# Obama says cops acted stupidly in Gates incident **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [July 23, 2009, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-says-cops-acted-stupidly-in-gates-incident/503995 "2009-07-23T14:37:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 18
**Author:** ![Rhythmdvl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/85f322/32.png) [@Rhythmdvl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhythmdvl)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2009, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-says-cops-acted-stupidly-in-gates-incident/503995/341 "2009-07-27T23:09:30Z")
**buttonjockey308** , I’ll stipulate to Gates’ acting like an ass. No offense to **Kiante\_83’s** point, but I’ll take the harder course and stipulate that Gates’ was obnoxiously ranting at the cop. Gates doesn’t have the power of arrest – he’s not the one who needs to show discretion. Had he been yelling at some peddler to get off his lawn, something the peddler was wont to do anyway, would peddler be _legally justified_ in going back up on the porch and beating Gates? No, because the peddler would have been expected to have the restraint and discretion to just leave. If the peddler posted here about it, could we all have jumped on Gates about what a dick he was being? Sure. But no verbal assault on Gates’ part would have justified a beat-down. I think he officer’s conduct is even more egregious, as he should be held to a higher standard. He is there to protect and uphold the law, not infringe on someone’s First Amendment rights – especially when the exercise of those rights in question is central to the underlying rational of the Amendment: petitioning and grieving the government. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2009, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-says-cops-acted-stupidly-in-gates-incident/503995/342 "2009-07-27T23:13:03Z")
I see what you did there. We’ll have to take you in for questioning. ---
**Author:** ![Kiante\_83](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9fc29f/32.png) [@Kiante\_83](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kiante_83)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2009, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-says-cops-acted-stupidly-in-gates-incident/503995/343 "2009-07-27T23:17:14Z")
This previous post by Rubysteak provides the link to Gate’s side of the story. Sorry it took so long. Quote: Originally Posted by Rubystreak Gates says that he provided both the Harvard ID and a Massachusetts drivers licence. [http://www.theroot.com/views/skip-gates-speaks?page=0,1](http://www.theroot.com/views/skip-gates-speaks?page=0,1) If this is true, then I think that recontextualizes his blow up considerably. His version of events differs in its particulars from Crowley’s in several ways, so it’s worth reading from the beginning to see them all. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2009, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-says-cops-acted-stupidly-in-gates-incident/503995/344 "2009-07-27T23:33:47Z")
> [@Kiante\_83](#): > > This previous post by Rubysteak provides the link to Gate’s side of the story. Sorry it took so long. > Quote: > Originally Posted by Rubystreak > Gates says that he provided both the Harvard ID and a Massachusetts drivers licence. > [http://www.theroot.com/views/skip-gates-speaks?page=0,1](http://www.theroot.com/views/skip-gates-speaks?page=0,1) > If this is true, then I think that recontextualizes his blow up considerably. His version of events differs in its particulars from Crowley’s in several ways, so it’s worth reading from the beginning to see them all. That is very, very interesting. Supposing, just supposing, for just one moment, that Gates is not lying through is teeth (which means that the officer _is_) - would anybody here continue to support this arrest? From what I see the only arguments here in favor of it (which all seem pretty flimsy) hinge on him being a _really_ loud, abusive asshole. ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2009, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-says-cops-acted-stupidly-in-gates-incident/503995/345 "2009-07-27T23:57:55Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > Supposing, just supposing, for just one moment, that Gates is not lying through is teeth (which means that the officer _is_) - would anybody here continue to support this arrest? From what I see the only arguments here in favor of it (which all seem pretty flimsy) hinge on him being a _really_ loud, abusive asshole. Works for me. Being a loud abusive asshole to ANY public servant deserves a little trip and cooling off period if you ask me. Particularly if they have been warned twice to chill out. There are other avenues for righting percieved wrongs than being a loud abusive asshole. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2009, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-says-cops-acted-stupidly-in-gates-incident/503995/346 "2009-07-28T00:02:30Z")
> [@billfish678](#): > > Works for me. > > Being a loud abusive asshole to ANY public servant deserves a little trip and cooling off period if you ask me. > > Particularly if they have been warned twice to chill out. There are other avenues for righting percieved wrongs than being a loud abusive asshole. You’re fighting the hypothetical - I proposed accepting Gates’s story, in which he is _not_ a loud, abusive asshole. (And if you ask me, being a loud, abusive asshole to any public official deserves nothing of the kind - but then, I don’t like to think I live in a totalitarian police state.) ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2009, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-says-cops-acted-stupidly-in-gates-incident/503995/347 "2009-07-28T00:03:31Z")
> [@](#): > > …Being a loud abusive asshole to ANY public servant deserves a little trip and cooling off period if you ask me… I see. Are you comfortable with a police officer being empowered to determine that on their own discretion? ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2009, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-says-cops-acted-stupidly-in-gates-incident/503995/348 "2009-07-28T01:27:32Z")
Well it does seem that the police officer _is_ [lying through his teeth.](http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/07/27/gates.arrest/index.html?iref=topnews) > [@](#): > > Police in Cambridge, Massachusetts, released the 911 phone call Monday. In the call, Lucia Whalen reports seeing “two larger men, one looked kind of Hispanic, but I’m not really sure, and the other one entered, and I didn’t see what he looked like at all.” > > “I just saw it from a distance, and this older woman was worried, thinking somebody’s breaking in someone’s house and they’ve been barging in,” Whalen says. “She interrupted me, and that’s when I noticed. Otherwise, I probably wouldn’t have noticed it at all, to be honest with you. So I was just calling because she was a concerned neighbor, I guess.” … Let me be clear: She never had a conversation with Sgt. Crowley at the scene," Murphy told CNN by phone. “And she never said to any police officer or to anybody ‘two black men.’ She never used the word ‘black.’ Period.” … > > … In the police report, filed by Crowley, he says he spoke with Whalen outside the home before he approached Gates’ house. > > “She went on to tell me that she observed what appeared to be two black males with backpacks on the porch of Ware Street,” the report says. “She told me that her suspicions were aroused when she observed one of the men wedging his shoulder into the door as if he was trying to force entry.” … This is an officer who _makes shit up_. That, in my book, is worse than having a problem with a citizen not kowtowing after being accused of breaking into his own house. Obama should be mocked, for backing away from a very reasonable assessment. The media should be macked, for elevating this story to national importance. And we should mock ourselves for spending time on it … but I guess there are no good Paris or Madanna stories this week. ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2009, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-says-cops-acted-stupidly-in-gates-incident/503995/349 "2009-07-28T01:39:57Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > I see. Are you comfortable with a police officer being empowered to determine that on their own discretion? Who ELSE is supposed to do it? Yeah, if they taser you and beat the crap outa you or “loose” in the system for days, hell yeah that sucks. If its more of “enough of that crap mam/sir, you are going for a ride after being warned for the Nth time, getting a picture taken, and the legal system gets to decide where to go from there”..fine with me. If you are SO pissed that you still wanna go for a ride on your principles, have at it. ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2009, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-says-cops-acted-stupidly-in-gates-incident/503995/350 "2009-07-28T01:41:54Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > (And if you ask me, being a loud, abusive asshole to any public official deserves nothing of the kind - but then, I don’t like to think I live in a totalitarian police state.) What does it deserve then? Nothing? Can I have your work address please ? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2009, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-says-cops-acted-stupidly-in-gates-incident/503995/351 "2009-07-28T02:35:51Z")
**Bill** , did you notice that you are assuming that the cop is the one telling the truth? Have any of the neighbors come forth to say “Boy, that Gates guy was screaming his head off, hell, you could hear it all over the neighborhood, yeppers, disturbing the hell out of the peace!” Not to my knowledge, advise if otherwise. As it stands most recently, there is no evidence beyond Sgt Crowley’s word that Mr. Gates so much as raised his voice. Never mind presenting a public nuisance. So, one has to ask: is overt disrespect for authority an arrestable offense, according to you? ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2009, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-says-cops-acted-stupidly-in-gates-incident/503995/352 "2009-07-28T04:18:52Z")
[http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090728/ap\_on\_re\_us/us\_harvard\_scholar\_caller](http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090728/ap_on_re_us/us_harvard_scholar_caller) The woman who called the police says she did not identify the color of the persons on the porch. She did not say they had backpacks but that she thought she saw suitcases. Perhaps Crowley just made a bunch of mistakes. Sadly black people pretty much believe the cops will lie . This case will not make them happy. Some of us white people also think they will. ---
**Author:** ![EasyPhil](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e47c2d/32.png) [@EasyPhil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EasyPhil)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2009, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-says-cops-acted-stupidly-in-gates-incident/503995/353 "2009-07-28T05:42:32Z")
> [@gonzomax](#): > > [http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090728/ap\_on\_re\_us/us\_harvard\_scholar\_caller](http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090728/ap_on_re_us/us_harvard_scholar_caller) The woman who called the police says she did not identify the color of the persons on the porch. She did not say they had backpacks but that she thought she saw suitcases. > Perhaps Crowley just made a bunch of mistakes. Sadly black people pretty much believe the cops will lie . This case will not make them happy. Some of us white people also think they will. Cops are people and people lie and they lie for all types of reasons. ---
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2009, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-says-cops-acted-stupidly-in-gates-incident/503995/354 "2009-07-28T05:49:33Z")
Alan Dershowitz quoted the term “testilying” in [testimony about perjury’s pervasiveness in our legal system](http://www.constitution.org/lrev/dershowitz_test_981201.htm) to the House Judiciary Committee back in 1998. > [@](#): > > As the Mollen Commission reported: > > ``` > The practice of police falsification in connection with such arrests is so common in certain precincts that it has spawned its own word: "testilying." . . . Officers also commit falsification to serve what they perceive to be "legitimate" law enforcement ends - and for ends that many honest and corrupt officers alike stubbornly defend as correct. In their view, regardless of the legality of the arrest, the defendant is in fact guilty and ought to be arrested. > > ``` ETA another quote: > [@](#): > > Many judges who listen to or review police testimony on a regular basis privately agree with Judge Alex Kozinski of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, who publicly stated: “It is an open secret long shared by prosecutors, defense lawyers and judges that perjury is widespread among law enforcement officers,” and that the reason for it is that “the exclusionary rule . . . sets up a great incentive for . . . police to lie to avoid letting someone they think is guilty, or they know is guilty, go free.”[14] Or, as Judge Irving Younger explained, “Every lawyer who practices in the criminal courts knows that police perjury is commonplace.”[ ---
**Author:** ![Lochdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/edb3f5/32.png) [@Lochdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lochdale)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2009, 6:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-says-cops-acted-stupidly-in-gates-incident/503995/355 "2009-07-28T06:53:12Z")
I’m astonished that people find that a policeman’s testimony or description of an event is given greater credence than others (outside of an eye witness). I’m not aware of any legal system that thinks anyway differently. Quoting Alan Dershowitz, a defense attorney, doesn’t do anything to change my point of view. FWIW, within the legal community, he’s known as an intellectual but profoundly biased commentator. ---
**Author:** ![EasyPhil](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e47c2d/32.png) [@EasyPhil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EasyPhil)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2009, 6:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-says-cops-acted-stupidly-in-gates-incident/503995/356 "2009-07-28T06:56:57Z")
Audio of the 911 call and police dispatch: [http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/documents/WSJ\_audioPlayer08.html?audioFile=http://s.wsj.net/media/072709cambridge.mp3&trackName=072709cambridge.mp3](http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/documents/WSJ_audioPlayer08.html?audioFile=http://s.wsj.net/media/072709cambridge.mp3&trackName=072709cambridge.mp3) Copy of the police report: > **[GatesPoliceReport.pdf](https://s.wsj.net/public/resources/documents/GatesPoliceReport.pdf)** ---
**Author:** ![buttonjockey308](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bcef8e/32.png) [@buttonjockey308](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buttonjockey308)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2009, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-says-cops-acted-stupidly-in-gates-incident/503995/357 "2009-07-28T15:45:39Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > No, it doesn’t. Proclivity is There is nothing habitual about a one-time incident. Also, You keep failing to acknowledge that Dr. Gates had some provocation that helps explain his behaviour. Your scenario > > isn’t even close to equivalent to a man being confronted by multiple armed policemen in his own home. > > Or are you unable to understand that Dr. Gates didn’t just start yelling without provocation? Why do you refuse to acknowledge that there was provocation? Maybe I missed something, if I did, mea culpa, but what does it matter if he has a proclivity to act this way? I can’t see the connection you’re trying to make for it being anything other than a person committing an offense and being arrested for said offense. I only have to punch you in the face one time, I don’t have to do it repeatedly. Just the officer being there was provocation? The officer responding to a public complaint is provocation? If it was, then it’s further evidence that Gates is to blame for his own situation. If Gates never left his kitchen, the officer would have gone about his business and this post would never have been. He did, he didn’t and here we are. The cop just stood there while Gates yelled his fool head off, he didn’t poke his chest and dare him to react, he, according to accounts, simply stood there and warned him to just relax, he kept on and Robert’s your father’s brother, he’s in bracelets. So, I suppose I need to know how you define provocation, because if I’m Gates, I get on the phone, not on the porch. ---
**Author:** ![buttonjockey308](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bcef8e/32.png) [@buttonjockey308](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buttonjockey308)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2009, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-says-cops-acted-stupidly-in-gates-incident/503995/358 "2009-07-28T15:52:03Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Well it does seem that the police officer _is_ [lying through his teeth.](http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/07/27/gates.arrest/index.html?iref=topnews) > This is an officer who _makes shit up_ Or…The cop actually, y’know, ‘talked’ to Whalen who watched what happened after she called the cops and related it to Crowley once he arrived. We’ll have to wait for Whalen to speak out on that if she ever does. ---
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2009, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-says-cops-acted-stupidly-in-gates-incident/503995/359 "2009-07-28T15:56:47Z")
[Whalen’s attorney has spoken](http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/07/28/gates_arrest_audio_indicates_race_was_not_factor_at_start/). Not only did Whalen not say “two black males with backpacks” were trying to break in, according to Attorney Murphy Whalen did NOT speak to Crowley when he arrived. > [@](#): > > A woman said that two gentlemen were seen pushing a door in to enter a house, but added that it might simply be residents having a hard time with their keys after returning home from a trip. She mentioned race only when pressed by the bored-sounding dispatcher, then halfheartedly replied that one of the men “looked kind of Hispanic.’’ > > [snip] > > The nearly three-minute 911 call, made by Lucia Whalen, a 40-year-old woman who works near Gates’s home, only briefly mentioned race and did not describe the two suspects as black. That diverged from the police report written by Crowley, which stated that Whalen told Crowley she observed “what appeared to be two black males with backpacks’’ on the porch of Gates’s home. > > [snip] > > in a radio interview yesterday on WTKK-FM radio, Whalen’s lawyer, Wendy Murphy, said Whalen did not provide additional details at the scene. > > “Never once in any of her statements, conversations, and so forth did she ever use the word black,’’ Murphy said. “But more importantly, when Sergeant Crowley got there, she didn’t have a conversation with him at all.’’ ---
**Author:** ![athelas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5e9695/32.png) [@athelas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/athelas)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2009, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-says-cops-acted-stupidly-in-gates-incident/503995/360 "2009-07-28T15:57:59Z")
In related news, a 72-year-old white woman was [tasered](http://www.halfsigma.com/2009/07/another-lesson-in-dealing-with-cops.html)by a black cop at a traffic stop. What she was doing was basically the same thing that the Harvard professor Gates was doing, yelling and acting belligerent at the cop. This story isn’t going to become national news and be a big story about reverse racism, because no one cares about middle-class white women, at least no one with any power cares about them. More importantly, she should have remembered that in the presence of a cop, you must always attempt to give the impression that you’re a non-violent person who would never do physical harm to a cop or to anyone else, because cops are always worried that the next person they pull over at a traffic stop could be a desperate criminal. Yeah, she may be an old woman, but an old woman could whip out a gun and kill a cop as easily as a big muscular man with a gun. The issue isn’t that you’re not allowed to disagree with cops, the issue is that you must get the cop to think of you as a non-violent person. Then he will be more relaxed around you. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-says-cops-acted-stupidly-in-gates-incident/503995.md?page=17) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-says-cops-acted-stupidly-in-gates-incident/503995.md?page=19)