Henry Louis Gates incident - Does it happen in New York too?

I saw a fan at Yankee Stadium get arrested for asking a police officer to please move so he could see the game. The officer dragged the fan on the ground up the cement steps by his shirt collar. Both the officer and fan were white. From the instances I've observed in the past of police/civilian interaction, when you get mouthy with a police officer (or s/he thinks you did), chances are you will be arrested.

"To his eventual embarrassment, Gates wrote in his Yale application:

"As always, whitey now sits in judgment of me, preparing to cast my fate. It is your decision either to let me blow with the wind as a nonentity or to encourage the development of self. Allow me to prove myself."

Ok. This bothers me on SOOOOO many levels.
1) This is a man who has built a career on being a racialist writer, lambasting the establishment (read white people) about their current culpability in black poverty and denigration, yet he lives better than 90% of blacks.

2) He has chosen TWICE to marry white women. Now don't tell me that's just a coincidence.

3) He is crying racial profiling, yet he is receiving so much deferential treatment, they dropped the charges, he is being invited to speak at the Whitehouse etc. Puleeze, Some of the arresting cops on the scene were NOT white.

Hypocrisy much

Yes and I am a BLACK woman saying this.

ALSO

Most cops regardless of race want deference and respect. Yelling at them WILL get you arrested, regardless of race.

witch-king wrote: (which has more to do with testosterone than race).

Stupid comment of the day, but hey, don't let facts get in your way. Gates is a racist and not surprising Barry is a friend of his.

From all accounts the "The Professor" disrespected the police. If he was white he would have gotten arrested too. Tired of race being and excuse ! I am sure there is reverse discriminaton happening more tha we hear about. Thanks Psycho-ologist for putting that info out there ! Unfortunately our president surrounds himself with these kind of racist people. I was surprised the "Dynamic Duo" (Jesse and Al) didn't put their 2 cents in. I think our president asked them to stay out of it. What do you think? So unlike them not to get involved.

I think it was more than talking back, he was disorderly and tried to fight the officers. testosterone and adreniline play a big part for sure.

sweet tea wrote: i agree about testosterone and adrenaline, but i think it likely applies on both sides, and further, i think the police were unequivocally in the wrong here.

regardless of how angry or whatever gates may have been, the facts are that he was in his own home and had a right to ask the cop for his badge number. how can someone be "disorderly" in his own home?

the cop had every right to be annoyed with gates, to wish his behavior were different, to feel that he was trying to do his job and getting hassled, etc.
being a cop is a frustrating job, i'm sure, and i'm willing to bet that gates is a pretty irritating guy to get on the wrong side of. nonetheless, the cop's job was to give his badge number, say "sorry for the trouble," and leave it at that. he had zero call to arrest anyone in this situation, no matter how frustrated he may have been.

+1

Carnivore, why do you think that Gates' account is "much more credible than[sic} the officer's"? Just because you've seen suspect incidences in the past that has NOTHING to do with this incident. Your logic is not logical.

I don't believe either one of them is capable of stating objectively what happened. The difference being that the private citizen must be given the benefit of the doubt. Cornerstone of a free society.

Carnivore wrote: If the only evidence of a crime is a cop's word, that's never enough to convince me that it occurred.

See "testilying." Happens all the time.

You didn't answer the question of why you think Gates' account of the incident is more credible. I'm assuming you don't know either Gates or Crowley so what facts about this situation lead you to believe Gates over Crowley?

Police officers have a job to do. If a police officer feels that he or she can not do their job because of the way someone is acting in public or in their own home, then the police officer is faced with either walking away from the situation or making it clear that the person needs to be more cooperative or face police action. I do not want to live in a country where the police officer goes away because I, or anyone else, refuses to cooperate fully.

My gut is that the cop in the Gates case probably acted poorly, but Gates created the situation by attempting to lecture the officer instead of just cooperating fully.

Many years ago on Halloween night, my friend left her front door unlocked and a bunch of teens just walked right into the living room and, for a second there, it felt like some very bad stuff could happen. One of the teens said something like, "take some stuff." I hopped out of my seat and they all fled except one who I had to physically push out of the house. Then, while I was trying to push the door shut, his buddies tried to help him push the door open. They quickly gave up and ran.

My friend called 911. For some dumb reason, we did not close the door. The police arrived within 2 minutes and came right in, hands on their guns, demanding information. We answered all of their questions and they both quickly fled into the night looking for the teens. Apparently, something similar happened down the street. I truly felt protected. If we had argued with the police, my hope is that they would have handcuffed us and searched the house up and down.

About 7-8 years ago, maybe more, I was on a first date and we were in a taxi on Atlantic Ave near where Target is now. Undercover police pulled us over and were exceedingly rude to me, my date and the cab driver. The driver asked to see some badges and the cops acted like they were going to get crazy. Truly scary.

All of us were white, the cops were black, white, Hispanic. Some of the police had their guns drawn. We were scared, even to ask for a badge number. My date started to open the cab door to get out and complain after the officers had demanded that we not move an inch. I looked at her and said, "If you get out, you might get shot."

The next day I read that a person had been shot in that same area at the same time we were so rudely pulled over. The police were probably looking for suspects leaving the scene. Our cab driver fit the description of the shooter. While I think the police acted exceedingly poorly in this case, I also believe that our government has a system in place where I could have challenged our treatment in court. My date ended up thanking me days lays for having the sense to see that she could have ended up shot.

I felt that I ate a lot of pride that day by simply comply with the rude police, but my date and I got home safe and were delayed only about 20 minutes.

Carnivore wrote,

"That officer's job was over the moment Professor Gates produced his ID..."

It is my opinion that you are incorrect. From all accounts, including from Gates himself, Gates was demanding information from the officer after ID was produced.

1. The officer said that Gates was yelling and made a comment about his mother. It is understandable that the officer would not continue on those terms. Things got heated, Gates was a large part of that.

2. It seems that the ID Gates produced had no address on it. From what I have read and heard on NPR, the officer was waiting for the Harvard police to come by and verify things. If an officer had come to my apartment to protect me from a possible home invasion, and I produced an ID with no address, I would hope the officer would be concerned.

^that's great. i'd like to think i would be, too. but not being grateful isn't illegal.

i've heard plenty of convincing arguments on the topic of gates's being rude or not behaving expediently. i still haven't seen any indication that he did something illegal.

pokersloper wrote: sweet tea wrote,

" i still haven't seen any indication that he [Gates] did something illegal."

And I still haven't seen any indication that the police officer did something illegal.

Refusing to give his badge number is illegal. False arrest on fabricated charges is illegal.

pokersloper wrote: Carnivore said,

"Refusing to give his badge number is illegal."

There is no proof this occurred.

Carnivore said,

"False arrest on fabricated charges is illegal."

There is no proof this occurred either.

The more I read about this, the more I think Gates is a "Don't tase me, bro" kind of a guy.

Funny, I was getting the sense that Crowley is an "It's Giuliani time!" kind of guy...