Racist Cop or Combative Professor?

[yorkshirelad]

To be fair...while the "mad professor" was arrested for what he said/did in "public" it was from "private property" AKA-his porch. While it was his property, once you exit the house and make a scene you can be held responsible for your impact on the neighbors. You can't expect to be able to stand on your porch and swear/threaten/disturb every person that walks by. As the porch, front door, etc..portions of a house are generally open to the public (I can legally walk up to your door and ring the bell..thats what they are there for), I can typically walk up to/onto them and arrest your disorderly self.

Fair comment. The facts are, that the arrest was justified. The guy had a stick up his *** because an LEO dared to ask for the ID of a black man, let alone a professor. If Gates were a white friend of Obama, do you think that there would have been the media hype that this incident attracted? Do you think the president would have made the "stupid" comment?

 

[Archangel M]

Yeah..I have to agree with ya there.

 

[Omar B]

The police siren and flashing lights are required by law to warn motorists and prevent accidents when responding to priority calls.......of which a home break in qualifies. Don't think so? How do you want the police to respond if your mother, wife or girlfriend is home alone and someone is breaking in their house? Think before you speak.

In addition, creating a disturbance is a very well defined term........following the officer out the door who is trying to leave, and screaming in your front yard certainly qualifies......AGAIN, think before you speak.

I did think before I spoke, and I still think that the arrest was over the line. stay mad about my opinion, that's fine. The cop should have used his judgment rather than run in the old guy, no matter how irate he may have been. Plus he didn't give his badge number, how was the old guy to be sure it was a cop and not some impersonator, we've had quite a few of those in NY, heck a lady got raped by one not 4 months ago.

 

[yorkshirelad]

I did think before I spoke, and I still think that the arrest was over the line. stay mad about my opinion, that's fine. The cop should have used his judgment rather than run in the old guy, no matter how irate he may have been. Plus he didn't give his badge number, how was the old guy to be sure it was a cop and not some impersonator, we've had quite a few of those in NY, heck a lady got raped by one not 4 months ago.

Impersonator :rofl:

 

[Omar B]

Yes, you and the other race baters, including Obama, who had to do alot of back peddling to get himself out of his race bating quagmire.
This guy was arrested for his tirade against an officer on public property. He was arrested for disorderly conduct.

Race bater now? LOL.

The old man asked for the cop's badge number and it was not given, in fact he walked out the door. As I stated before there have been robberies and rapes here in NY by men dressed as cops and there was even a firefighter too. He didn't show up in a cop car, some dude showing up asking for your ID and waiting to check out your place. Maybe he should have let the guy check out his place without getting proof positive who he was, or get on the phone and wait for however long to get a confirmation on the phone.

 

[seasoned]

Badge # is on the badge, name is on the name plate, on his shirt.

 

[Archangel M]

And once again you are confusing "using discretion" with "unlawful arrest"..."discretion" means "yes you have PC to make an arrest", but its probably better not to. By definition that means that an arrest would not be "over the line", just that its your opinion that it was unnecessary.

Two different things.

 

[yorkshirelad]

Race bater now? LOL.

The old man asked for the cop's badge number and it was not given, in fact he walked out the door. As I stated before there have been robberies and rapes here in NY by men dressed as cops and there was even a firefighter too. He didn't show up in a cop car, some dude showing up asking for your ID and waiting to check out your place. Maybe he should have let the guy check out his place without getting proof positive who he was, or get on the phone and wait for however long to get a confirmation on the phone.

If you're asking me to believe that Gates politely asked the cop for his badge number, for fear of being attacked, robbed or raped, you are high.
This whole thing is in the media because Professor Gates is black. Maybe instead of accusing the cop of being racist, you Gates and Obama should accuse him of being assholist. Surely that would better describe him. Gates has been on tv complaining about the fact that his arrest was racial as has Barack Obama. This is obviously not the case. The guy was being belligerent and created a scene that prompted a respectable, untarnished cop to arrest him. Instead of using this experience as a learning exercise, Gates decides to take his plight national and appear all over the media. This, in turn prompted Obama to respond in a totally inappropriate way. He has obviously been taking instruction from Biden.

 

[Omar B]

You seem to keep putting the word "race" in my mouth. I have not brought it up once in any of my posts in this topic(except when quoting you). I don't think he should have been arrested and that's the end of it.

 

[yorkshirelad]

You seem to keep putting the word "race" in my mouth. I have not brought it up once in any of my posts in this topic(except when quoting you). I don't think he should have been arrested and that's the end of it.

Alright Omar, If you want to lay this game, i'll ask you a question. Did you agree with what Obama said in his 2 press conferences about this incident?

 

[jks9199]

Sorry I wasn't clear. The Obama haters are steering the thread away from the original post. Better? I know it's more fun for a select few on this board to bash Obama, and certainly more convenient than admitting that the cop was as much at fault in this as the prof. Maybe if we keep this thread going for another page or two, you guys will convince yourselves that it was really Obama's fault it happened in the first place.

But Sgt. Crowley wasn't "as much at fault" as Professor Gates. Sgt. Crowley was doing his job, plainly identifiable as a police officer, and the professor was the one who caused the problems.

 

[jks9199]

Badge # is on the badge, name is on the name plate, on his shirt.

Not always, and not in every agency. I don't know about theirs. My badge doesn't have a number on it anywhere, for example. And I'll give anyone the benefit of the doubt on reading a nameplate; they're generally only about 1/2 inch top to bottom, and often are shiny metal...

 

[seasoned]

Gates should thank God he didn't have something in his hand, and asked to drop it, or let me see your hands. In his state of mind and with all the anger he holds, things could have gone a lot worst for him.

 

[seasoned]

Not always, and not in every agency. I don't know about theirs. My badge doesn't have a number on it anywhere, for example. And I'll give anyone the benefit of the doubt on reading a nameplate; they're generally only about 1/2 inch top to bottom, and often are shiny metal...

Good point, I carry for 2 agencies, one badge numbered and one not. Nameplate seems to always stick out loud and clear, when someone wants to know your name.

 

[Joab]

After reading all the police reports, hearing more and more about the story and accounts from the police officers involved, I will agree this whole situation was a lot more complicated than I previously thought. I do think that Professor Gates was wrong to play the race card, I don't think race had anything to do with this incident. It does seem to me that when the officer left after verifying that the man in the house was a resident he could have chosen to ignore the words of the professor and left and not arrested him. I think both sides over reacted to some degree with an unfortunate outcome.

Professor Gates I believe was clearly agitated, spoke loudly, indicated that he believed he was being targeted because he was black. I don't believe this was the case, breaking into a house needed to be investigated. The officer could have ignored Professor Gates and left, he did not have to arrest the professor, but chose to do so. I wasn't there, but I still think that would have been preferable. Hopefully the two will be able to hash this out over a beer in the White House with President Obama and progress will be made regarding proper communication with a police officer performing his duty and not over reacting to a difficult person by the police.

 

[Omar B]

Alright Omar, If you want to lay this game, i'll ask you a question. Did you agree with what Obama said in his 2 press conferences about this incident?

What game am I "laying?" I didn't see the 2 press conferences (weird work hours) but I don't agree with him calling the guy stupid. I'm not gonna agree that the guy deserved being arrested though if that's what you are looking for.

 

[yorkshirelad]

What game am I "laying?" I didn't see the 2 press conferences (weird work hours) but I don't agree with him calling the guy stupid. I'm not gonna agree that the guy deserved being arrested though if that's what you are looking for.

The game you are "laying" is that you deny that your judgement is skewed by Gates' race. If a white professor had been beligerent to the cop and had been arrested for disorderly conduct, it would never had made the news and if it did, (due to the *** in question being a mate of Obama's)Obama would have shrugged the question off with a "no comment" and YOU wouldn't care less about the arrestee. How do I know this? Because you're as transparent as a prison cell tv.

 

[Omar B]

I fail to see that, as I said, I've not brought up his race as an issue once in this thread. I'll let you in on a secret, I'm not black, I'm Indian. An old man got arrested in his own house, that's how I see it. I just caught onto your race bater comment that you must clearly think I'm sticking up for one of my "own" well that does away with your argument. Since you continuously are referencing race in relation to my posts, there you are.

 

[jks9199]

"Abuse of his authority" is strictly a matter of the peanut galleries opinion here..what matters is if there was probable cause to effect an arrest. Could have the Sgt. walked off? Should he have walked off? Maybe..probably...I would like to think I would have.

Did the officer "have to walk away"...did he make an illegal arrest? I would say (and Im fairly confident many attorneys would say) NO.

I'm quite confident it wasn't an illegal arrest.

And I've been in similiar situations, as you probably have, too. Sometimes, I've walked away. Sometimes, I've turned somebody into a pretzel on the ground. Most often, it's been somewhere in the middle. It might be surprising how seldom my PERSONAL ego was involved in the decision of what to do, though.

See, it's a balancing game. I have to maintain the authority of the position for myself AND for others. Sometimes, I can let a blowhard bluster and simply go on my way. He'll blow himself out and be done. But, sometimes, if I let that loudmouth get away with his attitude with me -- the next cop to deal with him or his buddies is only going to get more and worse. And then someone gets hurt... because it will eventually reach the point where the only language that is understood is force. I'll even admit to erring on both sides in different instances.

It's not easy. Sgt. Crowley was justified and did have probable cause to make the arrest. It may not have been an ideal solution -- but it did solve the problem.

 

[Archangel M]

Good article at:

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YjJiZGY2NmQzNjIzM2Q4YTM1YmNmYjRmNGY2ZGQwNzQ=

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.