But let us examine the issue of racial profiling as it pertains — or doesn’t — to Mr. Gates’s arrest. As I
wrote on Wednesday, the suggestion that Gates was “profiled” is ludicrous. Gates was not simply driving or walking along and into the awareness of some racist cop looking to exert authority over him. Far from it. Rather, a woman had phoned the Cambridge police to report she had seen two black men attempting to force entry into a home. Sergeant James Crowley was in the area and was the first officer to respond to the call. After the witness informed him of her observations, Crowley saw a black man inside the home. No reasonable person would deny that at that moment, Sgt. Crowley had more than the sufficient amount of “reasonable suspicion,” as we say in the trade, required to investigate and even detain the man for the length of time necessary to determine if he was in fact a burglar. And yes, Sgt. Crowley was fully justified in making a warrantless entry into the home if necessary.
A man of ordinary sensibilities, having forced his way into his own home in broad daylight, might consider the possibility that he was seen doing so by someone who would misinterpret his actions and summon the police. Mr. Gates apparently failed to foresee such a contingency and instead assumed dark motives on the part of Sgt. Crowley. In fact, if Crowley’s account is accurate, it was Gates who profiled
him, imputing racial animus as the reason for the sergeant’s presence on the front porch. When Crowley made the reasonable and tactically sound request for Gates to step out onto the porch, Gates,
by his own account, refused to do so. “I knew he wasn’t canvassing for the police benevolent association,” Gates told a reporter from
The Root. “All the hairs stood up on the back of my neck, and I realized that I was in danger. And I said to him no, out of instinct. I said, ‘No, I will not.’” Thus the stage was set for a test of wills, one that ultimately saw Gates arrested and carted off to the jug for a few hours.
