A non-racial way of looking at the professor ' s arrest

If you haven't heard about the case of an African-American man arrested under suspicion of burglary in what turned out to be his own home, I congratulate you on your total retreat from society and would like to see your hermitage. Before offering some thoughts on this episode, which was scheduled to culminate Thursday in a meeting at the White House of the arresting officer, the victim, and the victim's friend President Obama, let's go over the facts. Lucia Whalen of Cambridge, Mass., saw two men breaking into a home and did her civic duty, phoning 911 to report it. She did not mention race until a police dispatcher pressed her, then said one of the men might be Hispanic. "The one person who didn't overreact," her lawyer said later. What she and the dispatcher did not know that was Henry Louis Gates Jr., a Harvard professor who is African-American, had just returned from a trip and his door was stuck, as if someone had tried to jimmy it while he was away filming a PBS documentary. His cab driver graciously agreed to help him open the door. This is what Whalen saw. Cambridge Police Sergeant Jim Crowley responded quickly to the call, which under other circumstances would have been a relief to Professor Gates as a resident of the neighborhood, particularly considering that someone apparently tried to break into his house while he was away. But when it became evident Crowley had been sent to investigate a possible burglary, Gates, who is 58 years old and has encountered racism from time to time, bristled. In the resulting exchange of pleasantries, each man became convinced that the other was disrespecting him. As near as I can tell, both were right. Crowley, a cop with a good record whose friends have assured the world that he is a good man, didn't take kindly to a citizen blasting him verbally. Gates didn't take kindly to being treating as a burglar in his own home. Crowley repeatedly tried to get Gates to step outside to continue the conversation. If he thought Gates was a burglar, he might have felt safer outside. Gates, for his part, indicated later that he felt Crowley was trying to move their argument outdoors where the matter could arguably be considered a public nuisance. Two points of fact prevent me from siding with Crowley. The first and most important is that Gates had identification which showed him to be the resident of that address. This trumps everything else. The fact that Cromley arrested Gates despite this undermines any assertion that his behavior and judgment were beyond reproach. The other fact is that Gates is not a physically imposing or dangerous-looking person. He is gray and he walks with a cane. But while this fact undermines any assertion that Crowley should have felt threatened by Gates' anger, it also undermines an assertion that Crowley was profiling. I think Crowley was just irked as not being treated with respect by a citizen, and decided to show Gates who was boss. Do you think I'm rushing to judgment of Crowley? Good. That's exactly the point I wanted to make. It is human nature to jump to judgment, and police do it more than most people because their job often requires them to make snap judgments, but it is also a practice - call it an instinct if you like - which often leads people to do the wrong thing. To focus on racial profiling suggests that an end to racism will be an end to the problem, but it is a fact that police officers the world over have been known to dial their response to a situation up or down depending on how much deference they are shown by citizens. It is also true that many of the worst mistakes law enforcement officers make, stem from having jumped to incorrect conclusions from which they were unwilling to veer. Crime dramas in television and the movies invariably feature a variety of suspects, and the one that police "like" for the crime in the first twenty minutes never turns out to be the one who did it. In real life, police will tell you that they nearly always figure out who did the crime quite rapidly and then it's a question of obtaining evidence. Since so many crimes go unsolved, I would prefer to put it another way: most crimes that are solved are committed by the person whom police suspect from the start. Reluctance to abandon one's first impression may cause an innocent suspect to behave in a guilty manner, or, as was the case here, to become angry, and when the officer is touchy enough, this provides an expedient for arrest. Most police officers I know are innocent of racism beyond the background noise that most of us spend our lives working to transcend. But like the rest of us, they are prone to jumping to conclusions, and to being overfond of first judgments. It just happens to be more of an occupational hazard in police work than in some other disciplines. I don't especially care whether Gates and Crowley apologize to each other but it would make me very happy if, after chatting at the White House, they can at least concede that they each understand why the other behaved as he did. Postscript: Responses to this post, both here and on Facebook, have included a few from people who have the sense that Crowley could have prevented this by being, as one writer said, more humble. Even taking the charitable view that this does not mean "less uppity," I wonder how many people could take this view who have been unfairly suspected of criminal activity themselves. I recall a colleague at a radio network in Washington, D.C., an African-American with more education than I have, pulled over for no reason because a crime had been committed nearby by a black man. This happened in a community that is 80% black so my friend's race was hardly what one could call a distinguishing characteristic. Once, when I was a teenager, a police officer came to the door and wanted to talk to me about a yellow mark on my car. A woman in a yellow car had been sideswiped and she thought I had done it. I explained, in some embarrassment, that I had sideswiped the yellow pole that the speakers hang from at the Super 170 Drive-In movie theater. In my naivete I assumed they could check the paint and confirm it was the same kind, and suggested it, telling him he could take a sample if he liked. He came back two more times to talk to me about it. On the third occasion, I said, "I don't understand why you keep coming back. I told you what happened. Didn't you check the paint?" And he said, "I don't understand why you're taking an attitude about it." I'll never forget the way my statement triggered this accusation that I was displaying attitude. It was like he was waiting for the faintest sign of attitude so he could jump on it.

Comments

[Chris]

The officer was alone for a time when he arrived on scene. For his own safety he had to consider and (if possible, eliminate) the possibility that there was some other person or persons in the house that Gates may not have been aware of, and hence, for both the officer's safety and that of Prof. Gates, it makes sense to me for the officer to have attempted to get Prof. Gates out of the house while the police investigated.

I also doubt that Prof. Gates would have listened to or believed this explanation at the time.

The police investigation would have taken a matter of a few minutes had Prof. Gates chosen to cooperate with the police.

[ Thanks to Chris for pointing out my misspelling of the sergeant's name, which has now been fixed in the post. His point about the possibility of a hidden second suspect is a good one since the woman who called 911 did report two people at the door. HMD]

[j. k.]

Great point. I completely agree with you. If both men just step back and think objectively-instead of personally, I believe they can find common ground. It's a shame that Cromley didn't humble himself a bit after Gates showed his ID. Even if he was offended by Gates behavior, humbling himself would have stopped this whole situation from going beyond public nuisance into the realm of a national spectacle.

[ Inside the home it was not a public nuisance. The officer could have checked the I.D. inside the home and then let Gates go. If he felt there was danger he could have handcuffed him and then done this, with one eye on the rest of the house as he did so, just as he may have kept one eye on the rest of the house while taking Gates out of it. Am I wrong about this? HMD]

[turk fontiane]

Gosh, racial relations in this country just go back and forth don't they? Seems like only yesterday Jesse Jackson was accusing Obama of being uppity, and only the day before that Al Sharpton was stuffing that girl in the trash can and blaming NYPD for it. This whole Gates thing is just plain stupid. Oh, did somebody already say that?

[Wanderer]

William Pitt,1763, the father of our 4th amendment.

"The poorest man may in his cottage bid defiance to all the forces of the crown. It may be frail - its roof may shake - the wind may blow through it - the storm may enter - the rain may enter - but the King of England cannot enter."

you enter my house, it is with respect, capisce?

[Peter Kay]

Howard,

One extremely important detail left out was the ID. And since you correctly state the ID issue is key to this matter, I would think journalists would have researched more.

The question: Gates says he gave his Harvard ID and State DL. Did the ID that Mr. Gates provide have the address of the house on it? Some reports have stated he was renting the house. It's possible the address on the ID did not match the house.

It's a small, yet important point.

[lllarry]

If his safety was such a concern, why was he the only one there? A traffic stop tends to get three or four units as backup, going in a big house by one's self doesn't seem to be the "safe" way to go about it.

I also wonder if the officer made a comment about it being such a nice house for Gates to own...

[ On the mainland, multiple units responding to every call would be unusual. That's more of a Waikiki thing. HMD]

[Chris]

Perhaps the sergeant had such a plan in mind once backup arrived, j.k., but it doesn't sound to me like Prof. Gates was calm at any point in this incident...

[j. k.]

Comment on this:
[ Inside the home it was not a public nuisance. The officer could have checked the I.D. inside the home and then let Gates go. If he felt there was danger he could have handcuffed him and then done this, with one eye on the rest of the house as he did so, just as he may have kept one eye on the rest of the house while taking Gates out of it. Am I wrong about this? HMD]

No, I don't think your wrong about it. The officer could have checked the ID inside the home. If safety was a concern, I don't see why he couldn't handcuff him, as part of protocol, then ID him. As Chris pointed out, with safety in mind for both the officer and the suspect in question, the matter could have been settled outside the home by making a couple of reference calls. I don't see how it would be public nuisance if both men remained calm. If the officer remained calm, explained the situation, and asked Gates to step away from the house while he can properly identify that 1) Gates is who he says he is and 2) Tells Gates if he is who he says he is, he needs to make sure there wasn't a robbery actually taking place, the situation may have gone a bit differently. Emotions got the best of this situation, if I'm understanding it correctly.

[j. k.]

Agreed. Both men let emotions play into the situation.

[Alarmed Nut]

If I saw a yellow cab parked in front of my neighbor's house, I wouldn't call 911 without mentioning it. Would you? Or does Boston have unmarked cabs?