obama: i don’t know anything about it, except the white cop acted stupidly

(Comments closed – please use “open thread – Obama Press Conference”)

By now you’ve heard about the arrest of Henry Gates. But did you hear that Obama, while admitting he didn’t know the facts, said the Police acted “stupidly”. How the hell does he know? He doesn’t even know the facts! Heck, he doesn’t even have the story right. Check out all the stories on memorandum.

Wow, another race card. And Obama said, “I think it’s fair to say any of us would be pretty angry.” Why would ANYONE be angry if someone saw two men trying to bust down a door and called the police? I would be glad neighbors were looking out for my home. WHY why why would that make anyone angry? The police come and you show your ID. End of story.

Sgt. James Crowley was doing his job, responding to a 911 call of a possible B&E and was attacked, called a racist, and now is being told he acted “stupidly” by the President of the United States. By a President who doesn’t even have his facts straight. Witnesses support Crowley.

View this video here.

First of all, Gates did not forget his keys. He returned home from China and found his front door stuck. He went around back, let himself into his home, and then tried, with his driver, to force open the front door.

A woman who was walking past, on her way to work – who lives five miles away - saw the two men breaking in to a home. She called 911 and reported two black men with backpacks trying to force entry into a home. People kept asking why this neighbor didn’t recognize Gates, as if the fault is hers that she didn’t recognize him.

One comment I read, “How much will anyone bet that the so-called “neighbour” is a white person who doesn’t much like this Black guy living in his/her neighbourhood.” Wow, another race card. A woman, 40-year-old Lucia Whalen of Malden, was passing a house on her way to work, saw two men trying to break down the front door and called 911. Now she is racist? She wasn’t a neighbor. She worked nearby and she did see two black men trying to force open a door.

Sgt. James Crowley arrived on the scene and saw Gates inside the front door. The witness was on the sidewalk and was waving and pointing at the home telling the officer the men were in the home.

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Crowley approached the front door and asked Gates to step outside. According to the police report, and Gates himself, Gates refused and demanded to know who he was (a fully dressed police officer?) Crowley says he was responding to a call about a possible B&E and Gates responds, “Why, because I’m a black man in America?”

Gates continued to berate the officer, and refused to step outside, nor would he provide ID. He called the officer racist. He threw out “do you know who I am” and “you haven’t heard the last of me”. Gates also picked up the phone, called someone, and demanded to speak to “The Chief” then asked what the Chief’s name is.

Read the entire police report here, and the second report by Carlos Figueroa. (The Boston Globe has scrubbed the police report from their site)

This is the statement issued through Gates’ lawyer.

Gates refused to exit the home, he did not show his ID until he had made a phone call, yelled repeatedly at the officer, and accused him of racism. There were several witnesses, and his story was corroborated in a second police report.

The police officer knew that there were two men, per the 911 call. Crowley was following protocol by asking Gates to step outside. He also asked Gates if there was anyone in the house and Gates told him it was none of his business.

Gates opened up the door at some point, and Crowley entered the house, and Gates then walked into his kitchen where he retrieved his Harvard ID. He continued to insult Crowley and call him a racist.

Gates has now admitted to saying, “Are you not giving me your name and badge number because I’m a black man in America?”

It seems to me he is now creating stories to explain the phrases he was heard yelling, as quoted in the police report. I have listened to witnesses, see photos, and read numerous articles, including his statements, and the police depts.

Can people honestly believe that when the officer asked for Gates to step outside, and for his ID, had Gates obliged and explained the situation he would have been arrested? Seriously? There is no chance that Gates was pissed off at his door being jammed, pissed that the cops showed up, and acted irrational, which led to the arrest?

It’s just automatically racism on the part of the officer? Sounds to me like it is elitism *you don’t know who you’re dealing with!* From everything I have read Gates had major attitude, and pulled the elitism and racism cards. The police have a job to do, and I can’t imagine it does anyone any good to scream at them while trying to do it.

There has been an increase in daytime robberies in Gate’s neighborhood, he should have been thankful they were protecting his home. Not indignant because he was asked for ID.

A 55-year-old neighbor said he witnessed the entire episode – from the squeal of police brakes in the initial response to Gates’ uproar. “The police did their job. He should be thanking them, but they shouldn’t have arrested the guy,” the neighbor added.

Gates brought race into the situation by accusing Crowley of being racist, and by blaming the situation on being a black man in America. Sgt. Crowley was responding to a 911 call. Race had nothing to do with his showing up on Gates’ porch.

Isn’t Gates being the racist by assuming because Crowley is white he is racist?

Gates was not arrested for being in his home. He was arrested for disorderly conduct and refusing to comply with an officer. He wasn’t arrested because he is black, but he sure acted like an ass because the officer was white, and that’s what got him thrown in the slammer.

Bill Carter, the man who snapped a photograph of Gates being led away in handcuffs, said police officers were calm and that Gates was “slightly out of control” and “agitated” when he was arrested.

“The officers around kind of calmed him down,” Carter said. “I heard him yelling — Mr. Gates yelling. I didn’t hear anything that he was saying so I couldn’t say that he was belligerent.”

There was an article on Daily Beast, and the author wrote:

“…tells you that even if a black man is a brilliant, famous, rich, classy, Harvard professor who’s 58 years old, walking with a cane because of hip-replacement surgery, and ensconced in his own Cambridge home during the day, he can still be arrested. That’s because Malcolm X’s 40-year-old quote is still true: “What do you call a black man with a Ph.D.? A nigger.”

Wow, really…? It should tell you that anyone who disobeys police orders/attacks police/breaks the law can be arrested. It shouldn’t matter how rich, affluent or classy someone is. I never argue with police orders, ever.

The Police Dept. dropped the charges, but stands behind the officer, saying he obeyed proper procedure. A statement was released, “All parties agree that this is a just resolution to an unfortunate set of circumstances.”

That wasn’t good enough for Gates, though. He is now demanding an apology and denying he yelled at the officer. Despite what the witnesses say…

Gates said that when he walked outside it was like a cop convention there were so many police outside. Crowley didn’t call for backup until Gates was refusing to comply with his orders, and refusing to show his ID. The way Gates tells it, they were already there. Gee…lawsuit?

Gates said he was arrested because a white cop couldn’t tolerate having an intellectual black man stand up to him.

Gates made it about race and refused to comply with the request of a police officer. Why was Gates “standing up to him”, as he stated he was?

Why was he so pissed a policeman was asking for ID because of a call about a potential break in? Why was he so pissed that the policeman was responding to a potential B&E call that he would demand his name and ID? What had Crowley done that made Gates demand that information?

He couldn’t reply “Hello officer, yes I am the owner, I have been out of town, and my door was stuck. Here is my ID, and Harvard ID. Thank you for responding so quickly and keeping an eye on our neighborhood.”

(BTW, the door was stuck because Gates thinks that someone tried to break in while he was in China.)

“Because of the capricious whim of one disturbed person . . . I am now a black man with a prison record,” Gates said. “You can look at my mug shot on the Internet.”

Because of the actions of Gates, Crowley, “…a highly respected veteran supervisor with a distinguished record in the Cambridge Police Department,’’ is having to defend himself against charges of racism by Gates, and charges of stupidity by Obama.

“His actions at the scene of this matter were consistent with his training, with the informed policies and practices of the Department, and with applicable legal standards.’’ said the Cambridge Police Superior Officers Association.

Michael Graham from Boston Herald wrote:

Colorblind test failed … by Gates with his racial profiling of the white cop.

The Gates who greeted Crowley was a racist. And I know, because the professor said so himself.

By his own admission, Gates didn’t just blame the incident on the fact that he is “a black man.” He also added the accusatory question, “Are you doing this because you’re a white police officer?”

According to an eyewitness quoted in the Herald yesterday, when police asked him for ID, Gates started yelling, “I’m a Harvard professor . . . You believe white women over black men.”

From the Boston Herald, we learn that Crowley comes from a family of police officers:

Verina Crowley said James is the third of her four sons, all in law enforcement. Two brothers, Jack and Joseph, also work for the Cambridge police. The fourth, Daniel, is a Middlesex County deputy sheriff.

Verina Crowley said her sons were raised mostly in the Fresh Pond neighborhood where she still lives, attended racially diverse Cambridge public schools, and graduated from Cambridge Rindge and Latin High School, where she worked for 26 years.

“He is not a racist,’’ she said in the hallway of her home. And Gates “is not the first black person he ever met in his life.’’

“…it was not the first time he had a memorable encounter in the line of duty with a prominent black man. Nearly 16 years ago, as a Brandeis University police officer, Crowley desperately tried to save the life of Reggie Lewis after the Boston Celtics star collapsed while practicing in the school gym.

“It bothers him terribly that he couldn’t save him,’’ Crowley’s 74-year-old mother, Verina Crowley, said yesterday, speaking of her son and the famous basketball player.

This isn’t the first time Crowley has been accused of racism though:

Yesterday, as President Obama condemned the Cambridge Police Department during a prime-time White House news conference and Crowley steadfastly refused to issue the apology that Gates has sought, a fuller picture began to emerge of the 42-year-old sergeant who arrested the Harvard scholar last week on a charge of disorderly conduct on the porch of Gates’s Cambridge house.

Crowley was a certified emergency medical technician when he performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation on Lewis, to no avail, after the player’s heart stopped on July 27, 1993. In a Globe interview later that day, Crowley said he rushed to the university’s Shapiro Gymnasium, confirmed that Lewis had no pulse, and frantically tried to revive him.

“I just kept on going,’’ he said. “I just kept thinking, ‘Don’t let him die – just don’t die.’ ’’

The Cambridge cop prominent Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. claims is a racist gave a dying Reggie Lewis mouth-to-mouth resuscitation in a desperate bid to save the Celtics superstar’s life 16 years ago Monday.

“I wasn’t working on Reggie Lewis the basketball star. I wasn’t working on a black man. I was working on another human being,” Sgt. James Crowley, in an exclusive interview with the Herald, said of the forward’s fatal heart attack July 27, 1993, at age 27 during an off-season practice at Brandeis University, where Crowley was a campus police officer.

It’s a date Crowley still can recite by rote – and he still recalls the pain he suffered when people back then questioned whether he had done enough to save the black athlete.

“Some people were saying ‘There’s the guy who killed Reggie Lewis’ afterward. I was broken-hearted. I cried for many nights,” he said.

Now, 16 years later, he is accused of racism by Gates, one of the foremost scholars on race in America.

And accused of stupidity by the President of the United States. Just for trying to do his job.

Perhaps Gates shouldn’t have been arrested for his rude behavior and his abusive tone and disorderly conduct – at this point I don’t know how disorderly he was. But Crowley shouldn’t have been abused and called a racist for doing his job. Gates created the situation, he elevated the situation, and he was in the wrong. People are arrested all the time for disobeying police orders. You just don’t do it. I don’t care who you are.

Gates is obviously a very learned man, very intelligent, and a very genteel man. He has lived almost 60 years, is very, very successful, and has never had any problems with the law before. He has won numerous awards, and recognitions, and lives in a very nice community in Harvard. But that does not give him the right to accuse someone of being racist, just for doing their job. Especially when he admits to throwing around the race card. That also doesn’t mean they aren’t capable of acting irrational. (Remember Grannie getting tasered in the above video?)

I think Gates needs to man up and admit he was out of line, and I think both he and Obama owe Sgt. James Crowley an apology. I can’t believe Obama would take a dirty shot at our Police Officers like that, especially not knowing the facts. Officers that put their lives on the line every day to protect and serve.

Crowley replied on how he felt about Obama’s comments:

A white police sergeant who arrested renowned black scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. says he’s disappointed President Barack Obama said police acted “stupidly” without knowing all the facts.

In an interview on WEEI on Thursday morning, Crowley said it was “disappointing that he waded into what should be a local issue.”

And btw, when Obama said that if he were trying to break into the White house he’d “be shot” mean that he thinks the Secret Service and DC police are racist? I kind of think anyone trying to break into “his house” would be arrested or shot.