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.
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
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.
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.
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.)
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
Whalen’s attorney has spoken. 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.
In related news, a 72-year-old white woman was taseredby 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.
