Harvard University's Henry Louis Gates, Jr. was arrested
after forcing open the stuck front door of his home.
He was arrested on a disorderly conduct charge after
police said he "exhibited loud and tumultuous behavior."
(AP Photo/Cambridge Police Dept.)
We may never know if Henry Louis Gates, Jr. was targeted by Cambridge, Massachusetts, police for breaking into his own house because of the color of his skin, as he charges. Reading people's minds is a fool's game, and we too often tend to see exactly what we expect to see. But, just by reading accounts of the arrest, it's pretty clear that police were out of line when they led the Harvard scholar from his own home on a "disorderly conduct" charge.
Police were apparently summoned to Gates's house by a report of two men trying to force their way through the front door. The men, as it turns out, were Gates himself, returned from a trip to China, and a driver, who had arrived at the house to find the door jammed. It was an innocent situation, but one certainly open to misinterpretation.
So how do we get from a misunderstanding to an internationally famous scholar being dragged off in handcuffs? Well, the key here is that Gates, by the account of his lawyer, Charles Ogletree, was not completely submissive during the encounter. According to a statement from Ogletree:
Professor Gates immediately called the Harvard Real Estate office to report the damage to his door and requested that it be repaired immediately. As he was talking to the Harvard Real Estate office on his portable phone in his house, he observed a uniformed officer on his front porch. When Professor Gates opened the door, the officer immediately asked him to step outside. Professor Gates remained inside his home and asked the officer why he was there. The officer indicated that he was responding to a 911 call about a breaking and entering in progress at this address. Professor Gates informed the officer that he lived there and was a faculty member at Harvard University. The officer then asked Professor Gates whether he could prove that he lived there and taught at Harvard. Professor Gates said that he could, and turned to walk into his kitchen, where he had left his wallet. The officer followed him. Professor Gates handed both his Harvard University identification and his valid Massachusetts driver’s license to the officer. Both include Professor Gates’ photograph, and the license includes his address.
Professor Gates then asked the police officer if he would give him his name and his badge number. He made this request several times. The officer did not produce any identification nor did he respond to Professor Gates’ request for this information. After an additional request by Professor Gates for the officer’s name and badge number, the officer then turned and left the kitchen of Professor Gates’ home without ever acknowledging who he was or if there were charges against Professor Gates. As Professor Gates followed the officer to his own front door, he was astonished to see several police officers gathered on his front porch. Professor Gates asked the officer’s colleagues for his name and badge number. As Professor Gates stepped onto his front porch, the officer who had been inside and who had examined his identification, said to him, “Thank you for accommodating my earlier request,” and then placed Professor Gates under arrest. He was handcuffed on his own front porch.
Admittedly, Ogletree's version of events likely puts his client in the best light. The arresting officer wrote in his report, "Gates continued to yell at me, accusing me of racial bias and continued to tell me that I had not heard the last of him".
Either way, the Cambridge Police Department says Gates was "arrested for Disorderly conduct after exhibiting loud and tumultuous behavior."
But that behavior, whether calm or "tumultuous," was in Gates's own home. Having determined that the man forcing the door was legally authorized to be in the house and to jimmy any stuck lock in the place if he so desired, police were free to leave to escape any unpleasant accusation directed at them by Gates. Even if the man had truly slipped into full-on loud-and-defensive mode, so what? It's his house, and so long as he doesn't get violent, he can speak any words, in any tone, that he pleases.
If you don't like it, leave.
But that's not the inclination of modern police officers, who all too often act as if the worst crime of all is to fail to defer to a badge.
Maybe Gates was racially profiled. But he was certainly given a dose of us-against-them police attitude.
email J.D.: civilliberties (at) tuccille.com
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Comments
Liberal fascist Cambridge cop against professor at Harvard University?
Philosophically it's a darn shame. Practically... who's bringing the popcorn?
Interesting, examiner writer Bruce Maiman strongly disagrees, saying (like Michael Meyers in the Post) that it was pretty much entirely Gates' fault for being disrespectful:
I'm white, middle class, not famous and have repeatedly seen cops abuse their authority against others. So what if he was calling them racist, as the arrest report alleges, he was in his own darned house and had, indeed, proven that. The officer's "I'll show you" overreaction is pretty human, as was Gates' ..but it shouldn't have led to an arrest.
Gates was arrested for "contempt of cop". Which means anydamnthing at all the cop doesn't like, i.e. asking for his name.
The police do not have the right to simply enter your home like that. They - like vampires - cannot cross the threshold, unless they are invited. The police were the home invaders. They are also guilty of assault, battery and kidnapping.
On the race factor - it is hard to say. There are two things that make it hard to tell. The first is the fact that EVERYBODY is being abused by these thugs. I'm so white I glow and I've been sexually assaulted, terrorized at gunpoint twice (once at my back while pregnant and once in my face), stalked, choked and threatened over the years. My husband is hispanic and he has had about as many problems with them as I've had minus the sexual assaults and guns pointed at him as far as I know. He has been falsely arrested, assaulted - in front of me while I was pregnant causing me to lose the baby - we were both held against our will and robbed by police. This is standard procedure in some places in E. Texas. How much race comes into it is hard to know - I tend to think they will perpetrate whatever evil they think they can get away with.
The second issue with police and race, though, is the fact that from their inception they have existed to bash the heads of other races of people.
*continued* Our first police department in the U.S. was in Boston, where the police department was formed to bash Irish heads. In New York City, the second police department ever formed was initiated to quell mostly perceived crimes in the Five Points district - it was a weapon of the wealthy elite against the new immigrant class. So... it is hard to separate police and race bashing because that is what they have always done -it is what they as an organization were born to do.
"I am a cop, and you will respect my authoritah!" That's the attitude of most police officers.
The real crime here was they way the cops lured Gates away from his house and into the street in order to slap him with a disorderly conduct charge. They obviously had no proof that he was a burglar, but he was being confrontational. So, complain about the acoustics inside, politely ask the insubordinate civilian to accompany you outside, and, when he doesn't shut up, arrest him on a trumped up charge. That'll teach him!
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