The cops in this case went to his door and ascertained the facts, and got a lot of shit for doing so. Once again, RTFA.
That’s the part that gets to me. The more I read about this the more I think about two ways it could have gone down and the ultimate ends of those scenarios:
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“Uh, sir, we’ve had a report of a break in in the neighborhood. Could you step out onto the porch talk to me?”
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“Uh, sir, we’ve had a report of a break in in the neighborhood. Are you all right?”
Take race and class completely out of the scenario and if you’re the innocent/injured party #1 is going to put your back up, and no matter who you are it sucks being a suspect - which is what Gates was the moment the officer asked him to “step out onto the porch”.
I don’t know what “proper police procedure” is and, frankly, I don’t give a shit. I’m just certain that a healthy proportion of situations like these would go away if cops paid as much attention to “serve” as they did to “protect”.
Is this a clever joke? Because Gates did go to Yale. One of my colleagues was a classmate of his.
(Just FYI, I posted this in the thread I started yesterday about this over in IMHO.)
Some more info. Gates’ house is on Ware Street. His office is in the Barker Center on Quincy Street. It’s about 2 minutes from his office to his house. Ware Street is basically a small connecting street with Harvard buildings all around it - for all intents and purposes, it’s right on campus.
When Gates moved into the house it was kind of news. Not a cheap house and very great location. I’d occasionally see him walking in the area (he once sent a very nice e-mail to my mentor professor, mentioning that I had called his office, and he learned that we had collaborated on a book, and that meant I was good people and worth talking to. Chest puffed out, I ran up to him and told him who I was - that was a pretty cool moment).
Skip Gates is probably one of the best-known and most recognizable professors, er, personalities at Harvard. So honestly, if you live on Ware Street, I imagine if you’re new someone at some point will say to you, “Hey, that’s Skip Gates.” It’s the sort of thing you’d brag about living there.
I do believe there is a apartment somewhere on Ware Street… so maybe some of the residents are more transient than others. It’s possible that Lucinda Whalen (the complainant listed on the report) lived in one of these units, which would explain why she didn’t recognize him. (Giving a lot of leeway here. Within two months of living on my street, I’d recognize by face the people who lived on my block.)
I suppose Ware Street isn’t technically Harvard property, but I’m a little surprised HUPD didn’t respond; I’ve seen them in neighborhoods adjacent to Harvard so I think it’s possible they could. (They’re “real” cops, too.) At any rate, the officer responds to the call - and Gates, completely unaware of the goings-on to this point, is in his house and having a police officer bang on the door.
I don’t know the cop’s demeanor, but Gates just returned from China doing a PBS special. He was probably dog tired, a little cranky because of the door not opening, etc. I don’t think it’s that unusual for someone in their own house to be a little cantankerous if they’re being asked to do something they don’t feel like doing.
From reading the report Gates gave the officer a lot of shit. I can understand his frustration and resentment, and as unpleasant as his shit might have been for the officer to deal with, taking shit from people is part of the job. And it seems like even after showing his ID, the officer didn’t seem to accept the fact that he was in his own home. Of course, a Harvard ID doesn’t list your home address. But it should have confirmed he was a professor, and the likelihood of him being a burglar quite low.
Hindsight is 20/20 and I’m not a cop - but I think at that point, I might go out to my car, radio HUPD, ask them to confirm the address of Gates, and roll the hell on out once it was verified. A 60 year old guy who walks with a cane isn’t going to get very far.
What’s fucked up about this is that as Black men, we’re conditioned (for good reason) to fear the police. I certainly think I would have handled it differently so I wouldn’t end up like Rodney King, Amadou Diallo, or Sean Bell, even if I was 100 percent in the right. I’d take disrespect and denigration because I can get over humiliation, but maybe not a bunch of bullets. Having said that, I’d be enraged, and I might pop off and talk shit. (And instantly regret it…)
It’s a harrowing feeling to think that you’ve done nothing wrong and you’re there, in fear, and you have to just take it. The weird thing is, no matter how legitimate the cop’s behavior might have been, he made a huge mistake. It’s not called the People’s Republic of Cambridge for nothing, and Gates has friends highly placed in the city (and the nation). Did you notice who his lawyer was? Charles freakin’ Ogletree!
If Gates stays angry this guy’s career is toast. Being the smart guy that he is, I imagine he’ll let the cop off the hook and make this a broader dialogue about police training and that kind of thing. There’s a lot of tension between the police departments in Boston and Harvard with Black folks - I was in school when there was a rash of robberies around Harvard Square. HUPD would issue e-mail alerts for students to be on the lookout for the suspects - and descriptions read like, “a Black man wearing a hooded sweatshirt.” Of course that describes nearly every Black man on Harvard’s campus in the winter. So a bunch of us complained that the descriptions seemed to be overly vague when it was a Black or Latino suspect, but when it was a White man, usually things like weight, height, and other distinguishing features were mentioned. HUPD did start sending out more complete descriptions after that.
It reminds me of two incidents involving a friend, and a friend of a friend. The first guy was a student at Harvard driving a BMW near campus. He was stopped and (in his mind) unfairly harassed by the police officer. He got verbally confrontational with the officer, was arrested, had his car impounded, and spent a few grand getting his car back, wrecked his semester academically, and was still seeing a counselor about the PTSD. The other guy was a Latino dude who in a case of mistaken identity was locked up in the Cambridge city jail for three days. In both cases, these guys assumed that being at Harvard (or affiliated) would make them more safe from the random hazards of contemporary racism. Both instances, the guys found out otherwise.
One other thing. The OP labels Gates a douchebag for stating that the cop was racist. How is he the douchebag when he’s the one that was arrested and humiliated in his own home? Wouldn’t the cop be a bigger douchebag?
It just seems that in the OP’s eyes, the officer gets the benefit of the doubt, while the Black guy gets the douchebag label. (Granted the OP states that getting the story right is key. But that might never happen.)
If we’re going to toss that label around, seems at the very least douchebaggery on both parties’ account was likely. I suspect it’s a open question regarding who was more of a DB.
I put a question mark on it.
When I posted it, the dominant theme was that racist police had profiled and arrested an eminent black scholar. That was (and is) how many newspapers are reporting it. I read the story and was struck by how much they were trying to force that as the narrative, when it sounded to me (based on initial reports) that he’d basically busted into his own house and started screaming at the cops when they popped in to investigate. I should have said “windbag,” but what’s done is done.
What’s messed up about this is apparently black men think everybody else gets a pass for being a jerk. I’ve had to explain my behavior to an officer because it looked suspicious. I saw how my actions appeared and answered all questions directly. Situation solved. I didn’t act like an arrogant Harvard professor (from Yale) who is used to having people rush up to him in to bask in his awesomeness.
Not likely. He has no leg to stand on in this situation and doesn’t need the negative publicity of trying. I’m sure Gates is a lovely person to talk do when he is with good people worth talking too but he’s just another asshole to the police.
I don’t want to assume anything about your racial/ethnic background, but I think for men of color, specifically Black men, there is a long, ugly history of abuse and outright murder at the hands of the police. And even asking clarifying questions can be viewed by some police as a threat to their credibility. So the fear is quite real - I would wager that Gates has been racially profiled before, and he certainly has friends and colleagues who have. I suspect he may have been at his tipping point. Regardless of how you or anyone acts, accusing a cop (even wrongly) of something shouldn’t get you arrested, IMO.
I don’t see anything arrogant about getting back from a long trip, being in the privacy of your own home, and having to deal with unwelcome questioning, and getting pissed off about it.
I can assure you, Gates could easily get this guy drummed out of the force if he wanted to. I don’t think he’s that way, and it seems now he wants a meeting and apology from the officer, so it might not be headed that way. You completely underestimate the amount of political clout a university professor at Harvard holds - especially one as high profile as Gates. Rest assured this officer will be differently trained on how to deal with “assholes” like Gates in the future.
…as evidenced by the fact that the charges were dropped.
I doubt Gates will be starting a crusade against Crowley. And I don’t think the incident makes Gates look good.
In my earlier post I was saying that from Gates’ point of view, there was no reason for the cop to be there because there wasn’t even a break-in. He’d let himself into his own house by that point and gone onto his own porch to deal with the door. I know the witness and the officer didn’t see it that way.
Good points. But I think the proper procedure is important here too. What sense does it make to ring someone’s doorbell if you actually think there may be a robber inside? What are the chances an actual thief would answer the door? Furthermore, what are the chances that said burglar would be a nerdy-looking elderly man with glasses?
If the cops really thought that they might encounter a burglar at the house, shouldn’t they have been looking for signs of forced entry, and other points of entry around the house, etc.?
Yep, this is pretty much my take on the subject. The question of whether or not the cop is a racist is pretty much beside the point. He’s clearly a stupid asshole.
I’ve seen, on those those World’s Wildest Police Video shows, where a driver getting a ticket yells and screams at the cop writing the citation for minutes on end, calling him all the names under the sun and ranting like a crazy person. And the cop keeps completely calm, hands over the ticket, and tells the guy to have a nice day. That’s being a professional. Some cops are fucking awesome at it.
This cop, by his own admission, knew that Gates had committed no crime, and was in his own house, and he still decided to arrest him for doing nothing more than mouthing off. Asshole.
Edit: I think it should also be a sackable offense for a police officer to refuse to provide his or her name and badge number.
Bringing someone in for public disturbance doesn’t mean they have to prosecute. It means they brought in a hot-head who needed to cool off.
The officers were responding to a report of someone breaking into a house. Gates was seen breaking into his house. This is not in contention. I don’t honestly see how Gates could be unaware that his actions were suspicious. It would be irresponsible of the officers to ignore the call or not to verify Gates was the owner of the house.
Gates was not seen trying to break into his house. He was seen trying to fix a door.
By ramming it with his shoulder.
Exactly. The officer’s report says nothing about “noticed a broken door jamb”. The report itself went directly from ‘white woman with a cell phone’ to ‘black guy behind the door who appeared to live there’ [paraphrase].
I’m not completely unsympathetic to the tensions and stresses under which police officers operate. Never been there, but I get it. I’m just saying that if the cop had been operating under the SERVE banner he’d have been observant enough to take a look around the neighborhood before saying something along the lines of “I’m really sorry, and you’re not going to believe this, but blahblahblah”. Situation not only explained but also diffused. But, no, the cop (from his own report) went directly from report to suspect, entirely skipping over the whole investigation part.
Same thing with that former footballer down in TX who missed his MIL’s death; same thing with that OK trooper who pulled over an ambulance(!). Just…fucking relax already - the chances of you going down in a hail of TEK-9 bullets in a college town in CT (even if you are a cop) is about 9,000,000 times less likely than you getting struck by lightning.
I try to fix all kinds of things by beating the shit out them, so what?
The point is that nobody saw him trying to break in. They saw him trying to get a door unstuck. How would you try to get a door unstuck in your own home? The person who saw him may or may not have misinterpreted what she saw (I find it hard to believe she didn’t know who he was given the prominence of the house and the insular nature of the neighborhood), but it has been resolved beyond any question that he was not breaking in. He was already in.
He was seen forcing his front door open. A call went in and it was investigated. What difference does it make if he was already in? Wouldn’t it be logical that a burglar, after forcing a door open, be INSIDE?
Is it logical that a burglar would answer a doorbell?
No, of course not, and the officer’s own report indicates that he cottoned on to that early on. The whole “You suck!” - “No, YOU suck!” contretempts apparently did not happen until the cop was leaving. Which - again - makes me think that perhaps if the cop was a little more “Are you ok?” and a little less “You’re coming with me!” that we wouldn’t even be talking about this right now.
And - backing up to the OP - why was the cop all “You’re coming with me!” instead of “Are you ok?” Don’t you think that race might perhaps have been just a LITTLE bit of an indicator?
It’s logial that burglars lie and bluff their way out of it.
Ever watch Cops on TV? I just caught it tonight where they pulled some guy over and ask him if he was smokin. “Oh no officer, I would never do drugs”. What’s this in your pocket, do you have any more pot in the car? “Oh no officer, that’s all I have”. What’s in this bag, is THIS all you have? “Yes officer”… and so on.
It’s logical that the officers asked for hard identification from someone who forced entry into a house. It would be negligence if they didn’t. I would expect it in the same situation.
Ok, I’m willing to play your game*. Let’s go step by step, shall we?
- Phone call reporting two black men with backpacks breaking into a house.
- “Ok, I got it”.
- Arrive at scene. See one black man without backpack looking at you like you’re from another planet.
And here is where the points diverge. Let’s go with A first:
A4) “Uh, sir, we’ve had a report of a break in in the neighborhood. Could you step out onto the porch talk to me?”
A5) “Who the hell are you? Why are you here? Why should I talk to you? This is my house! Get off my porch! Hell no I won’t step out with you!”
A6) “Here, Mr. Gates, have some matching bracelets.”
Hm. That didn’t go so well. Let’s go with another scenario:
A4) “Uh, sir, we’ve had a report of a break in in the neighborhood. Are you all right?”
A5) “What? Why are you asking me such a blatantly racist question?”
A6) “Because I’m concerned for you safety and security. Are you all right?”
A7) “Of course I’m all right. This is my fucking house, ain’t it, whitey?”
A8) “I’m sorry to bother you, sir, I’ll be stepping out right quick just now, because even if you are utterly and completely in the wrong and going overboard on what you might think of calling “the race card”, stupid and crazy doesn’t mean that you should be handcuffed in the US of A.”
*with completely made-up quotes.
Or you could just post what actually happened which is a suspect (the home owner) matching the description of a person forcing the door open (the home owner) is questioned by the police to see if he is in fact THE HOME OWNER. It was a 15 second conversation at most to clear it up. Instead of thanking the officer for responding in a timely manner he started flinging racial poo. He owes the officers an apology.