Racist Cop or Combative Professor?

[Archangel M]

Almost EVERY LEO here has said "perhaps the Sgt. could have/should have used his discretion here"...

We all have probably arrested someone then thought perhaps that it wasn't in the interests of justice after the fact, and there have been times I have left a scene regretting that I didn't arrest. But thinking that perhaps Gates should have been left to yell and holler all he wanted doesn't make Crowley's arrest "WRONG". That seems to be the fundamental disconnect between the LEO/NON-LEO's here. Hell every person I arrest "believes" that it was WRONG and that I should have given them a break.

 

[sgtmac_46]

But that's just it Steve, YOU may not think that race has anything to do with Crowley's decision to arrest Gates, but Gates and Obama do. Again, they injected race into this bollix.
There doesn't have to be a percieved thread to constitute a disturbance of the peace as you know, but it's still an offense.
We have established thus far that;

1) Sgt Crowley was dispatched to Gates' house for a legitimate reason.

2) Gates was in a combative mood.

3) There was no racial componant in this mess until Gates and Obama injected one into the situation.

4) The arrest was legal.

5) LEOs in general have a lot more to lose in creating a hostile situation than the average Joe blow.

I really don't understand what your beef is.

Oh and btw, yes Malcolm X, Elijah and Louis Farrakhan are all racists. It's a fact and their mouthpiece Malik Shabaz is a racist and a misogynist. Does anyoneone remember his sdebate with Michelle Malkin when he called her the white man's whore? If you want to point the finger at despicable specimens, look no further than these guys.

And it's obvious that some folks think if they stick to the script of discussing this topic purely framed around Sgt. Crowley, that they can make President Obama's 'too candid for comfort' statements disappear......NOT GOING TO HAPPEN!

That is the topic......Sgt. Crowley's actions, regardless of what anyone thinks, don't effect my world one bit.........The POTUS being the man his statements suggest he is, is of far more concern!

 

[yorkshirelad]

The real issue here isn't Crowley OR Gates..........but President Obama and how he illustrated his personal biases in one of his disasterous 'Off the Prompter' moments......a rare moment when he showed us the REAL Barack Obama.......an acolyte of the kind of racial animosity demonstrated by Skippy Gates and Reverend Jeremiah 'USofKKKA' Wright!

I'm glad Obama behaved this way. His poll numbers dropped by 30 points after 'the speech'. I guess its time for some damage limitation. I suppose he's gonna spend a little time touring various 'cop shop' for the photo opportunities.

 

[sgtmac_46]

There are different Malcolm Xs depending on when you look at him and his life. Malcolm X underwent a transformation after his pilgrimage to Mecca after seeing people of all colors from all over the world also making the pilgrimage. Malcolm X also seperated himself from the Nation of Islam and its founder, Elijah Muhammad. The media often fails to portray complex characters and stages and instead offer an amalgam. Add to that the fact that Malcolm X detractors will often point to certain points in his life while ignoring other, especially post-Hajj.

This is true.....but the POINT is that it is the 'The White Man is the Devil' Malcolm X that Skip Gates was speaking so highly of......that less enlightened Malcolm X was driven by the same racist ideology that prompted the Nation of Islam to align itself ideologically with the KKK in calling for racial separation.

It's no surprise,then, that the enlightened Malcolm X got himself in the cross hairs of the NOI.

 

[sgtmac_46]

I'm glad Obama behaved this way. His poll numbers dropped by 30 points after 'the speech'. I guess its time for some damage limitation. I suppose he's gonna spend a little time touring various 'cop shop' for the photo opportunities.

Yeah, that's what the whole 'Drink a beer with the cop' bit is all about......but it'll take more than that to twist this in to a 'Teachable moment' in the manner he wants.

 

[yorkshirelad]

There are different Malcolm Xs depending on when you look at him and his life. Malcolm X underwent a transformation after his pilgrimage to Mecca after seeing people of all colors from all over the world also making the pilgrimage. Malcolm X also seperated himself from the Nation of Islam and its founder, Elijah Muhammad. The media often fails to portray complex characters and stages and instead offer an amalgam. Add to that the fact that Malcolm X detractors will often point to certain points in his life while ignoring other, especially post-Hajj.

Yes and Hitler was good to his Mum AND a vegetarian because he didn't like the idea of hurting furry little creatures.

 

[crushing]

Yeah, that's what the whole 'Drink a beer with the cop' bit is all about......but it'll take more than that to twist this in to a 'Teachable moment' in the manner he wants.

The teachable moment can be summarized by Mel Brooks in History of the World: Part 1, "It's good to be (or at least know) the king."

 

[yorkshirelad]

That is the topic......Sgt. Crowley's actions, regardless of what anyone thinks, don't effect my world one bit.........The POTUS being the man his statements suggest he is, is of far more concern!

Yep, this situation, coupled with Obama's past aquaintances/friends make him one scary guy in the position he's in.

 

[sgtmac_46]

The teachable moment can be summarized by Mel Brooks in History of the World: Part 1, "It's good to be (or at least know) the king."

Well, this is true!

Unfortunately for Barack Obama, he's living in America......where the political winds are far more fickle on the national level than they are in Hyde Park, Chicago.

 

[sgtmac_46]

Yep, this situation, coupled with Obama's past aquaintances/friends make him one scary guy in the position he's in.

And what gets me is that it's no surprise to many of us what kind of guy Obama is......exactly the kind his supporters adamantly denied he was to the point of demonizing anyone who pointed it out........yet, any time Obama wanders off Teleprompter he makes the kind of statements that reinforce exactly who many of us knew he was long before November 2008.

Many moderates, however, are starting to wake up with an astonished 'We didn't know this Obama before' realization.......well you folks should have known him. All anyone had to do to know the REAL Barack Obama was listen to Jeremiah Wright sermons.

 

[yorkshirelad]

Many moderates, however, are starting to wake up with an astonished 'We didn't know this Obama before' realization.......well you folks should have known him. All anyone had to do to know the REAL Barack Obama was listen to Jeremiah Wright sermons.

But that's just it Sgt, everyone heard the Wright sermons, but people WANTED to believe that Obama was different, that he was a new breed of politician who would change the way Washington did business. He IS the bloody wizard of Oz. His spin doctors masterfully told the moronic masses not to look behind the curtain. "Don't look at the man". "Look at the image". Stalinistic blue/red posters of the new messiah were posted everywhere. The cult of personality was once again being used as it was in the good ol' USSR.

We know he began his career in the livingroom of an unrepentant terrorist. We know he was a member of Wright's church for 20 years and we were expected to believe that he NEVER heard Wright's hateful rhetoric. Even though those HATEFUL speaches were being sold in Trinity's gift shop. We know that he had no executive experience and his only leadership experience was as a "community activist" (whatever that is) for the very sinister Acorn group. We know that he has Marxist sympathies. We know all of this and everyone knew this before the election and yet he won the election through masterful manipulation of the elite media.

Now we have this Gates debarcle and I wonder how this will be handled. I know full well . You can bet your life that the word will be put out that if you disagree with Gates, you are a racist as this was the tactic they used in the election. "If you don't vote for and tow the line with Obama, then your a racist".

 

[jks9199]

Y'know... Moving to President Obama and where he may be going or what his beliefs are is kind of off topic here, and probably a discussion better suited to another part of the forum. I'm not wearing a mod hat, as I'm obviously very involved in this discussion... but I do think it's a bit of a distraction.

 

[yorkshirelad]

Y'know... Moving to President Obama and where he may be going or what his beliefs are is kind of off topic here, and probably a discussion better suited to another part of the forum. I'm not wearing a mod hat, as I'm obviously very involved in this discussion... but I do think it's a bit of a distraction.

We've gone from Gates and Crowley to Obama to Malcolm X, to Obama. This whole thread is about Gates and Obama's reaction to a police officer. I think it's prudent to scrutinize some of Obama's past aquaintances/dealings in order to put his comments about the police officer's "stupid" behaviour into context. This is just another example of Obama's mindset and it has to be explored.

 

[Steve]

Why don't you ask that question to Sgt. Crowley and the other officers who were there? They obviously made a determination based on more than just something they read on the internet or saw some talking head say on TV......if only everyone could do the same.

See at the end of the day......your assumptions about the case are heavily biased by 3 things

1) The dubious statements of Skippy Gates

Not at all. I'm presuming the worst about Gates.

2) Your own beliefs about the situation based on what you THINK happened that are only supported by reason 1.

See response to your #1. I'm presuming Gates acted like a complete idiot. Your #2 then, is completely groundless.

3) The desire to put the entire issue on the actions of Sgt. Crowley, and dismiss the REAL REASON this is a national issue.......which isn't whether some clown got himself arrested for created a peace disturbance.

My desire to point out what for me is really simple common sense in the middle of a lot of extreme emotional reaction and partisan rhetoric.

Boiling this entire debate down to Sgt. Crowley is a tactic, pure and simple........a tactic that hopes folks are dumb enough to buy the notion that believing that Sgt. Crowley overreacted to a racist diatribe somehow shields the racist involved......and his acolyte's subsequent racist and ignorant remarks.

And, once again, I'm focused on Sgt. Crowley only because others are so fixated on treating him like a saint. Were you vehemently (and blindly) defending Gates and blaming Crowley, my side in this debate would read decidedly differently.

The rational perspective, however, is even if one ackowledges Sgt. Crowley's actions were a moment of bad judgment based on dealing with an emotionally hijacked racist........NONE OF THAT in any way shields Skippy Gates or Barry Obama from RIGHTFUL scrutiny of even WORSE BEHAVIOR!

Dude, this is entirely my point. You're not being rational. You're being emotional. I have not once disputed that Gates acted like a jackass and Obama handled the situation stupidly. My concern in this thread has only ever been that you and a few others are attempting to make it ALL about the black dudes (wow... and you're saying THEY want it to be all about race) and completely forgive and forget (or better yet, pretend otherwise) Crowley's contribution to the SNAFU.

Sgtmac and Yorkshirelad (And whomever else), I'm not a cop hater. I have lots of friends who are cops. I ate dinner with a cop a few weeks back. (this is intended to be tongue in cheek, before one of you cleverly points out that I sound like a racist) Being serious, though, I have nothing but respect for the police and what they do. I am, however, reluctant to put them on a pedestal and treat them as sacrosanct. I cannot, in the face of what appears to me to be a blatant lack of judgement and restraint, allow someone to be given a free pass simply because he is a cop. As I said above, were you all forgiving Gates and attacking Crowley, my participation in this thread would be the opposite. They ALL participated in ACTIVELY creating this situation. Gates by his actions and Crowley by his. Both exhibited an alarming lack of judgement that led to this conclusion.

I think it's telling that you guys want nothing more than to forget Crowley's participation and make it entirely about Obama....

 

[yorkshirelad]

My concern in this thread has only ever been that you and a few others are attempting to make it ALL about the black dudes (wow... and you're saying THEY want it to be all about race) .

Listen if Gates had been a jackass, which as you say, he was and had made a complaint about Crowley through the police department, I would still think he was a jackass, but I would've been ok with his decision to complain. After all Crowley is (I would expect) well able to deal with that kind of scrutiny.

My whole point is that Gates took this to the media and went on a diatribe about been persecuted because he was BLACK. Then Obama hitched himself to the Gates' racial wagon. I don't know how many more times I can say this but here I go again. Crowley responded to a call and was faced with a contencious fool, who for whatever reason wanted a confrontation, after Crowley cautioned Gates, the professor still wouldn't let up and continued to the point where he caused a disturbance, which resulted in Crowley executing a legal arrest.

Did Crowley inject race into the situation, no. Did Crowley perform an illegal arrest, no. Did Gates cause a disturbance, yes. Did Gates and Obama inject race into the situation, yes.

If Gates was an albino scandinavian, and behaved the same way, I would STILL consider the arrest legal and Gates a jackass. It has nothing to do with Gates and Obama being black. It does have something to do with both Gates and Obama using race to persecute a cop.

I do have a problem with the Police department though. I believe they should have charged Gates for disturbing the peace.

 

[Steve]

Sgt. Crowley, according to his report, did warn him. Twice. How many chances does he have to give the guy?

jks, I'm sorry I missed this response. Regarding this statement by you, I am reminded of something that hits close to home. My oldest is 13 now. When he was much younger, about 4 or 5, he was willful. I would tell him to do something... go to bed, perhaps. He would defy me. I would demand that he obey and he would say no. Now, I understand (and understood then) that this was normal. However, I would handle the situation poorly. I would draw a line in the sand and he would cross it. "Don't do X or you're losing TV for a day." He'd do X. "Do it again and it's 2 days." Before I knew it, he'd be out of TV for 5 years or some ridiculous thing like that. Point is, he misbehaved, but I was as much to blame for the situation. I am the adult and I allowed the situation to spiral out of control and the consequences to exceed the crime. I would always regret it (and remember these situations with regret and some amount of shame), and I would like to think that I am much better at managing myself, so that I can better control situations like that.

In much the same way, I believe that Crowley lost control of the situation. While Gates acted like a buffoon, Crowley SHOULD have been able to manage the situation, but didn't. At some point, he began drawing lines in the sand, and before he knew it, the consequences were far in excess of the situation.

What would be worse, and we'll never know whether this is the case or not, would be if Crowley recognized it and deliberately chose to escalate the situation by asking Gates out only so he could arrest him. While I'd give Crowley the benefit of the doubt, only he can know for sure if that was the case.

 

[Steve]

Listen if Gates had been a jackass, which as you say, he was and had made a complaint about Crowley through the police department, I would still think he was a jackass, but I would've been ok with his decision to complain. After all Crowley is (I would expect) well able to deal with that kind of scrutiny.

My whole point is that Gates took this to the media and went on a diatribe about been persecuted because he was BLACK. Then Obama hitched himself to the Gates' racial wagon. I don't know how many more times I can say this but here I go again. Crowley responded to a call and was faced with a contencious fool, who for whatever reason wanted a confrontation, after Crowley cautioned Gates, the professor still wouldn't let up and continued to the point where he caused a disturbance, which resulted in Crowley executing a legal arrest.

Did Crowley inject race into the situation, no. Did Crowley perform an illegal arrest, no. Did Gates cause a disturbance, yes. Did Gates and Obama inject race into the situation, yes.

If Gates was an albino scandinavian, and behaved the same way, I would STILL consider the arrest legal and Gates a jackass. It has nothing to do with Gates and Obama being black. It does have something to do with both Gates and Obama using race to persecute a cop.

I do have a problem with the Police department though. I believe they should have charged Gates for disturbing the peace.

Okay. Fair enough. I'm going to concede each and every point. I have never argued that Crowley broke a law, nor have I ever argued that Gates didn't yell at him on his front lawn.

Now that we have that out of the way, do you think Crowley contributed to the situation by remaining on premises after positively ID'ing Gates and determining that no crime had been committed? Or to say it another way, do you think that there would be any kind of story at all if Crowley had simply left after having done his job?

 

[Big Don]

Now that we have that out of the way, do you think Crowley contributed to the situation by remaining on premises after positively ID'ing Gates and determining that no crime had been committed? Or to say it another way, do you think that there would be any kind of story at all if Crowley had simply left after having done his job?

Uh, I don't know about you, but, I don't turn my back on people who are screaming and hollering at me...
Did Gates contribute, in your opinion, by instantly throwing the RACE CARD?

 

[Steve]

Uh, I don't know about you, but, I don't turn my back on people who are screaming and hollering at me...
Did Gates contribute, in your opinion, by instantly throwing the RACE CARD?

Okay. Thanks for playing, Big Don. You didn't let me down. I'll put you down for, "No. Crowley's a perfect specimen." Why am I not surprised?

Yorkshirelad? Sgtmac? I'm hedging my bets, but the smart money's that you'll try to throw up some chaff and change the subject, too.

 

[Big Don]

Okay. Thanks for playing, Big Don. You didn't let me down. I'll put you down for, "No. Crowley's a perfect specimen." Why am I not surprised?

Yorkshirelad? Sgtmac? I'm hedging my bets, but the smart money's that you'll try to throw up some chaff and change the subject, too.

So, we can all put you down as: "I'm not answering the question, because doing so would clearly make me look dumb." Is that right?