Skip Gates arrested

My bet – ‘difficulty opening door’ = ‘drunk’. Then when the police came, he told them to f*ck off.

He refused to hand over Teh Whitey Tape?

is “tumultuous behaviour” a technical charge or poetry?

My bet – ‘difficulty opening door’ = ‘drunk’.

At 1:00 in the afternoon?

…

Here’s hoping the comments here at CT don’t come to resemble anything approaching most of the reader responses on that Globe article, which are soul-crushingly unbelievable… even if many of them are insincerely provocative for the sake of getting a rise out of other readers…

But hey! I was just reading a 1994 study by S.A. Counter (on responsiveness to cochlear implants), and I remember reading some of his papers on the specific effects of lead and mercury poisoning during some kind of debate on CT about testing for lead in toys. Small world.

Your comment is awaiting moderation.

Hrm. I hope the “via” thing gets around the law against sockpuppetry both in letter and in spirit, since it’s a quote. If not, my apologies.

This is outrageous — even from the one-sided arrest report, it’s clear the police were being incredibly offensive. Anyone organizing some kind of protest?

Holy crap, Salient isn’t kidding about the comments to the Globe story. I only skimmed a few, but they made me sick to my stomach.

Is nobody going to say anything about the death of Leszek Kolakowski? You would think that would be some acknowledgment of it. After all, Kolakowski actually wrote the book that Isaiah Berlin never got around to doing. And after all facing all sorts of dangerous radicals in the sixties and seventies middlebrow minds (I’m thinking of you Clive James) could be relieved they never had to take Marx or Marxians seriously because the heroic Pole had dispatched them. You would think at least that a small orgy of self-congratulation would be in order. But so far only Christopher Hitchens and Roger Kimball have commented on it. Kimball’s praise means nothing: he just described Walter Cronkite as a liberal hack because Cronkite was distraught about JFK’s assassination and was outraged by Watergate. Hitchens’ wasn’t much better, making Kolakowski appear somewhat less Catholic than I remember him, and quoting a gibe at the student left as if Hitchens wasn’t that at the time. But then you know Hitchens: movements and struggles exist only to glorify his reputation. And if he can get more glory by sneering at them, even better.

The moral of this story is that if the cop tries to trick you into coming outside, you should just sit down in your own house, where a disorderly conduct charge will be harder to support.

Note that it was the police officer who initially refused to provide his identification.

One thing about this story — it’s got to raise your opinion of Gates.

Practical wisdom says to be polite and deferential to the cops, no matter how egregious their behavior — especially if you’re a black man.Good on Gates for not letting this slide. The world would be a better place if more racist motherf*ckers got called that to their face.

is there some past event I’m forgetting, which might cause me to not already hold him in high esteem?

No, it’s just that this isn’t the sort of gutsiness you expect from middle-aged tenured professors.

The police responded to a call about a possible burglary. ( Had it been a real one, and had they not responded, Gates would be complaining about that.) They had every right under the circumstances to ask the person in the home for identification. What happened from that point on is what light must be shed on, but it’s entirely conceivable that Mr. Gates took a “how dare you” attitude with a cop who was just doing his job, and behaved in a manner that he himself would have taken umbrage with, had such behavior been displayed by the officer towards him. Some here have commented on Globe articles “defending” the cops and castigating Prof. Gates. On this blog, we see just the opposite. “It must be racism!” “Of course it is!” “Typical cops!” Well a closed mind is a closed mind. Making assumptions about people based on race is wrong, and so is making assumptions about police officers and treating those assumptions as “truth”.

First of all, I must express my regret that someone named Crowley was involved. Second, I agree with Ex-PD’s assessment. I don’t know the elements of the statue involved but I can’t see how any crime could be charged. Being loud, or even abusive, to police in these circumstances is not a crime. The cops, by their own report, had no evidence that Gates was unlawfully in the home or that any crime had been committed. No crime having been committed, there was no longer any basis for further investigation or action. Some states have “obstruction” laws which make it an offense to “hinder or delay” an officer in his/her official duties. But this requires the predicate of an ongoing official duty.

But I am surprised that a 58-year old black man of Gates’ sophistication would engage in the described actions (if he did). Yelling or being threatening (even legally, as in “I’ll have you fired” ) with cops is a poor tactic if the goal is to go about your business without being arrested, beaten, or worse. Yes, we should all be able to engage in legal conduct without fear of arrest but then there are the realities to consider.

Trying to pull rank/status on police is a bad tactic as well. Most cops come from traditional working-class backgrounds and having someone imply that they deserve special consideration by way of employment, family connections etc. is likely to piss the cop off.

Chris Rock did a short video on how to interact with police and not get your ass beat. Funny and valuable no matter your race.

#22 – this is going to a multi-million dollar lawsuit. Gates told the cop so – that’s what the “you have no idea” line means. The interesting question is, will Gates settle it, or will he unleash a couple of dozen Harvard law students to rip the Cambridge PD a new one?

Yelling or being threatening (even legally, as in “I’ll have you fired” ) with cops is a poor tactic if the goal is to go about your business without being arrested, beaten, or worse.

Maybe that was not his goal, though.

Yes, we should all be able to engage in legal conduct without fear of arrest but

But? Gates found himself subjected to what’s pretty clearly inappropriate treatment, and it seems he was aware of the extent of his rights and exercised them. He was/is in a sufficiently privileged position to ensure he will have access to legal council and (one anticipates) remunerative justice.

Frankly, it seems like Gates took quite a personal risk in the name of demanding one’s rights. As with lemuel, I admire Gates for taking that risk. Frankly, I am greatly relieved to know that he was not tasered.

having someone imply that they deserve special consideration

I’d call it “having someone imply they have the resources to challenge inappropriate treatment with a lawsuit,” as I have no reason to think Gates wanted any special considerations above and beyond what all residents are legally entitled to.

You have, however, no evidence to that effect in this case other than your own preconceived notions, so why is your argument supposed to hold any water?

I work with cops on a daily basis- the good kind (many if not most) and this kind (unfortunately not rare) and I have read many hundreds of police reports. I know how they think and what their procedures are. From what knowledge does YOUR smug presumption of superior wisdom stem?

I don’t know anything except what I’ve read via Boston.com. Maybe the cop’s lying. But you yourself say many if not most cops are the good kind. And the report makes Gates sound like an arrogant piece of work — maybe he was just having a bad day — who started senselessly berating the cop well before he identified himself.

Cops have been jerks to me, but that was just because I was mouthy young white guy. My minor troubles were neither newsworthy nor a civil-rights cause.

And the report makes Gates sound like an arrogant piece of work—maybe he was just having a bad day—who started senselessly berating the cop well before he identified himself.

Again, there is no reason to assume that the report is truthful. Once the idiot called for backup the report was guaranteed to be an elaborate exercise in self-justification. The copper knew he’d stepped in it.

And the report makes Gates sound like an arrogant piece of work

Yeah, it’s so arrogant to be pissed when the police have more time to harass you (because your stupid fucking neighbor thinks they all look the same) than to catch the thief who broke into your house (thereby creating the very difficulty in opening the door that started the whole incident). Such nerve.

Salient,
>>Here’s hoping the comments here at CT don’t come to resemble anything approaching most of the reader responses on that Globe article, which are soul-crushingly unbelievable… even if many of them are insincerely provocative for the sake of getting a rise out of other readers…

Give it a break. Your liberal conscience has the made of stronger stuff, no? The comments are temperate, if skeptical.

Damn, if I were jimmying open my door at mid-day I would want the police to stop and question me. And I would thank my neighbor for alerting the police too. And yes, where I live, white men are stopped all the time for suspicious behavior.

Yes, and your literary namesake was a hero and we all know how well that worked out for him. One limb at a time. Exception that proves the rule. And in the case at hand in Boston, an awfully thin (Blue) line between “hero” and martyr. And please, I am not excusing the cops.

I grew up with cops around on a regular basis. Assuming they are racist is an intelligence test. No means you’re stupid. I remember my brother coming home after a LA cop beatdown because he was driving while white with black people in the car. I wonder what sort of neighborhood the Trotsker in comments above grew up in? Almost nobody growing up in a poor, non-white neighborhood sees police the same way he does.

A man in his own house owes the police shit. The cop quickly understood he was a resident. He should have said sorry and left without anything more, except giving his own ID.

DN

There is a lot to comment on in Officer Crowley’s report, but this is one of my favorite statements:

“”I warned Gates to calm down while I withdrew my department issued handcuffs from their carrying case.”

Taking out his handcuffs was very calming, wasn’t it? ;)

I have no doubt there is racism involved in the blog comments, but there’s probably something more general as well: as a rule, if someone posts on a widely read web site about some experience in which he or she has clearly been victimised, this invariably attracts a flurry of angry and sometimes abusive responses pointing out that he or she brought it all on his/her self, that s/he acted in a stupid way, that other people suffer worse things every day and don’t complain, that the people who hurt her/him did a great job and deserve to be thanked, etc, etc…

the word “racism” itself has been retired, except when modified by “reverse”

Fair enough. I blame Maria Sonia Sotomayor.

Yelling or being threatening (even legally, as in “I’ll have you fired” ) with cops is a poor tactic if the goal is to go about your business without being arrested, beaten, or worse.

well, hassling university professors in their own houses and calling for backup even after they’ve been kind enough to warn you who they are, is a poor tactic if your goal is to go about being a cop without being fired and sued. Perhaps Chris Rock should do a little stand-up routine for police officers about how to behave if they don’t want to get sued and fired.

D2: But that’s the problem, in most cases the cops win the civil suit and are not fired. Juries side with police in the vast majority of cases even when there is video evidence that seems damning. It may well be that Prof. Gates’ status will trump the usual excuses for police misconduct.

If my earlier comment has been taken as blaming Gates (it remains to be seen if he did anything like what is described in the police report) that was not my intention. I am concerned that some posters seem to think that getting into conflict with armed police is something to be done lightly or that the law favors citizens asserting their rights. It varies from state to state but here in Washington there is no right to resist even an unlawful arrest unless you can show that you were at risk of severe bodily harm from the police. (And good luck with that.) Fight back and at a minimum you will be charged with felony assault on the police who unlawfully arrested you.

But if anyone wants to become a martyr to police violence, more power to him or her.

A few years ago in Southern California the police killed a business owner who was unexpectedly spending the night at work and walking around at 2 am. This resonated with me because my father used to split his nights between the workplace with his girlfriend and home with his wife, and also because I too used to spend excessive amounts of time at the factory, perhaps less satisfactorily, and one Sunday afternoon surprised a sheriff’s deputy by opening the door just as he reached for it. He exclaimed, “Don’t do that! I might shoot you!” even though he hadn’t drawn his gun. Cops even frighten themselves.

Gates had every right to act as he did, and may have felt a responsibility as a professor and a public intellectual to exercise and so demonstrate his, and our, civil liberties.

Having read both sides of the story, I think at least the neighbour should be excused blame: she saw two unfamiliar men (Gates and his driver) arrive at his house in the middle of the day, try and fail to force the door, and then disappear round the back of the house, so she called the police because she thought there was a burglary going on. Fair enough. (Especially as there had been one break-in at Gates’ house already in the recent past.)

(I can’t help feeling that, if she and her next-door neighbour had ever bothered to introduce themselves to each other, this whole thing would have been avoided – “oh, hi, Professor Gates, you’re back early, how was China?”)

30, 35, 49: it’s fairly clear that the cop never called for backup, before meeting Gates or after. Read it again.

Being loud, or even abusive, to police in these circumstances is not a crime.

Actually, yes: disorderly conduct, even swearing in public, can be a crime.

yes, looks like you’re right on that one. I still think the cop should be fired and sued anyway. Ideally I’d like a situation where these kind of stories generate 100 comments saying “WHAT WAS THAT GUY THINKING!!!! everybody knows that sixty-year old disabled black professors are hair-trigger litigious nuts!!! maybe the cop was in the right or maybe not, but sheesh, a little bit of courtesy could have saved him from losing his job and pension!!! didn’t he learn this shit in high school?????”.

We assume (some of us) that the cop is in the wrong…Perhaps Henry Louis Gates was in the wrong…It sounds to me like a situation that got out of hand and escalated…I know who Gates is – a citizen like any other…The fact that he teaches at Harvard is immaterial in this situation…Cop bashers eat this stuff up…If the cop was in the wrong then action should be taken against him, but let the legal system decide before you make a rush to judgement ! …

Paul @ 57, I agree: it’s no more logically coherent to assume the police officer is guilty than it is to assume the black man is guilty.

My liberal tendencies (like, I suspect, most posters here) tend me towards the former conclusion – particularly because a) Gates is an educated man, b) I am averse to racism in all its insidious forms, and c) the facts, as they appear, seem to be in favour of Gates. But a) and b) do not count in front of the law – those are my prejudices. I’m always going to side with the academic’s account of things and/or the oppressed minority’s account of things. It remains to be determined what actually happened.

Note that this is not me offering a circumlocutive defense of indiscriminate racial profiling, nor is this an attempt to subtly undermine some other poster here. Just sayin’. I find it very easy to criticize others for jumping to false conclusions, but catch myself doing it aaall the time.

And we know exactly WHEN it escalated. It escalated the moment the cop found out he was talking to the rightful occupant of the house yet DIDN’T back off, apologize, and GO AWAY. Period.

No. It escalated when the rightful occupant provided a satisfactory explanation for the original report, and the officer didn’t go away. Up until that point, there is still reasonable suspicion of a crime in progress.

And no, I’m not saying that Gates was under suspicion at that point, but the risk remains that someone has entered the house without Gates’ knowledge, and the officer has the responsibility to take reasonable steps to ensure Gates’ safety.

Imagine if the officer left after being suitably impressed by Gates’ Harvard ID card, Gates entered the house, and was stabbed by the burglar waiting inside?

Once a satisfactory explanation was provided (and all Gates had to say was, “That was me forcing my way in”), then the officer should have left. An ID card alone does not suffice to dispel reasonable suspicions of a crime in progress.

If the homeowner doesn’t want the officer there, game over. If the homeowner really is taking a foolish risk that a bad guy is hiding in his house, so be it- that’s on him. Regardless, if you’re in your own house, are not suspected of committing a crime yourself and want the cop to go away, the cop must go away. Period.

Exigent circumstances can allow the police to execute warrantless search or arrest if the facts known to them lead them to believe that public safety could be compromised.

Exigent circumstances can allow the police to execute warrantless search or arrest if the facts known to them lead them to believe that public safety could be compromised.

And no such circumstances existed in this case. Moreover, even in his bullshit CYA report the cop didn’t try to invent any. Perhaps he should hire you as his lawyer, since you seem to be even more inventive than he is.

And no such circumstances existed in this case.

A 911 report introduces a reasonable suspicion of a crime in progress. An explanation from the homeowner should dispel such suspicion. Whether such a reasonable suspicion rises to the level of an exigent circumstance is debatable.

Perhaps he should hire you as his lawyer, since you seem to be even more inventive than he is.

Why are you being an ass about this? I’m not defending the arrest: I agree that once the officer was satisfied that there was no crime, he should have worked to defuse and de-escalate. The arrest is a failure on the part of the officer, plain and simple.

But there is also nothing outrageous or racist about expecting cooperation during the investigation of a potential crime.

Right, because it’s so unheard of for cops to abuse their position. How dare anyone think otherwise.

“A little OT, but what sort of neighbourhood does Gates live in when his neighbour doesn’t even recognise him in broad daylight?”

A mostly white one?

It really does sound as if Gates flew off the handle. We can interpret this as “courage”, but from where I sit that sounds like spin. Other things being equal, you would hope that a home owner who had suffered a previous break in would be solicitous to police officers investigating the possibility of another.

But, first, other things aren’t equal. Gates lives in a country where black men are more heavily policed than any other group, a country which has only recently begun allowing a few blacks to occupy some elite positions. In such a country, is it any surprise that a black man might harbor some small measure of resentment?

Let’s assume, to make the case for the cop as strong as possible, that Gates harbors more resentment about the condition of blacks in America than is strictly justifiable. And let’s further assume that this resentment led him to see racism in actions which had no racial intent.

So here we have the police officer, doing his job responding to a call, and here we have a late middle-aged black man, ranting and raving in his own home. On these facts, how do we want the cop to act?

Well, I want him to grasp what’s going on, and to take active steps to defuse the situation. I want, when Gates yells at him, for the cop to back down. Instead of escalating the interaction in an attempt to regain control, I want the cop to allow Gates the dignity of being in control of his own home.

This is what puzzles me about all of the defenses of the cop. Why wouldn’t you want him to back down? Even giving him the benefit of the doubt at every turn, assuming he’s not a racist and that Gates has flown off the handle, this still looks to me like a misunderstanding that need not have resulted in an arrest.

Exigent circumstances can allow the police to execute warrantless search or arrest if the facts known to them lead them to believe that public safety could be compromised.

A little learning is a dangerous thing, isn’t it? Cite me a case, please, where “exigent circumstances” could possibly be found on these facts, once the officer conceded that Gates was the rightful occupant of the residence.

The classic “exigent circumstance” is when the cops hear someone inside yell “help, he’s killing me!” and burst in without a warrant. Protecting Gates from himself, because there MIGHT be a burglar in the house, is not an exigent circumstance.

a country which has only recently begun allowing a few blacks to occupy some elite positions. In such a country, is it any surprise that a black man might harbor some small measure of resentment?

Do you mean a random black man, or one who is a tenured professor at Harvard, a presidential advisor, a millionaire, and one of Time Magazine’s 25 most influential Americans?

ajay – Read this. Slightly OT, but maybe it will help you get it.

A few thoughts on this:
1. The Police in every community know where the high crime areas are. I’d be hard pressed to believe that The director of Havard’s W.E.B. Du Bois Institue of African and African American Research lives in “the hood”, if Cambridge even has a “hood.”

2. The population of Cambridge, as per the 2000 census, is 101,355. Of that number , just under 12% is African-American. Also, the total population between the ages 55 to 59, is almost 4%. Gates fits into a very small demographic, in this community. Cambridge has 272 police officers, and keep in mind that they must cover 3 shifts around the clock. My point is that this is a small city, with a major university attached, and they can’t seem to figure out who belongs, and who doesn’t. And yes, I do know that crimes are sometimes committed by guys in shirts and ties.

Stats website – http://cambridgema.areaconnect.com/statistics.htm

3. As a matter of past practices and precedent, generally, people of lower social-economic status, AND people of color ARE treated and approached differently that others, particularily those in a position of authority.

4. Are we to believe that this 58 year old, African-American, director at Havard who specializes partly, in African-American reseach, is not familiar civil rights violations, racism, and police brutality? After all, he only researches it, taught it, AND lived through it, while growing up in 1950’s and 60’s America.

5. Finally, I live in an area that is almost 8 square miles, with a population of 9 times Cambridge. Yet, I know the neighbors on my street. What happened here? Neighbors can be unique in that, when something sinister or criminal actually happens, nobody ever sees anything, but in this case the police were called.

Something is terribly wrong with this entire picture. Fromthe neighbor who called the police, to the handling of the matter by the police, to the response by Skip Gates. Seems there were many errors in judgement.
There may be a lawsuit in the future, in Cambridge. Cambridge, as a whole, may also need to work on their people skills.

FYI, Skip Gates boi.
http://aaas.fas.harvard.edu/faculty/henry_louis_gates_jr/index.html

Gates’s statement on the events is here:

http://www.theroot.com/views/lawyers-statement-arrest-henry-louis-gates-jr

(I don’t think it’s been linked to yet- apologies if it has.) I’d be surprised if he wasn’t somewhat more animated than the statement suggests, but then, I probably would be more animated, too. I’m pretty surprised that an apology hasn’t been issued by the Cambridge PD yet (assuming it hasn’t) and I’d expect one very soon.

I wonder if Gates’s “tumultuous behaviour” had anything to do with the way the police responded to the previous break-in? Anyone who has experienced much crime in their lives knows that the response of the police can be pretty hit-and-miss. If he’d had a hit-and-miss experience (whether or not it included racism) just a few days before, then the cops refuse to believe he wasn’t the rightful owner…

A few months ago while my partner was at home here, some kids started trashing the school fence across the road. She called 999 and their first question was “Are they black?” We aren’t black but I can imagine that this sort of experience is pretty soul-destroying if it happens even once in the course of going about one’s law abiding life. If things like this have been happening to Professor Gates for years and then he cops this (pardon the pun), of course his behaviour is going to be tumultuous. I suspect this cop is going to be in a lot of trouble in time…

Obligatory link.

86: equally, with any luck, the next time Professor Gates feels himself hard done by, he will think twice before blowing his stack, yelling and screaming and calling people’s superiors, because he’ll remember that the last time he did that he ended up in handcuffs.

I think with any luck, Prof. Gates will end up thinking that this was all a bit of a jape and that a short period in the cells was a price well worth paying for the opportunity to shove it right up the collective bottom of the Cambridge police department and will regularly remind lairy young coppers that the last time they acted disrespectfully to a black academic, they paid for his Ferrari.

Not legally or morally wrong, but wrong none the less.

I feel like a dope for asking, but if by “wrong” you mean something other than “legally wrong” or “morally wrong” — what is it that you do mean?

When I use the word ‘wrong’ and don’t mean in the legal or moral sense, it’s usually equivalent to “that which makes me vaguely uncomfortable” or “that which will result in undesirable consequences.”

When dealing with the cops, always, always, be polite.

Why?

Out of common human decency, I’d support the general principle that one ought to be kind to other human beings in the absence of justifications for unkindness. But I don’t think it’s reasonable to say “always, always” here, even taking the generous interpretation that you mean “always, unless your safety is threatened.”

And ajay, you could have saved yourself some typing by replacing “blowing his stack, yelling and screaming and calling one’s superiors” with “getting uppity.”

Loud obnoxious people aren’t nice to have around

As I understand it, he’s the soul of politeness and bonhomie when not being threatened with arrest in his kitchen. And in any case, his putative obnoxiousness is only a problem for a small number of students and academics – the copper deals with the general public every day and he seems to have been quite obnoxious himself.

97: oh, I see what you did there, Salient, you fiendishly clever disputant you.

It’s interesting that all the people busy genuflecting to police authority can’t muster the energy to bow before a well-connected superstar Harvard professor.

cf #84, which references a joke told by both white people and black people, in somewhat different registers of voice (something which I believe is known to the academics and postmodernists as “signifying”).

Raising one’s voice and threatening to call the harasser’s superiors are fairly reasonable forms of self-defense, if one feels unfairly treated.

Hmmm. How well did they work out for him, in this case?

How well did they work out for him, in this case?

Dunno yet. Ask me after any lawsuits are settled. Ask me after we see some reports on whether or not incidents of police harassment of blacks decline in Cambridge, over the next year or two.

Getting arrested and arraigned for a bogus case is not that big a deal, when one has the resources to get the case dropped. And even in cases dissimilar to this one, when one can’t get the case dropped and arrest is indeed a big deal, sometimes acting on principle is worth the consequences. Cf. King, Dr. Martin Luther, obviously.

Gee ajay, so much concern for poor Professor Gates. I wonder if the Director of the WEB DuBois Institute for African and African American Research will ever recover from a bogus arrest on his own property.

Does your heart not bleed for the idiot police officer who messed with someone way out of his league? Something tells me that someone’s career took a big hit on Thursday, and I don’t think it was someone once named as one of the 25 most influential Americans.

What’s weird is that you seem to be fully aware of Gates’s privilege and status (comment 79), and yet you still hope he’s been taught some kind of lesson in dealing with authority here. Interesting.

This is what happens when a privileged and protected class is lead to believe that the rules don’t apply to them. And the cop too, I suppose.

What do you call a black man who is a tenured professor at Harvard, a presidential advisor, a millionaire, and one of Time Magazine’s 25 most influential Americans?

OK, I’ll bite.

Mr. Tibbs?

Billikin: rhymes with “jigger.”

They might settle for a Camry – maybe.

Settling for a ‘Civic’ would be funnier.

They’ve all shook hands and gone home, but the “street-cred” Gates has now is incalculable.

Whoops! That last post by Salient is by me.

Umm?

Just getting this straight here ajay – arresting someone on no grounds for asking you your name and id is okay, but asking a cop their name and id makes you not a nice person to be around?

It will be nice if Gates gets a Ferrari out of this, I suppose. More important, though, is that Officer Crowley lose his job, his pension and his employability in any but the most menial of positions. That might possibly have a salubrious effect on the behaviour of other cops.

BTW, would it be too much to ask “Trotsky” to adopt a more appropriate and intellectually honest nym? Like, maybe, “Bob Grant”?

Just getting this straight here ajay – arresting someone on no grounds for asking you your name and id is okay, but asking a cop their name and id makes you not a nice person to be around?

Yes, sg, that’s exactly what I said. Word for word.

james should have used the words “bad idea” or “unwise” rather than “wrong”. Gates’s reaction was completely reasonable and natural, and maybe in his case not unwise, but it would be unwise for most of us. When dealing with people who are armed, unreasonable, and have the de facto power to make your life very unpleasant for no good reason, it is a good idea to be polite and moderately deferential. This helps you both to avoid very bad short-term consequences, and helps with subsequent lawsuits/criminal trials etc. My guess (and hope) is that most of the people here have had limited direct experience of such situations. I have had considerably more than I would have liked, though not for a very long time, and my advice to people would be to behave as james suggests.

In this particular case, the cop has invited a lawsuit, the city will settle on reasonable terms, and Gates will in all probability donate most of the proceeds to some worthy charity, because he’s a decent bloke. The cop will probably act somewhat more carefully in future when dealing with upper middle class people, but that’ll probably be it.

When dealing with the cops, always, always, be polite. Identify yourself. Make sure you seem non-threatening. If it looks like they want to question you as more than a witness, get a lawyer and shut up. This is basic stuff.

Yes, it’s the curriculum of Surviving Police Abuse Of Power 101. (I wonder if they teach that at Harvard?) You left out “All those legal rights you have on paper only exist if the cops feel like respecting them, so don’t try to assert them if they don’t.”

The existence of such a program does not justify the behavior that makes it necessary – rather the reverse, if anything. If police reliably didn’t arrest anyone who hadn’t committed a crime, and didn’t threaten or attack anyone who wasn’t threatening or attacking them, and obeyed the law while trying to enforce it, most people really wouldn’t have much to fear from the police, except maybe mistakes. But we don’t live in that country. Some of us would like to move in that direction – which requires more public critical scrutiny and oversight of law enforcement officers’ actions than we presently have.

Liberals aren’t against police, only against bad police. Conservatives (it seems to me, although I don’t want to construct straw men) don’t even want to find out which is which.

Maybe its a problem of perspective. By wrong, I mean Gates handled it incorrectly, wrongly, with poor judgement, lack of reasoned thought, basic stupidity. Should Gates have had the right to scream at the cop? Yes. Should he have been arrested for doing so? No. Should the cop have arrested him at all? No. These points have absolutely nothing to do with how Gates should have handled the situation. Making cops nervous can get you killed. Its as simple as that. Unless Gates was trying to be a mayrter, there are better ways to push back against over reaching police.

“I reckon the ability of black men to go about their business in Cambridge without police harassment has just materially improved.”

Including the business of breaking and entering.

None of us know what actually happened here, and both scenarios being advocated are possible. But IF Gates refused to show ID, the officer was well within his right to place him in custody, given the report of a crime that he was responding to. From what I’ve read, the police arrived after Gates had gained entry to the house, so the cop didn’t know how he got in, only that someone roughly matching his description had been reported trying to gain entry in a suspicious manner.

If Gates blew a fuse and started screaming at the cop just because he was asked for ID, it is perfectly understandable that the cop might place him under arrest. Welcome to the real world, Prof. Gates. And it has more to do with screaming at cops than it does the color of your skin.

“And the woman who called the cops had better hope she doesn’t have too many assets in her name.”

Ridiculous. She did nothing wrong but report a possible crime. And even if she did it full well knowing Gates was the lawful owner, which would really be reaching in the extreme based upon what little every one knows, guess what? A private citizen cannot be found guilty of violating someone’s civil rights. Only a government actor or entity can do that, because your Bill of Rights only restricts what government can do, not private citizens. There isn’t any law against being a racist or a lousy neighbor. And arguably, she was neither. Just the opposite, in fact.

Cambridge is really nothing more than Harvard on one end, MIT on the other, and a mixed ghetto/commercial district sandwiched in between, a lot of low income housing, with a few cloistered upscale residential neighborhoods guarded by lots of burglar alarms. Lots of crime, arguably because you’ve got two universities full of haves surrounded by a sea of have-nots. Lots of class-envy and class-politics, catalyzed by a lot of liberal guilt and angst in the universities. This was an event just waiting to happen.

Nick’s comment, posted at 12:52 am, is by far the most intelligent and insightful thing I’ve read on this board. I implore anyone reading my post to go back and read his. Nick, I applaud you for your thoughtful and balanced comments.

In reading some of the other comments, perhaps, it wasn’t a case of racism (although it seem quite apparent that it is), however, there is a case to be made for the President’s “stupidity” comment. I really do not know how any qualified police officer could reasonably suspect that a Harvard professor, in his late 50’s, who walks with a cane, could be considered a “good” suspect for burglarizing a home. It reminds me of a story I heard from an elderly friend, who happens to be a retired school teacher. She was frisked and asked to remove her footwear by a security individual in an airport. First of all, she is one of the sweetest people you would ever want to meet and secondly, she is quite “senior”. She said the young man at the airport was simply trying to be a “donkey” (translation required). She figures that because she smiled at him in her friendly Canadian way, that he decided that he had to show his muscle. Sometimes, I really think people in these authoritative positions just enjoy being “donkeys”. They want to show people that they can do anything, to anyone, at any time and get away with it. Some people are just born hateful and continue to be that way throughout their lives.