Well, of course, they brought luggage! The Impossible Burglary Team wouldn’t miss a detail like that! Of course, why they didn’t steal all of “Skip” Gates bling-bling when the nabbed his ID, that part is a bit murky.
True, although he was arrested only because of the timely arrival of the ex-girlfriend and current tenant, who told the cops that he wasn’t living there any more.
And how did the responding officer know the luggage was brought by Gates?
School ID doesn’t have a home address on it. A driver’s license has a home address, to be sure, but my scenario shows that this isn’t definitive either. It’s not clear to me that his neighbors were out there to tell the police, “Yes, this is my neighbor, Professor Gates.”
How tall are you? Mind if we call you “Stretch”?
From the airport, that is. In other words, he knew that the men had suitcases, but without looking in the suitcases, how is he to know they were suitcases from a trip to China and not a convenient to load up laptops, sterling silver, and a coin collection and carry same down the street without arousing suspicion?
How is anybody to know you don’t have a bomb in your underwear?
No, he was never told by radio. Officer1, Crowley, told the dispatcher that he had a man claiming to be the resident, Henry Louis gates, and was seeking some validation that the man was a Harvard faculty member. The name “Gates” comes from Crowley, not from the dispather.
Here is the transcripted 911 call:
That’s a foolish analogy.
When I asked how the officer is to know, the context is that he’s been advised by dispatch that two males carrying suitcases have committed a possible break-and-enter.
I suppose if cops receive a credible report that I have a bomb on my person, then it would become reasonable to ask the question you to cleverly pose.
Is this a rebuttal of some kind?
Your responses are getting sillier every post. A couple more pages could be comedy gold.
Sure burglars bring expensive luggage to robberies all the time. What didn’t I think of it.
Get real. The cop figured out pretty quickly who Gates was. If the neighbors and ID did not suffice ,what else would? I suppose he should have finger printed him, got DNA and blood and then jailed him until the results were known.
He could have asked Gates to open the suitcases. Although I would have been getting pretty annoyed at the cop by then. ID was good enough.
Crowley claimed the police report said black men with backpacks. That was made up. He poisoned the incident thoroughly with that report.
Huh, I stand corrected. Sorry if my response muddied the waters.
Now it’s “expensive” luggage? Which, assuming it is, the cop knows, how, exactly?
As for bringing luggage to a burglary in general – yes. It’s an obvious and often done move for burglars to bring containers in which to carry away their haul, because it’s easy to wheel a suitcase down the street and harder to carry a laptop, sterling silver set, and coin collection down the street without attracting attention.
What neighbors?
Yes, he could have.
And how would Professor Gates have reacted to THAT request, in your estimation?
Although I notice you haven’t actually addressed my earlier example of how ID alone may not be good enough.
If that’s the standard, gonzomax, then you thoroughly poison most threads in which you participate. here, for example, you seem to be misstating the fact that prior to the arrest, a neighbor confirmed that the man detained was Gates. That didn’t happen. I assume you’ll agree that your contribution to the thread is now equally “thoroughly poisoned”, yes?
How would Gates have reacted to a cop asking him in his house to open his luggage inside his own home? I don’t know. If it would have made the pushy cop go away ,he may have done it. Would that have ended it? I doubt it. Of course the luggage was packed and probably heavy too. That would provide a clue to a sleuth.
Yes the ID was good enough. Crowley just was not having it. Your example not only dismisses Gates Id, but anyones. I suppose he should have not accepted any because in some cases long ago and far away ,it has been faked. Does Gates fit the profile of a typical Id faking, home breaking in thief. There were neighbors all over the place who would have also identified him.
There was plenty of evidence showing who Gates was. But if your position is that Id can be faked, why ask for it? You’re not going to accept its validity anyway. The transcript you offered says Lois Henry Gates was the resident. The ID said he was Gates. Could you draw a connection there?
Not sure what you’re about here, Bricker. You seem to come in to support Rand’s rather unpersuasive suggestion that phony ID might be involved. But you support it with an anecdote about *entirely valid *ID, the only question being whether the arrestee was a legal resident of the house. So, what’s your point? I’m assuming you agree with me that the notion that burglars had conterfeited Mr Gates ID as a contingency plan is beyond serious consideration? Or no?
And **Gonzo’**s point, awkwardly put, is nonetheless worthy: if the officer can choose to ignore ID on the grounds that it might be forged, well, then, none of us has valid ID! The validity of our ID is at the mercy of the officer’s opinions and prejudices. But state issued ID is routinely accepted as valid, hundred of thousands of times per day, no? If you are going to suggest that Officer Gates had probable cause to think the ID was phony, perhaps you might provide it?
Mr Gates state-isssued ID, with photo and address, constitutes primo facist evidence, which must be accepted in the absence of a valid counter-argument. (My dad made me watch Perry Mason on TV, I know a lot of those fancy legalistical termsinology…)
You’re assuming that he showed his license. Crowley’s report says only that he provided his Harvard ID. Figueroa’s report backs up Crowley’s version of the events.
And yet, oddly, as shown in the transcript above, he is referred to as the “resident”. I take that to mean that Officer Crowley accepted the notion that he was in the presence of the legal and legitimate resident. Do you have a different interpretation to offer? Since the Harvard ID did not show an address, wouldn’t that suggest an ID with an address had been offered? And what would be the most likely?
And did Figueroa say “He didn’t show state ID” or did he say “I didn’t see him show state ID”?
The point you are missing luci is that it is stupid to simply say that the matter should have been over once Gates showed ID. The cops were there to do a full and complete investigation, and Gates hindered that. It doesn’t matter that it turns out that he’s the resident and nothing hinky was up.
He saw the Harvard ID, gave him the benefit of the doubt for the meantime, then continued with police protocol which would be to see a stare-issued driver’s license.
Aare you really saying that with all you’re posts on this that you haven’t taken the trouble to read Figueroa’s report, which is Page 3 of the police report. Yeah, I guess you are saying that. Oh well, here you go:
I’m not saying that Figueroa’s report proves anything, just that it supports Crowley’s version. (As does the black officer who showed up afterward.)
Hogwash. “Full and complete investigation”, my ass! Were they going to bring in forensic teams to sweep the house for hair and fibers? They were there to check into a report and determine if anything was amiss that might justify an investigation. That might require a warrant, for instance, or might qualify as probable cause.
And again, you come out with this “hindered” crapola, after it has been pointed out to you a dozen times that Gates could not have hindered much of anything. Certainly not with the dreadful threat of another “yo momma”!
From the time things started to the time that they ended was six minutes during a large portion of which, Crowley, the only officer to ever enter the home was either talking to Gates or going back and forth with dispatch over the radio, as shown by the transcript. When was this hard-hitting investigation supposed to be happening, and with whom? All I see is a lot of people running their mouths, and one person getting arrested for it.
As for all this shouting that both Crowley and apparently, Figueroa claim, here’s a thought: maybe a man with a respiratory infection was trying to make himself heard in an apparently odd-acoustic kitchen over the squawk of a police radio turned up loud. Every encounter I’ve ever had with police (all on my dime as the 911 caller) I’ve had to shout and talk around the damn police radios because they only turn them down if they want to be stealthy, not a moment before, and then they turn them right back up, and the transmissions are always filled with loud and unpredictable bursts of static and beeping and other such aural nastiness.