not, but picking the wrong fights he is, then, when pushed in a corner he becomes defiant and obnoxious, as he proved it before, and we’ll sure have more of this reckless immaturity ahead.
The plus side of this affair (but since talking about profiling, are we sure that Gates wasn’t a peaking crackhead at that moment?) is that people now have been given an ample opportunity to contemplate what miseries are hidden under the Wise Latina’s carpet, and how close is Crowley to Ricci and Joe the Plumber as rights go in this country – so, congrats, Barry, keep working at this, we’re very pleased -
157 we agree.
we see him (jharp) on all the sites. mike w might also be jharp. just here to cause trouble…don’t feed him.
Gates has an “impressive” resume, “nothing” about temper control and working on an a$$h0!+ attitude.
All the pest had to do was show a picture i.d., and be grateful for the positive attention to an incident at his home. His door was jammed because he had an incident a couple of weeks earlier, the news reported.
There are times when the cops are wrong, and that’s a fact. However, this was not one of them and this is being blown up and out of proportion because of Obama.
As a human being Gates would be willing to “forgive”, crap!! A rogue policeman??? oh give me a break!! There were other people there, including the lady that made the call. Now it becomes a matter of “pride”
The politician previously known a Teleprompter Jesus is simply still trying to play you all for fools.
How nice it is for you all to be spending your time discussing Gates, an obvious race card playing twit, and taking the camera glare off The huge setback being suffered by the Obama administration at the hands of their OWN congressional members.
This administration is heading south in a hurry….
Look at the former leftist mouthpieces on this forum. They have no more arguments to put forth. Their replies now are as empty as the man in the suit they worship.
They got Nothing.
Supremo article, Mr. Kimball.
Herr Gates, a racist by nature, apparently doesn’t know the rule of unintended consequences.
If the police are roundly criticized for doing nothing wrong, they will, I fear, do something wrong.
Just human nature when their commander in chief deserts them, says they’re guilty; throws them under the bus, you know what I mean.
Tacitly, probably without conscious intent, black members of the community will get slower police reaction than others. (A racist would say that blacks get inferior protection as it is).
Eventually, this will cost lives.
However, race card throwers from Sotomayor to Grace to Sharpton, aren’t interested in the safety of people, of equal protection under the law. What these miscreants desire is money and power. And they’ll play the race card every time it gives it to them.
At this time in American history, we have some unusually corrupt, morally challenged people in high office, from university professors to supreme court judges to our commander in chief.
We’ll just have to ride out this national crisis of leadership best we can, hopefully without too many more people getting hurt, both financially and physically.
Henry Gates is a lying, racist pig.
Sonia is a bigoted, racist, sexist fanatic.
Sharpton is an snake oil selling opportunist.
And Obama is their leader. All bad, bad people.
One Big Ass Mistake America
How proud must the alumni of Harvard be today!
Here we have this esteemed professor of that august, ivy league institution (yeah, I know, he’s in a complete BS department) proving just what an insane jackass he is. Harvard, as you may recall, is the former employer of Larry Summers, the dean who was fired when another esteemed professor from another BS department swooned and came completely unglued over Mr. Summers mere mention of a study purportedly suggesting that men and women are different!
Our schools, from the local CC to the marbled halls of the Ivy League are completely overrun with an infestation of moronic moonbats. Is it any wonder that the new normal is as it is?
Which brings us to the race hustler in chief’s comments form last night’s presser. President “there is no white America, there is no Black America” showed us once again, just what a guilt-mongering SOB we elected. And even after his time in office is over, he has left us with another SCOTUS justice to carry on the good fight against whitey. Yeah baby, give me more of the post-racial America!
Wow.
Put yourself in Gates’ shoes, would ya?
I’ve been there, and I’m a white guy. 3 cops came to the back door with their guns drawn. At the time, my 4 year old was playing with a water pistol. When I saw the cops with their guns through the glass door out back and knew my boy was headed around the corner any second, I completely lost it, went bats@@t crazy. It was my absolute natural reaction. Luckily, I knew one of the cops, who admitted there might have been a better way to handle it.
Ya think????
Oh dear, we post-racial liberals elected a black Dear Leader believing all these ugly racial stuffs would be past ugly racial stuffs and we could get on with our post-racial lives. Unbeknownst to us, racists and race baiters are still lurking everywhere. One of them even lives in the White House. Oops, is calling that House White House racist too?
RE 17 and 159
Gates actually does have an M.A. and PhD in English Lit from Clare College, University of Cambridge (that’s England not Mass.)
Gates overreacted, so did the cops. Arrested for being rude to a cop? In your own house? THAT’S a police state.
Cops can be arrogant, but so, I suspect, are Harvard professors.
A Cambridge resident on another blog made the point that this probably has as much to do with class as race. Harvard professors expect to be treated with deference in Cambridge. When the cop apparently wasn’t impressed with Gates’ Harvard ID, the prof took offense.
Look, a cop who pulled me over for a busted taillight a few years back was sort of an a**hole. Did I go off on him? No, because I knew that if I had I would have ended up in cuffs. I muttered a few choice things – after he drove off.
No mystery as to why Obama jumped on this story, though -it’s one more way of focusing the nation’s attention on something else besides the fact that he’s spending us straight into the poorhouse.
#177, your crazy.
Gates’s house was broken into once before. The Cop knew it, and was doing his job. Gates was loud, racist, and disorderly to the Officer.
Once arrested, Gates stated he would fall down without his cane. There is an Al Sharpton in every Gates of the world. He has all the bases covered.
Plus, what is a POS like Gates doing in a free house from Harvard? He got mad because the police did not know him, and he showed how much class he really has. None!
Do us all a favor #177, and those of your ink. Read the bloody report before opening your suck.
177. joe wrote:
Wow.
Put yourself in Gates’ shoes, would ya?
Peter writes: Okay. I live in a house that was just recently broken into. I have just come home from a long trip and literally had to break back into my house because I can’t find my key. (Please note, I just BROKE INTO MY HOUSE.) A police officer who doesn’t know me from Adam asks if I am the resident and for ID because the station house received a report that the house was bring broken into… again!
So of course, the first thing that occurs to me to do is…
Start yelling about how racists the cops are and insulting the officer’s mother and refusing to cooperate!
Makes PERFECT sense to me!
NOT!
This too, I predicted a year ago. The coming of Teh Won will bring a worsening in race relations.
Pretty much everything that’s gone wrong since Jan 20, I predicted last summer. The economy, the disastrous lack of respect the US is getting abroad, and the decline in race relations.
And it’s only going to get worse. This is what happens when you elect a symbol instead of a leader. The 53% responsible for this mess are guilty of gross negligence.
Honestly, how disconnected are we getting???
All this b.s. about Gates, and the “cr@p that would be president” marches on with the health care mess. WHO CARES ABOUT GATES?? The little racist bugger will live on..
…..you might NOT` if this health care that we have no idea what it inclues gets passed.
Bet your last dollar, Obama will get something passed. He wants to destroy America. A little dramatic? Nope!! just the truth.
And you’re talking about Havard, they’re probably celebrating their celebrity.
Horowitz ,on the gbeck show, provided background on the cast of Boston players and I could not help but be reminded of what has become the kneejerk reaction of al sharpton and his ilk….Obama blurts out a revealing bit about police acting “stupidly”…not very presidential, very community activistic,…..maybe d. thomson is right about barry and his mental well being.no teleprompter, no intellect, no poise.
Someone please explain why the professor was ‘breaking into his house’ if as he told the officer taking him off to jail not to bother locking it because the door was broken from a previous break-in? Why would Gates break into his house if it wasn’t even possible to lock it? His house was not locked and yet he pretended to be breaking in???
I smell a rat.
Oh and by the by, also please explain why Obama ‘scheduled’ this reporter (from Chicago for Pete’s sake) to ask about this during a presser on health care.
Theatre.
Boris….where are you?
I am a White man in America and I have been pushed by policemen while walking in the street, had a policeman point a shot gun at my chest while I was unarmed, though at the Beach after hours with my college chums, when perhaps we should not have been, had a cop yell at me to get back in my car, was dragged down to the station and frisked for a “broken mail box,” had my brother chased around town by the cops where he had to hide in a tree (funny story that) and I was told in Court by a Court officer to tone down or he was going to cuff me. (I am a lawyer now). All this excessive harassment I received was from white officers, which I knew enough to immediately defuse by according respect where respect was due. Cops get nervous and push the more, I have found, when they are nervous. The guy with the Shotgun, which he pulled from his trunk, was alone up against 18 drunken college boo-yas, so the weapon to him just evened the odds. None of this was racial but the authority thing is availabe to cops to cut down anyone since they know things can go bad fast. They deserve respect so give it, even if the circumstance doesn’t make it seem so. After seeing 60 years of this, I know what I am talking about. And, yes. It is not always racial.
By the way. What is the difference between racism and racialism?
Three white women were repeatedly raped in Washington years back. They called the police several times, and the police came, knocked, no one answered, and left. The women sued, and lost the case. Reason, it is not the police departments role to protect the individual citizen, only the citizenry as a whole. IF..they had seen someone there, then the may have interdicted. In seeing now one, they left. What a crazy world we live in. Darned if you do, darned if you don’t.. By the way, race relations are now going to new lows out there. Spooky for sure.
Sorry, Joe. That’s not even remotely the same situation.
To Peter the Bubblehead: *Sigh* — Gates showed Crowley his ID’s and it should have ended then. Instead it looks as though Crowley put on some attitude, causing Gates to ask for Crowley’s name and badge number. Crowley’s reaction to that request is the telling point: he tells Gates that if he wants his name and badge number, he’ll have to come outside to get it. Gates does so and…gets cuffed. That’s the actions of a wiseass, arrogant cop.
Sorry, it doesn’t appear at all that Crowley was the reasonable one here.
The textbook editors tried to inflict Gates’ “scholarship” on my poor college freshmen. I tried teaching one of his essays to fulfill the multicultural requirement. What a bunch of pretentious pomposity.
Let’s re-write the whole scenario this way:
Gates house has been broken into before – ergo the reason the neighbor called the cops when she saw two guys with backpacks shouldering the door open.
Cops arrive, ask Gates to identify himself as they had received a report that the house had been broken into.
Gates produces his ID and tells the officers he’s very grateful for their timely response to the call.
The officers confirm Gates identity, remind him to get his door fixed, and leave.
That’s how it should have gone down. With normal people, that’s how it would have gone down. With a belligerent bully, however, it went down the only way it could have: with Gates being disorderly and refusing to cooperate.
Gates is an asshole. As far as I’m concerned, he is just one more black cotton picker on the Democratic Party plantation. Obama is an asshole too for shooting his Marxist mouth off without first-hand knowledge of the facts. If I worked as a cop in Cambridge, and I got a call for assistance from Uncle Tom Gates, I’d go out for a long coffee break, and after I had leisurely finished my second cup of coffee, I’d head out to check on Uncle Tom.
Gates, Obama. and Sharpton are all guilty of exploiting the new “White Man’s Burden.” which is an industry dedicated to the premise that all white men are guilty of some form of racial discrimination and that guilt results in making whitey pay for all his indiscretions. We are currently paying for all the horrible things we have done in our lives. Mind you, I have trouble trying to remember any of mine. Somebody out there help me, please volunteer, I need some horrible things I can feel guilty about.
If the facts are correct, Gates had an attitude from the get-go. When asked for ID, his comeback was ‘Why, because I’m a black man?’. So he’s the one who set the tone. And based on my observation of Gates @ roundtable discussions on TV, I’ve had the sense that the man has a chip on his shoulder the size of a 1965 Buick.
Regardless of how important we may think we are, only a fool would intentionally antagonize a police officer who was simply doing his job.
JMO.
IC, if you had any nuts in your sack, you’d say what you really want to say. You know the word. I bet you say it every day at work and with your friends. But you’re afraid to say it now. That’s what this is all about, that’s what Republican politics have been about for the last thirty years. You don’t have the balls to say it, because people will look cross-eyed at you and you have low self-esteem to begin with. Its been a game, the kind that little kids play when they’re teacher’s back is turned, trying to test the limits of authority without having to go to detention and face mommy when you get home.
That’s what this is all about, you gutless coward. Its been your entire platform for three decades.
It is becoming very clear now that Obama has a habit of running in to conclusion with out verifying facts.Honduras a prime case,Iranian poll fraud,health care & now President in an address to the nation being partisan about the Police force.
The judgement of obama cannot be trusted & has no national interest at heart except worrying about his legacy.
heheheh–
18. Arnie Keller:
A case like this can be adjudicated only by a wise Latina.
Dr. Gates is no Leonard Jeffries. He has a reputation for serious scholarship and he doesn’t deserve some of the insults in the comments above. His response to the policeman certainly wasn’t wise but for reasons that don’t do credit to the police.
Policemen in my experience suffer from an enormous and entirely unwarranted sense of entitlement. They expect respect from a citizenry for whom they evidence nothing but contempt and serve poorly. The best of them are municipal clockpunchers marking time to retirement. The worst are criminals of every description including paid hitmen for the mob. Unnecessary brutality by police is ordinary. Perjury by policemen on the witness stand is routine.
In addition to the weaponry hanging off his belt, every policeman comes armed with bag of sleazy tricks to bait and entrap innocents. Cops are masters at pushing people’s buttons and eliciting a response sufficient to justify arrest.
Here in New York, scandals have forced large-scale investigations into police corruption since the end of the nineteenth century. The commissions all come up come up with the same results. The findings of the Lexow Committee in 1894 and the Knapp Commission in 1970 were effectively identical. Systemic graft and criminal activity by cops throughout the force. Moreover, both commissions demonstrated that police corruption and criminality was universal. Contrary to “there are always a few rotten apples in the barrel” platitudes, honest cops were shown to be virtually nonexistent. And there was hardly a criminal enterprise cops weren’t engaged in.
Our current crop of Democratic politicians—New York is effectively a one-party town—assure us that with diversity things have changed. We’re back to the usual “just a few rotten apples in the barrel” propaganda. Only the most pathetic of suckers would believe it.
Conservatives make an error in reflexively supporting the police. Cops are a lazy and overprivileged arm of government. I haven’t seen statistics to prove it, but I would wager most cops support gun control. Indeed, cops under the command of a corrupt and unrepresentative political elite are what the Second Amendment was designed to protect us from.
A personal note: Over the years, my family and I have been mugged at gunpoint, my business was burglarized, I’ve had cars stolen twice and broken into more than a dozen times. (Pre-Giuliani, citizen confidence in their protection by the NYPD was such that signs were visible in the window of every parked car informing thieves that there was no radio or valuables in the car and to please not break in.)
After the mugging, my watch and my wife’s and daughter’s jewelry gone along with the thieves, separate pistols no longer at each of our heads, I called 911. We were told to wait right there, the police were on the way. Twenty minutes later, we realized that by staying where we were, we were only making ourselves a target for a second mugging so we walked home. As a courtesy, I called the Twentieth Precinct to inform them that we were home safe and sound and to disregard the call. Twenty minutes after that, half a dozen policemen arrived full of apologies and filled out a report of the incident. We were so disgusted it was all we could do to push them out the door so we could get to bed.
Several weeks later, I received a call from the precinct that a gang had been arrested who might be our muggers. Could I come down to the precinct for a line-up? I took the day off work, arrived at the precinct at eleven in the morning as requested and was directed to a waiting area where I sat until after three in the afternoon. Detectives and uniformed policemen walked in and out. No one knew anything about the case or how much longer I would have to wait. I finally got up and went home. I never heard from the precinct again.
Henry Louis Gates has my sympathies.
Obambi LIED and Affirmative action DIED
Obambi LIED and Racial tolerance DIED
Obambi LIED and Democracy DIED
Obambi LIED and Israel DIED
“This is the lesson we should all have learned from the days of Senator Joseph McCarthy.”
A very uninformed analogy. As history marched on and the evidence came to light (especially after the fall of the Soviet Union), it is undeniably conclusive that McCarthy was right on target.
Lets talk RACISM shall we because there is one race that has a completely disproportunate influence in the USA be that in Government in Politics in Judiciary in Hollywood and on TV and last but not least as perpetrators of violent crimes including murders (89%). Who can this be well having ONLY 13% of the Population I give you the BLACKS. 96% of whom voted in a BLATANTLY RACIST way for the Obamanation. Now thats REAL RACISM.
What the President said was pretty despicable.
I propose a nationwide ban on police stopping, questioning or arresting anyone that is black or hispanic, regardless of the situation…… lets see how that works out.
180. Donna V. wrote:
When the cop apparently wasn’t impressed with Gates’ Harvard ID, the prof took offense.
Peter writes: While partly true, the flaw in your arguement is that Gates started going off long before he even presented his Harvard ID.
Gates is a racist with a huge chip on his shoulder and only wants to play the victim here when the entire mess is his own fault.
Next time anything happens in his neighborhood, the Cambridge PD should only send black officers to investigate, to avoid such problems in the future.
188. GClarke wrote:
had a policeman point a shot gun at my chest while I was unarmed, though at the Beach after hours with my college chums, when perhaps we should not have been,
Peter writes: Gee, another case of “Oh my God, the cops are SO BAd, even though I admit I was breaking the law and they were only doing their job!”
Cry me a river!
Do you have ANY idea what the job of a police officer entails? Of course he’s going to be armed when he approaches a large group of men hanging out where they ARE NOT LEGALLY SUPPOSED TO BE until he knows who they are and what they are doing. For all he knows, every single one of you was packing a weapon, high on meth, and ready to jump the first person who approached them. They are required, by their training and self preservation, to cover you with a weapon while approaching. And you’re CRYING about it? “Those big bnad cops pointed a gun at me!”
Don’t break the law and you won’t get police pointing guns at you!
191. BC wrote:
To Peter the Bubblehead: *Sigh* — Gates showed Crowley his ID’s and it should have ended then.
Peter writes: You’re right. It SHOULD have ended there, but Gates wouldn’t let it. He followed the officer outside and continued to insult hium, loudly, in full view of almost a dozen witnesses. He was warned to tone it down multiple times, which only made him louder, so finally the police arrested him for disorderly conduct. i would have done the same.
Gates reaction is standard “black 101″ – the auto response to any accusation.
Do whites in Africa get away this?
It’s all very simple. Gates was tired of toiling away in scholarly obscurity–he saw his chance to be Rosa Parks, Al Sharpton and Tupac Shakur all rolled into one and he took it.
Here are some facts that are being overlooked here:
1. Crowley is not just any cop; he’s a highly experienced cop who has for FIVE YEARS taught other cops how to avoid racial profiling and how to be racially sensitive, a task he’s been highly praised for. He was hand-picked for the job by his old boss, a BLACK police commissioner.
2. Dr. Gates is not just any Harvard prof. In 1997, he was one of Time Magazine’s 25 Most Influential Americans and the recipient of dozens of honors — something that is almost certain to go to one’s head.
3. The job of a police officer, as a dear friend beat into my head a while back when I was being stupid, is not to judge a situation. He is not a judge. His job, rather, is strictly TO KEEP THE PEACE. He is a PEACE officer. His guns, his badge, his taser, his cuffs, and the other cops he can call on — all those things are to remove disorderly people from potentially violent situations when need be, with the level of force required. When things work properly, the situation may be uncomfortable and even frightening for the person under arrest — but judges and lawyers sort things out fairly quickly. While the person under arrest may find himself discommoded and even embarrassed, his discomfort is not as important as the safety and well-being of the many people a police officer must help protect.
In this situation, from the cop’s perspective, you had: a man in a quiet neighborhood who was acting irrationally (rational people obey the peace officer). He might have had a compatriot. When the cop finally got an ID, there was no picture on it and the man was still behaving irrationally. (If I were the cop, I’d be looking around for the other person and keeping my gun unsnapped.)
Now, whatever the truth of the situation was, the cop’s partner was alarmed enough that he called for backup. By the time Gates emerged from the house, there were a total of SIX cops on scene, including one very large black man and a Latino. You don’t do this for a routine call, only when you aren’t sure what is going down. There were also seven civilians or more gathered outside the house. Clearly, there was enough of a commotion that it was drawing a crowd.
So anyway, Crowley leaves the house, Gates follows ranting. There is still no sign of the second person. Gates is behaving completely irrationally. Is he on drugs? Is he having a mental breakdown? Is the other guy bleeding in the house? What would you do, as a PEACE OFFICER? If you were doing your job, it would not matter what color Gates was — you’d keep the peace and arrest his ass. Let the judges and lawyers sort it out.
Poor Crowley and his fellow officers, they had no idea that Gates’ assistant was on scene (and what the heck was that about?), that Gates asked her as he was being hauled off to call “Tree” — Dr. Ogletree, an old law professor of the President’s — and that Ogletree apparently had the mayor, a judge, the President, and Al Sharpton on his speed dial.
Had Gates been any other guy, the whole mess would have been sorted out at the station, and he would have been released in a matter of hours with a court date to appear for disturbing the peace. Crowley would already have forgotten about it, except to note the court date in his schedule so he could show up to give his side of the story — a huge time-consumer for a cop. (No doubt he would rather not arrest anyone at all, in order to avoid the paperwork and court appearance. In this case, he felt he had to.)
Gates, however, had friends with CLOUT. He used every single one of ‘em, all the way to the top. Today he’s all outraged and planning to do a documentary on racial profiling, something that he claims had NEVER crossed his mind (though he’s done plenty of documentaries, even a miniseries for PBS). Crowley has a huge headache.
I know where my sympathies lie — as usual, with the little guy who tried to do the right thing.
—
Postscript: in an odd coincidence, the day before all this happened I ran across a reference to Gates in a brilliant book review on Amazon done by Frank Sweet, a multiracial publisher. Sweet calls Gates the “overt villain” in the book. Long review, but the last couple lines, referring to the small but important part Gates played in the book, are perhaps the most interesting overall.
http://www.amazon.com/review/R3K29FL3CX1NTY/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm
BC’s twisted logic is astounding. I’ve had good experiences and bad with police. Generally for most things, when a victim, you really need to do your own leg work, since for most things, police do crime documentation, not prevention or investigation. It’s only the high profile more serious crimes that draw their attention, which is understandable.
As with any situation with high tensions, cooler heads usually prevail. That goes for both sides. To presume anything about this case is plain foolish.
Just the facts Ma’am
Re: Gates’ academic history…from the Harvard Department website:
“Professor Gates earned his M.A. and Ph.D. in English literature from Clare College at the University of Cambridge, and his B.A. summa cum laude in History from Yale University, where he was a Scholar of the House, in 1973. He became a member of Phi Beta Kappa in his junior year at Yale.”
I haven’t read is work. That doesn’t mean he’s not wrong, nor that he’s much of a scholar, but he’s done a lot of it….and some of it’s been “good enough.”
Some credit where due, please.
How to shut up the elitist leftist snobs on this story? Release the audio tapes of the incident, which the police union spokesman says now available.
BTW….Obama’s approval numbers are now under 50%. People are beginning to realize Obama is the slimmed down version of Al Sharpton.
“By the way. What is the difference between racism and racialism?”
I believe the difference is that racism involves unfair or kneejerk preferences for one race over others, usually the race of the actor involved. Racialism however is an important and much ignored reality of human existence, that there are very real differences between races in all sorts of areas and those differences lead to different abilities to get along in organized society and contribute to the growth of civilization. Ignoring racialism, pretending that ALL races MUST have EQUAL results in everything has resulted in terrible distortions to the society that would not be there if everyone were just allowed to rise to their natural capacity. Gates himself is a good example of the result of these policies. He thinks more of himself than he should, he does not help anyone being placed in a position above his actual capabilities, and it ripples through the society. The insistence of white European civilization liberalism to ignore racialism, or at least to deny any possible benefit of preserving their own “white” culture for fear of being called “racist” is resulting in the eventual extinction of white European civilization as they become minorities in their own lands. Thank liberal thinking, the rejection of Christian principles, and multiculturalism for this.
While, sadly true, it’s never a great idea to give cops attitude, I find it surprising how many here seem to think that powertripping cop behavior is okay or can be somehow justified. Some here think the law requires that you kiss butt when demanded. Name, rank and serial number folks. That’s it.
The reality may be that Gates should have known that being livid for being hassled in his own home would not lead to anything good but he has no duty to be polite to police officers. He has rights whether some people like them or not. In a situation like this, the police once told that they were dealing with the house’s resident should have been unfailingly polite until such a time they had a reason to believe the person they were talking to, claiming to reside there, was something else. That’s what you would expect if accosted by the police in your own home, wouldn’t you?
Teh stupid never stops.
‘…what were the founding fathers…’
Not exactly the Founding Fathers, if by that term one means the signers of the original Constitution. The Bill of Rights consists of the first ten amendments to the text as delivered by the Constitutional Convention, and was passed by the First Congress and speedily approved by 3/4 of the state legislatures.
‘…mirabili dictu…’
‘Mirabile’, please: adverb, not ablatival form of the adjective.
One cannot be supine about such matters!
One of the three officers who responded was black, apparently, and the other was a (wise?) Latino.
prospero; exactly. This was a golden opportunity to embellish his resume and he was not about to let it pass.
Well, as soon as the marketing of racism stops, a lot of people will be out of work and have to get honest jobs. I mean Sharpton et al. Also Gates might want to rethink his career path.
SHOW US YOUR PAPERS
In America, unlike China, Iran and North Korea, it is illegal (Unconstitutional) for the Police to demand proof of identification unless they have probable cause to believe that a crime has beeen committed. A neighbor’s call of “concern” is not probable cause.
Black, White, Yellow, it doesn’t matter. The bullnecked cops severely overreacted and violated the law. The cop should be fired.
I agree with the article. The President of The United States is acting like a black man in power using that power to assert his personal opinion,and not the LEADER OF THE FREE WORLD. Bad move on the part of the prez.
Ah, once again another card is played from the race card deck, more cards in that deck than a crooked Vegas dealer, and just as fraudulent.
I also agree that the POTUS has no dog in this fight. He should have kept out of it. The racializing of all situations is not a good thing.
What Gates did was so irrational, yelling at a cop who was clearly attempting to protect/safeguard Gates’ property, that I have to assume he had been drinking. Is there any evidence that Gates had been drinking? Maybe, too many white wines at the Harvard faculty club?
I am grateful that His Silliness is actually this stupid.
Did you see the comments this morning at how surprised he is at the results of his comments? Do you understand that this man is truly, TRULY ignorant of the makeup and the broad culture of the United States of America?? You couldn’t make this stuff up, what he’s doing and saying!
It is not his race itself that is so destructive. It is that his race seems to bend the minds of otherwise normal people to cause them to ignore how dangerous and incompetent he is.
Yesterday some silly racialist woman called in to Sean Hannity, whining about “you don’t know what it’s like to have to deal with the cops”….Hannity made the simple statement familiar to all of us who live in the regular world, “I was brought up (and I’ve taught my children the same) that when you’re dealing with a police officer, you say, ‘Yes, Sir’ and ‘No, Sir’ and that’s it.”
She didn’t even LISTEN to what he was communicating…interrupted him, stepping on his statement and said, “That’s exactly what I mean! And it’s just as bad for Latinos.”
I thought her attitude said it all: the whining, immature, self-centered idiots who don’t want to grow up and respect established authority and who luck out by happening to be black or Hispanic have the perfect excuse: “WhineWhineWhine. I’m a person of color. You can’t expect _________ (whatever) of me.” Just like His Silliness, they live to be offended.
Get a life already. And if you can acquire some character (and stop yelling about the color of your skin) an American life is one you might enjoy a great deal.
Say… here’s a question I haven’t seen answered or addressed in any of the news reports:
Who was the other guy? Where was he while Gates was being an asshole? What is his side of the story?
Here’s another hypothesis that has been cooked in my suspicious brain:
Perhaps Gates and co-hort WERE “breaking into” his own house. Perhaps they planned on “stealing” some valuable items from said house in order that Gates could them claim the “stolen” items in a homeowner’s scam in order to reap some cash.
And maybe that’s why he was immediately on the offense when the cops showed up, as he WAS actually guilty of something.
To all the police officers in the U.S.A: Thank you for risking your life every day for me and my family.
221:
You are simply wrong on the facts and the law here.
“My point is there are rascals in both religions.” The wise words of jharp. Except that in some religions the rascals like to fly planes into buildings.
But back to Gates shouting about what happens to black men in this country. Um, maybe he didn’t look recently but one of them got to be POTUS.
A pastor acquaintance of ours was closely following a car in the night hours in our small midwest town.
The car was driven by a woman whose husband had just died at the local hospital. Because she had no family in the area, he was being sure she got safely to her house where she could wait for family to arrive.
An alert police officer (a) observed the two cars, (b) observed that the second was closely following the first and that (c) the first was driven by a woman obviously distraught.
He got between the two cars and pulled her over.
Pastor pulls up behind the police car, gets out and starts to explain the situation, intending to spare her further upset.
Before he can explain, he is slammed up against the hood of his car, hands behind his back, the police officer is calling for backup….Why?
Obviously, the police officer was checking out whether the woman was being harrassed in some way. Because he was the lone officer on the scene in the middle of the night, he could not assume that this guy (who stopped although not instructed to) was a safe person….sooooooooo………
Guess what? The pastor was obviously shook up. But equally obviously, he did not blame the police officer. He did not threaten the police officer. He did not fight the police officer. He did not call the newspaper or threaten the police officer’s career or make comments about the police officer’s mother.
When things settled down, he explained who he was. The fresh widow confirmed his information. Police officer apologized and wished her well.
Oh. BTW. Both of these folks were white. Too bad the pastor wasn’t black, I guess. He could have screamed “racism!”
Excellent posts!! Also #211 thanks, it was interesting.
Mr Gate appears to be have the proverbial “chip” on his shoulder. Yes there are “bad” cops, this WAS NOT one of those situations, period.
Academic career aside, Mr Gates was irrational. If Mr. Gates would have shown a “picture” I.D., the officer, highly trained in racial situations, would have acknowledged it and left. Mr. Gates chose to be a race baiter. there is an audio tape, and people on the scene, including the lady that called 911. The cop had no idea who this man was by sight and was doing his job, and doing it well it appears.
911 was called, the cops responded. Mr. Gates refused to show himself as the resident. If Gates had been a burglar and the cop left, then the cop would have been accused of “not doing his job because a black man lived at this address” It’s all bull.
Mr Gates has little respect for himself or the law to lower himself to this position. Now he has painted himself into an UNenviable position and for “PRIDE” cannot let it go. OR was this an intentional response?? Does he have a book to sell or something??? He’ll do a documentary and cause more trouble. Race baiter.
I find Obama arrogant to a fault. He is trying to dismantle America and may get away with it if we do not fight back. Mr. Gates fits right in with Obama and arrogance.
To kywrite @ #211:
Excellent post. Thank you very much.
221. Bigger Diggler wrote:
In America, unlike China, Iran and North Korea, it is illegal (Unconstitutional) for the Police to demand proof of identification unless they have probable cause to believe that a crime has beeen committed.
Peter writes: A home break-in was reported by a witness on the scene, a witness that was still there and gave the investigating officer further information upon his arrival. Plus, by Gates OWN ADMISSION, his front door had evidence of a break-in.
By your own arguement, probable cause that a crime was being committed and anyone in the house needed to identify themselves and prove they were supposed to be there.
227. Moogie asked:
Who was the other guy? Where was he while Gates was being an asshole? What is his side of the story?
Peter writes: From what I can tell, based on the news reports and having read the actual police reports, the second man appears to either have been a limo driver or a friend who drove Gates home from the airport and that he left just after Gates entered his house, so was not present when the police arrived. Not that the police would know that.
211, This, at the end of the link, speaks volumes:
205. Brian:I propose a nationwide ban on police stopping, questioning or arresting anyone that is black or hispanic, regardless of the situation…… lets see how that works out.
Only if I can carry a concealed weapon and have street justice!
For a corrective on the Sidney Hook quote as it pertains to McCarthy please see M Stanton Evans’ book “Blacklisted by History . .” Clearly McCarthy was more sinned against than sinning.
Thanks for the info Peter. Nothing gets to me like armchair civilians second guessing the actions of police officers. Until they walk the walk, they should keep their friggin’ pie holes shut.
America is so racist. The mayor of Cambridge is black, the Governor of Massachusetts is black, and the POTUS is black. BTW…Guess who side they are all on?
There is a difference between law and authority and everyone should know it, especially minorities. You do not fight authority. Later, you can fight the law in court.
Obama really stepped in it this time.
Thanks, Sallie & Peter the Bubblehead. And Peter — the husband’s a squid too, mat man who’s ridden many different subs. Does that mean I get at least an honorary tally mark on your list-of-submariners-who-post-here? ;0)
overhere:
““My point is there are rascals in both religions.” The wise words of jharp. Except that in some religions the rascals like to fly planes into buildings.”
Yep, that’s true.
And in some religions the rascals like to blow up buildings with children in them. (Oklahoma City)
At the end of the day, we still don’t know exactly what transpired in the house that lead up to the arrest.
Even if Gates was a ‘race-baiter’ the cop, particularly one that teaches about profiling, should have been able to diffuse the situation.
I’ll respect overall, however that doesn’t mean I’m going to give cops a blank check to try people like garbage and act more like bullies.
Like this cop:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EH6AYVn2yw4
#243 jharp
A well-cited entry from Wikipedia (you can look up the cites yourself, they’re pretty clear)
“After his parents’ divorce, McVeigh lived with his father; his sisters moved to Florida with their mother. He and his father were Roman Catholics who often attended daily Mass. In a recorded interview with Time magazine[13] McVeigh professed his belief in “a God”, although he said he had “sort of lost touch with” Catholicism and “I never really picked it up, however I do maintain core beliefs.” The Guardian reported that McVeigh wrote a letter claiming to be an agnostic.[14] McVeigh at one time said that he believed the universe was guided by natural law, energized by some universal higher power that showed each person right from wrong if they paid attention to what was going on inside them. He had also said, “Science is my religion.”[15]”
So if “science” is his religion, and since he refers to some pretty new-age sounding stuff — are you saying that McVey’s liberal religion led him to blow up the Alfred P. Murrah building? Interesting take.
242. kywrite wrote:
…the husband’s a squid too… Does that mean I get at least an honorary tally mark on your list-of-submariners-who-post-here? ;0)
Peter writes: Being the wife of a squid can be a harder job than being a squid. You get a tally mark.
Pass on my htnaks to your husband for his servace, and especially my thanks to you for supporting him, and thereby, our whole country.
htnaks = thanks
Sorry. Typo.
To Peter the Bubblehead:
Peter wrote: “You’re right. It SHOULD have ended there, but Gates wouldn’t let it. He followed the officer outside and continued to insult hium, loudly, in full view of almost a dozen witnesses. He was warned to tone it down multiple times, which only made him louder, so finally the police arrested him for disorderly conduct. i would have done the same.”
No, as I said and which you apparently ignored, word has it that while inside Gates asked for Crowley’s name and badge. It was Crowley who told Gates that if he stepped outside, he would give Gates the info. So Gates stepped outside and that’s when Crowley cuffed him. If that was the sequence, then it pretty much means Crowley was the main jerk here. Random witnesses would be only more worthless than usual if they came after the initial exchange and only saw Gates being very angry. Sorry, but until there is more real evidence, it’s best to assume that Gates is more on the right here. And the fact that Obama is not backing off from his statement is also a good indicator — he was probably able to quickly obtain a very “unofficial” report of the incident that will likely never see the light of day (you guys have no idea how much stuff these days occurs under the public and media radar.) It’s going to be all huffin’ and puffin’ from this point on until it gets boring and fades.
231 – So, Meryl, the police can treat innocent people like crap and ask questions later and you’re okay with it? I know they actually do these things because I’ve been there but yet in your world, this is not merely explainable but really a good thing?
The man you describe was doing nothing wrong and was treated abominably. Yet, I’ll grant that he was on a public road where one may expect the police to make certain demands and behave in that manner. I’m not saying Gates was a good guy here but he was in his own home and was not treated with the respect that he has the right to expect. Alternately, if one does not have the right to “have an attitude” or be a jerk in the safety of one’s own home, one doesn’t have a lot of rights that can’t simply be trampled upon, do they?
The fact that Gates may be a race hustler has nothing to do with it any more than the fact the officer might have had a bad day.
#246: MY service. nah. My little brother came home from Afghanistan couple years ago with a bronze star and terribly proud because he made himself a favorite Taliban target after he took out and busted so many of them. THAT’s service. I’m recording and posting his stories when we get back to the mainland. Fascinating stuff.
but yes, the hubby works his butt off, out of patriotism and love for America not the peanuts he gets paid. It’s good to be married to a real man.
Mr Gates and Obama both owe the Cambridge Police an apology. I learned a long time ago that it is in your best interest to co operate with the police. My ex wife and I had stopped by a 7-11 store after I picked her up from her 5 p.m. to 1 a.m. job as a respiratory therapist. There was a squad car sitting outside the store and after I had made my purchase I got back in the car and my wife took off and the squad car then pulled out but with its headlights off then after about one half mile turned on not only the headlight but also their blue lights and we pulled over.
Two officers approached both side of the vehicle and the tapped on the windows and I rolled my window down and so did my wife the officer speaking to me told me to put both my hands on the dash and then told me to exit the vehicle to which I stated but you told me to put my hands on the dash and he said slowly with your right arm open the door sir which I did. One officer took my wife to the front of the vehicle and the other took me to the rear.
As I was speaking with the officer I started to get a cigarette from my shirt under my jacket at which time he immediately withdrew his pistol and told me to slowly remove my hand from my jacket which I did. We then continued with the dialog and he told me and my wife that I had matched the description of an armed robber of another convenience store a couple of miles away and they were convinced that it was a case of mistaken identity. This was a case where a cigarette almost got me killed, and you do not know what is going on with a policeman who never hardly sees good things happen in the course of their job I wouldn’t have their job for any amount of pay.
“are you saying that McVey’s liberal religion led him to blow up the Alfred P. Murrah building?”
No, you fool.
I made it quite clear what my point was. There are rascals in every religion.
George Bush claimed to be A Christian. How many did he kill? 100,000? 200,000?
And how many did he have tortured?
244. Middleman wrote:
Even if Gates was a ‘race-baiter’ the cop, particularly one that teaches about profiling, should have been able to diffuse the situation.
Peter writes: All indications are, and if you would simply read the Sergeant’s report you might learn a thing or two, that the Sergeant tried to deffuse the situation, to the point where he was about to simply leave.
Again, GATES FOLLOWED him outside the house, continuing to berate and insult the officer who was simply doing his job as proscibed by the law. He continued to yell loudly and make a scene of himself and was warned, several time, to quiet down.
This entire incident was caused by GATES. Made wordse by GATES. Finished by GATES when he would not simply shut his big trap. If he had simply STFU, NONE of this would have occurred.
Lets talk RACISM shall we because there is one race that has a completely disproportunate influence in the USA be that in Government in Politics in Judiciary in Hollywood and on TV and last but not least as perpetrators of violent crimes including murders (89%).</I.
Wrong. In most years, about 45-50% of U.S. murders are committed by blacks, not 89%. And about 90% of those murders are other blacks. (Most murders in the U.S. are within race: white on white, black on black.)
248. BC wrote:
No, as I said and which you apparently ignored, word has it that while inside Gates asked for Crowley’s name and badge. It was Crowley who told Gates that if he stepped outside, he would give Gates the info.
Peter writes: (Sigh…) I’m getting REALLY REALLY tired of telling you idiots the same thing over and over.
READ THE DAMN POLICE REPORT!
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2009/0723092gates2.html
Page 2 – Paragraph 2:
“When Gates asked a third time for my name, I explained to him I had already provided it at his request two seperate times. Gates continued to yelll at me.”
Page 2 – Paragraph 3:
“As I began walking through the foyer toward the front door, I could again hear Gates demanding my name. I again told Gates I would speak with him outside. My reason for wanting to leave the residence was that Gates was yelling very loud and the acoustics of the kitchen and foyer were making it difficult for me to transmit pertinant information to EEC or other responding units.”
From Officer Figueroa’s report (page 3 of the same link I provide above):
“As the Sgt. was trying to calm the gentleman, the gentleman shouted ‘You don’t know who you’re messing with!’”
All evidence points to the Sergeant doing EXACTLY as he was trained and what he was supposed to be doing. The ENTIRE incident is the fault of Gates, who’s ego is evidently too big for his neighborhood, and who could have prevented his own arrest by simply speaking calmly and politely with the responding officers. Instead he goes off the deep end, showing HE himself, GATES, is the racist in this incident, not the police.
To Thomas L…… @ #249:
Before you go making accusations against the police, may I suggest you do what is called a ‘Ride-Along’ some night or two. Most communities do it. You, as a civilian, spend a night or two riding with a uniformed police officer during the course of an average regular shift. Perhaps then you might enlighten yourself about what police officers face on a day to day basis, what dangers they must consider that you in your civilian outlook on life probably never even considered. Then look back on your own post and decide if what the police officer in Meryl’s post did was so bad or out of the ordinary.
The worst you have to worry about in your normal working day is the boss chewing you out for your lousy work or the train being late going home. A cop has to wonder if they will even live to go home EACH AND EVERY DAY!
Sgt. Crowley: Obama’s call to you is as close as he will come to acknowledging that he spoke stupidly. Let it go, but skip his offer of a beer.
To kywrite @ #250:
Please pass on my thanks and appreciation to your little brother for me as well.
(Hand Salute)
It’s really hysterical reading the posts of the pro-freedom, anti-government right wingers who now all of a sudden applaud the actions of a police officer for arresting a guy in his own home simply because the resident acted like a jerk towards the officer. Had this happened to any of you, you’d now be typing “STATIST POLICE BRUTALITY! OBAMA’S SOCIALIST BROWNSHIRT NAZI THUGS CAME TO MY HOUSE AND ARRESTED ME FOR EXCERCISING MY FREEDOM OF SPEECH!!!”
What a bunch of lousy hypocrites.
To Peter the Bubblehead: Chill, dude — I saw it, but…who wrote the police report, now? And did you see Gates’s version of the incident? For such a low level, but press notable incident, it means squat. The cop doesn’t need to lie outright — he can just choose his descriptions “carefully,” and it’s pretty damn obvious that he did. It’s still basically he said, she said regardless of what you think.
Anyway, Obama gave the cop a call to help settle matters and he certainly chose his words describing the phone call obviously very carefully and diplomatically. This story has gone has gotten way, WAY too much “coverage” so hopefully it will start to fade sooner rather than.
I think I saw this as a movie. Samuel L. Jackson, Nicolas Cage and Dabney Coleman, Passion Fish? I hope that the farce of the Obama administration will not be all reruns.
To kwrite: Tell your brother Thanks for taking care of business! To jharp: you are a stupid tool. I would think having teenage sons, you would want them to treat the police with respect- it could save everyone a lot of heartache. To Schreiben- If I heard you saying crap like that to any law officer, I would bust you in the mouth myself. . . and then gladly go to the jail. It would be worth it.
Someone should ask Obama what Gates meant by saying he would meet the officers mamma outside. Ask whether that is some sort of black cultural thing. Then ask what response he thinks would have been appropriate for the officer to that. Should the officer have gotten real animated and waved his hand side to side and said “Oh no you di int!”
Gates got topped by Crowley, in the schoolyard, Crowley has more juice. not right or wrong, black or white, positional power. legally.
#252:
Aw, did I upset its widdle feewings? Argument works better if the facts are on your side, doesn’t it.
The man was in his own home. Show the cop some ID with the same addy on it and the cop should go away. Somehow, no matter how ya look at it, that didn’t happen. (Both sides, cop and homeowner, kept advancing into the insanity. [A case of Contempt of Cop, anyone? iow, "I'm a cop! Submit or else!!])
Anti-police state/big government commentary from the conservative side doesn’t mix well with most of the comments about this case now coming from the conservative side. There’s really been a disconnect from reality, here, folks. Unless, of course, you’re actually promoting police statism and big government, as long as it’s the flavor of big government of which you approve…and as long as the police aren’t knocking down your own doors.
Why isn’t the media calling it the Obamagates Scandal?
I’ll give some of you Easterners the benefit of the doubt. Here in Oregon the only people harping about law enforcement are either people with a general problem with authority or those who are upset because the Police had the audacity of citing them for breaking the law. My personal beef with local law enforcement is that too many of them happen to also be Reservists and Guardsmen and are getting deployed out of the country leaving us civilians on our own. I mean, really, isn’t it enough that you guys serve and protect the occupants of this country? Do you really have to be so unselfish as to protect the whole world? Those of you trashing Police officers obviously don’t know any. GO ARMY!
252. jharp:
George Bush claimed to be A Christian. How many did he kill? 100,000? 200,000?
And how many did he have tortured?
~~~~~
Not enough.
Any more questions?
Cops should have clubbed this overaged punk as well.
Obama says, “I didn’t ‘calibrate’ my remarks” with respect to the Cambridge arrest.
That’s a dodge. In point of fact, he simply miscalculated the public’s reaction. This time, we didn’t let him get away with his “black man victim; white man victimizer” routine.
See: Stupid is as stupid does. http://emmeffemm.com/id103.html
Mike W.:
“It’s really hysterical reading the posts of the pro-freedom, anti-government right wingers who now all of a sudden applaud the actions of a police officer for arresting a guy in his own home simply because the resident acted like a jerk towards the officer. Had this happened to any of you, you’d now be typing “STATIST POLICE BRUTALITY! OBAMA’S SOCIALIST BROWNSHIRT NAZI THUGS CAME TO MY HOUSE AND ARRESTED ME FOR EXCERCISING MY FREEDOM OF SPEECH!!!””
Hopefully, at least one or two here will take a good hard look at themselves and understand the hypocrisy and the preposterousness of the postions they defend.
A very good post. Mike W.
Professor Gates owes Sergeant Crowley, and Crowley’s mother, an apology, and then needs to attend a sensitivity workshop on race.
President Obama owes his mother’s mother, and the Cambridge Police Department, an apology, and America a genuine birth certificate.
260. BC wrote:
(The police report) I saw it, but…who wrote the police report, now? And did you see Gates’s version of the incident?
Peter writes: One of the things most of the pro-Gates people have not taken into account, which even the local news have latched onto here in the Boston area, is even GATES does NOT DISPUTE the events as reported in the police report.
So if even GATES agrees the police report is accurate, how can you argue the facts?
It is unfortunate that some people expect society to just accept blacks acting out in this way, even someone who is supposedly highly educated and “respected” like Gates. He has absolutely no shame (though he should be deeply ashamed) and many others see what he did and shamelessly defend it. So we are supposed to accept a different, lower standard for blacks not only in affirmative action programs but in general decency dealing with others. They get to act out their inner child even on a police officer and everyone, including the police officer, are just supposed to look the other way, suck it up, move on, but at the same time “respond” as the blacks would want us to and “change” our behavior to somehow make sure they aren’t prompted to act out their inner child in this way again?
Perhaps if Gates felt so wronged instead of freaking out on the scene he should have dealt with the officer as any normal human being would do and then write an op-ed piece for the paper explaining how he felt it should have been handled differently.
“So if even GATES agrees the police report is accurate, how can you argue the facts?”
Like many issues these days, and especially issues dealing with race, blacks, religion, well actually the list could go on and on, facts are really not a factor. Though there is an actual “reality” and “facts” too many people today are willing to just continue on arguing using their own made up “facts” and when that fails just arguing based upon emotions and feelings. This sort of relativistic view of the world, where EVERYTHING, literally, is just an opinion where each side can have their own is going to cause the final death of Western civilization. While America and the West could have dealt with the problems of blacks eventually, increased immigration of minority populations and much more fatal allowing immigration of Muslims and the spreading of Islam in the West (again due to the above failure to deal with facts and reality not emotions and feelings) will certainly if not reversed cause the destruction of Western freedoms and governments and eventually the civilization itself.
I’m done with this thread. I’ve dealt with enough cops in this area to much more give Gates the benefit of the doubt, and all the little bits and pieces of circumstantial evidence, from the behavior of Crowley and the police union, to the police report, to Obama’s threading the needle, indicate Crowley is mostly at fault. If Gates had swallowed his pride and controlled his temper, and did nothing but the whole, “Yes officer, no officer,” bit, it’s likely this would have amounted to nothing, but…you know?
Obama probably very much regrets answering that last little question at his press conference (check out Jon Stewart’s rather amusing little take on it at the end of this clip.), but he gets kudos in my book for making the best out of a classic no-win situation. And people should realize that this is a good example of why high ranking politicians tend to give vague, wishy-washy answers to questions: when they do honestly speak their mind, some large chunk of the population is bound to get all upset, defensive, whiny and/or crybabyish.
Addendum: I just saw that both Gates and Crowley took up Obama’s invitation to get together for a beer. It is **so** unbelievably nice to have an adult at the wheel.
28. Middleman:
“Both sides were wrong. Gates was wrong to act like a jerk, but the cops were wrong in arresting a man ON HIS OWN PROPERTY “just” for being an a-hole to them.
Had Gates been Sean Hannity, all the talk would be of the Obama Police State right now.”
Agreed…
However, as a sensible middle aged white woman, the only way I would be giving any cop a bad time would be if I were too emotionally hysterical over something to be in my right mind.
There are probably extenuating circumstances that “could” get me so riled up that I would not care whom I was screaming at..
But, I’d have to be pretty outraged to yell at any cop, ever, due to the inherent risk of the cop deciding to “prove who’s the boss.” Guess how that ends up!
That is not a racist situation, that is a power struggle situation: me vs any cop.
I could not expect to win, so I would have to be prepared to lose! I’d have to be nuts.
Gates clearly has a big ego, but my guess is that he also has a deep emotional “trigger” due to his lifelong expectation of bad treatment from whites, perhaps particularly from white cops. When he perceived that his expectation of bad treatment was being fulfilled, he simply lost it. Not rational. Just screaming angry.
Part of it is his age, perhaps.. our world has improved, although definitely is not perfect, but I find people my age & older often still live in the past and do not see a lot of the progress that has come about among younger people..
Do all we old folks have to die out, for the atmosphere to improve? I hope not, but I sure do wonder. Gates’ knee jerk reaction was totally over the top.
However, I do agree that it looks as if the cop played him, got him on the porch in front of the neighbors, then pulled the power play and put him in cuffs and hauled him downtown literally for his rude obnoxious behavior.
And, that is not right. But, would any of us expect anything else?
Not this old white lady. I think the cop pulled a stupid power play on Gates.
But… yelling at and insulting ANY cop = INSANITY.
White, black, green, purple… just don’t go there, dude.
And, Obama stuck his foot in it, should have left it alone, but he recovered okay.
We have much more important things to be worrying about, than his comments on it.
Actually this incident was a small victory for the “working stiffs” of this nation. Obama displayed the “liberal” contempt for the largely white non professional working class. Obama sounded like Judge Ginsberg” dissent in Ricci v DeStefano. The New Haven firemen had no right to the promotions. Despite every effort to make the tests fair, the dissenting judge were sure they were biased. The majority in Ricci stayed factual, so did the Cambridge Police.
The vituperative contempt “liberals” exhibit toward Sarah Palin is similar to Obama’s “acted stupidly” remark. Real liberalism died in the 1968 New York school strike. Antisemitism became chic among the protest prone’ black abgitators were enshrined as America’s critics. But Sgt. Crowley and the firemen are leading a strong rebuttal.
What is sort of funny about Gates, the supposed great scholar, is that if he really was someone of high intelligence and quick wit instead of attacking the police officer in such a vulgar manner he could have put the officer down using the right choice of language and tone without raising his voice once. Handling the situation in that way isn’t even within the realm of possibility for someone like Gates, he is too crude, too low a person.
Gates is a shoe shuffling Al Sharpton-lite Democratic Party con man who makes his living as being a “negro” victim. If a black person can’t pass a test, blame the test – don’t blame your own stupidity.
I am a 53 year old woman, 2nd generation Cambridge woman who was born and raised in Cambridge MA. I went to the “Pilot School” in the 70′s, an expericmant run by the Harvard U. Dept. of Education. Being Blond, I got the B-Jesus kicked out of me almost dailey by the black girls, who were always waiting to kill any blonde girl who dared to hang out with the black guys and dance to James brown and go to Aretha concerts (which were $1 at the Boston Comman, occasionally)….I was forced to turn the other cheek and act as if all the beatings didn’t happen…I was forced to take my last year in High School as “work-study” and after going on to U-Mass-where the local kids go- because the Harvard doors are very closed, unless you are poor or on affirmative action,… I traveled the Red line to Roxbury-Dorchester, dailey. The eletist left the train by Charles street, of course. I am appauled at this Harvard Professor because the people of Cambridge in many ways, (“The Left Bank”) opened the doors of equality for all people of color. Michelle Obama should have a Beer with Wendy Murphy’s client…and let’s really talk! People in Cambridge have been the ones to open the doors to many Civil Rights Leaders, Martin Luther King went to B.U., Bill Cosby received his degree at B.U. WHen we were kids we used to say stuff like “your Mammma” etc. Sounds like Mr. Gates has an arrested development.!