Sgt. Crowley, a Cop in Full
Sunday, professor Louis Henry Gates retreated from his threat to sue Sgt. James Crowley. Friday, President Obama retreated from his charge that the Cambridge cops "acted stupidly."
As Crowley has not budged an inch—his arrest of Gates was correct, and there will be no apology—there is no doubt who won this face-off. Game, set, match, Crowley and the Cambridge cops.
It is, indeed, as Obama said Friday, a "teachable moment."
And those most in need of teaching are the professor, the governor of Massachusetts and President Obama. By charging or suggesting Gates was a victim of racial profiling, all three were guilty of having reflexively reverted to racial stereotypes about white cops.
Here is the chronology.
Answering a 911 call about a break-in in progress, Crowley encountered the professor inside the house. According to Crowley's report, his request for Gates' I.D. was initially rebuffed, and he was accused of hassling Gates because he was black. The professor made a slurring reference to Crowley's "mama."
The professor then raised such a ruckus Crowley arrested and cuffed him.
Once in the street, Gates bellowed, "This is what happens to a black man in America." Gates then called Crowley a "rogue cop."
Gov. Deval Patrick declared Gates' arrest "every black man's nightmare." Obama said the Cambridge cops had "acted stupidly" and went on to elaborate, on nationwide TV, on the sad history of racial profiling of blacks and Hispanics by police.
Thus the two most powerful black elected officials in the U.S., with no hard knowledge of what happened, came down on the side of a black professor, their buddy, against a white cop and his department, implying racial motivation in the arrest of Gates.
Yet there is still not a shred of evidence for their rush to judgment.
Crowley's partner in the arrest was a black officer who said he stands "100 percent" behind Crowley and that Gates acted "strange."
Sixteen years ago, Crowley gave CPR to an unconscious Boston Celtics star, Reggie Lewis, in an attempt to save his life. The memory of his failure caused Crowley to break down in tears and haunts him to this day.
Crowley was selected by a black police lieutenant to teach fellow officers about racial profiling. He has been doing this for five years.
And watching TV coverage for a week, this writer has yet to hear one cop anywhere condemn Crowley's handling of the incident.
Outside the fevered imagination of Louis Henry Gates, then, where is the evidence Crowley engaged in racial profiling?
The victim here is Sgt. Crowley, not professor Gates.
Crowley is the one defamed as a "racist" and "rogue cop." He is the officer whom Gov. Patrick implied perpetrated "every black man's nightmare." He is the cop on the Cambridge force who, Obama told the nation, "acted stupidly."
If anyone has grounds for legal action, it is Crowley. Indeed, upon what grounds would Gates sue?
That he was wrongly arrested, when Crowley, his black partner, the Cambridge P.D., the police union and 1,000 cops would gladly come to Cambridge to testify that Crowley went by the book?
Moreover, no one says Crowley abused Gates in any way. And there were witnesses in the street to the arrest. And Crowley apparently had his mike open, and a recording of the incident exists.
But if Obama's racial reflexes served him badly Wednesday night, his political instincts served him well on Friday. For he must have sensed that this confrontation was shaping up as three powerful black men coming down hard on a white cop with a stellar record who had only done his conscientious duty.
Obama picked up the phone, called Crowley, regretted his choice of words about him and the Cambridge P.D., walked into the press room and told the nation Crowley was a "good guy," he himself had misspoken, that he and the sergeant had talked about getting together for a beer.
It was a goodly slice of humble pie the president ate there, but it was a class act. To ask more would be churlish. As for Patrick and Gates, they, too, should eat a little crow.
The president's decision to go before the White House press corps also suggests Obama is acutely aware of the political peril here.
For while his black support is rock solid, his white support is soft. And Americans will usually side with an Irish cop over a Harvard don, especially when the professor is pulling rank and the cop is right.
"This isn't about me," says Gates. Sorry, professor, it is about you. You have shown the country why William F. Buckley won laughter all over America when he wittily observed that, rather than be governed by the Harvard faculty, he would prefer to be governed by the first 300 names in the Cambridge telephone directory.
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More important, President Obama has once again been exposed as race obsessed. He couldn't help but chime in with his opinion on the Gates affair when the wisest course for him was to shut up and work to get his political program approved. Think about Obama's life. A father he rarely saw who was a Kenyan who detested Western Civilization but only happy to use Western schooling to advance himself. His mother was a self-loathing leftist who pushed her son to admire his Kenyan roots while detesting his white roots. Instead of making it big in law, he preferred the world of a "community organizer" in black south Chicago. His autobiography, "Dreams of My Father", presents a young man searching to make himself an authentic black man at odds with a white world. Even Obama's choice as pastor and spiritual adviser, Jeremiah Wright, shows how Obama finds his racial pride an important, if not the most important, part of his persona.
In some ways Obama is over his head ---not that he is stupid. Rather he lacks the experience needed for the job. Look at his embarrassing ignorance of protocol in dealing with foreign leaders (e.g. his gifts to heads of state in England). In most places without his handlers and teleprompter he is lost. Look at the campaign gaffes. Many of us recognized these failings during the campaign.
But Obama is in his element when he is addressing an adoring audience who have spent a lot of time watching American Idol and Dancing with the Stars. This old glib tongued orator routine is his forte and, in those settings,he gets by with it. But sometimes it's not enough as when he chose to barge into the Gates case. Many Americans don't understand the complexities of Obama's socialist blabber. But they do understand and identify with Crowley who was clearly just doing the job he was trained to do. Besides that Crowley has character and that came through too.
I hate that Crowley has agreed to have a beer with them. They don't rate that kind of company. And see if they don't transmute that meeting to an instance of their teaching Crowley to be more sensitive to "important" people.
I should add that Obama has a deliberate or reflexive agenda and every issue either conforms or clashes with that agenda. Obama felt that the Gates incident was an opportunity to advance his agenda. Time will tell whether his attempt to advance it was correct. Many of his acts have become liabilities, but he is quick on his feet. And mainly he is quick at coming up with other issues that distract people's attention from his past blunders.
Racial baiting by Gates aside, I am a little disturb by the fact that the police can arrest you on your own property for "acting strange." There was no call for this arrest. Gates may be an ignorant asshole, but since when is that a crime?
While I tend to agree with him, the opinion of the writer of this column in re this incident has no more foundation in fact than mine, or that of any respondent here, or that of the more than 6 billion other people who did not witness this small, contained incident. That includes, of course, "the Cambridge P.D.,"--those who were not witnesses, that is--"the police union and 1,000 cops (who) would gladly come to Cambridge to testify that Crowley went by the book." The highly-unionized thin blue line's closing ranks around one of their own is no more credible to me than the same action by racialist interest groups and "activists."
Just offering some perspective.
Is this the same Pat Buchanan who according to legend, once beat up two cops while growing up on the mean streets of Washington D.C. or was that an evil twin brother we don't know about?
Agree with #4. Cops will find a reason to arrest or taze you or both if you show anything short of servile compliance. You'll be arrested for disorderly conduct or causing a disturbance or even arrested for resisting arrest. The charges will often be dropped as they were in this case; the arrest itself with the humiliation and inconvenience is the punishment for the non-crime of dissing a cop. This has nothing to do with race or profiling.
He is Mr Ambiguity guys. He is not white, he is not black. He is from Kansas, he is from Kenya, he is from Hawaii, he is from Indonesia. He is from everywhere and he is from nowhere.
The comment on the situation in Abolition central did peel back the facade to some degree. Everyone has a preferred position, we can not all be the mushy nothingness of a strip mall or a fast food mecca that is modern America. His gut move was to align with race. That should be a point underscored in all of this mess. The contrast is white middle class values (ie law and order) versus tribalism.
His crowning brought together several forces but the main was the referendum on Bush II. He'll do great damage to the empire and that is a good thing.
McCallum
Sorry Pat you got it wrong. Gates is probably a bum, being a supporter of Obama makes him a bum, but that Crowley guy is a thug for arresting him. As far as the other officer who was black ..so what ..all those gung-ho law and order types keep mentioning black on black crime..well there's one example of it ...Is wouldn't be the first time an Uncle Tom did what was white instead of what was right , for the purpose of pesonal gain
As a guy on the Daily Show said, Obama was just reacting out of instinct, just one Ivy League educated brother looking out for another. He then showed a picture of Gates pedaling a strange looking tricycle to work asking, what's his anthem, "We Shall Over-Eat?"
So what gives Crowley a pass is that he teaches racial sensitivity or profiling to other cops? Huh? I better get me one of those passes, just in case I ever need to re-calibrate any of my statements.
Maybe this was a setup by Eric Holder. He's got us all talking about race again. And from so far away. Hoooray.
@5
I repeat, from my own earlier post: "(T)he opinion of the writer of this column in re this incident has no more foundation in fact than mine, or that of any respondent here, or that of the more than 6 billion other people who did not witness this small, contained incident."
Both Obama and Gates are obsessed with race. Obama's books about himself verify that obsession. And Gates is a racist by profession at Harvard -- look at the subject he teaches. He will be paid by the University to spew his hate to his students and continue to hallucinate about the real world.
Obama outwardly claims he is post-racism, but that is a lie. He has played the race card systematically beginning with his days in community organizing under the tutelage of Alinsky's Rules for Radicals. Everything he says about race is a tool to keep the subject front and center. So long as whites cringe under the guilt of supposed racism, Obama will be in control. That's why he nominated to the Supreme Court a person who wears racism as a badge of honor.
Where is Dr. King's dream that his grandchildren would be judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character? Anyone who wants to put race behind us will not leap to the conclusion that racism is behind every action by a white person.
The negative comments here against Pat's lucid presentation reveal
how far out of touch some are.
Just sit back and pontificate on this site. The nation is going to hell, while you pretend to be observing the train wreck from some remote planet. You may be impressing each other with cleverly tortured arguments like the sophists of old. But if most of us do likewise, we will all feel the pains when constitutional rights shrivel to nothing, and we are helpless to resist as the government micro-manages our lives.
It's unfortunate that this whole thing ended up being turned into another racial drama. “This is what happens to a black man in America,” Gates said.
Actually, this is what happens to a *citizen* in an America where cops have free rein to brutalize, even kill, citizens with impunity. Gates never should have been arrested just for arguing with a cop. Is this America or the Soviet Union?
Check out William Norman Grigg's column, "Praetorian Presumptions," on the July 30, 2009 LewRockwell-dot-com site.
The police now have been nationalized, and have an us-vs.-them attitude to "civilians" -- that is, the people they're supposed to serve, as Grigg details on his Web site, Pro Libertate.
Grigg writes: "As things presently stand, any reaction to police other than immediate, unconditional submission is treated as a threat to 'officer safety' and grounds for arrest or the exercise of lethal force. 'The rule is, if a police officer stops you in a car or on the street, he's the captain of the ship, and whatever he says goes,' insists Jim Pasco, executive director of the Fraternal Order of Police. 'If you've got something to address, do it later. Do what he says, or else only bad things can happen.'
"*Do what he says, or else only bad things can happen.*
"Isn't that the essence of any illicit demand made by a criminal or terrorist?"
Pat Buchanan, whom I usually applaud and support, unfortunately worked for two presidents who greatly increased the police state, Nixon and Reagan. The Gipper gave us the 1984 "Lungren Law," or asset forfeitures, that allows the government to seize your property for any reason, without a trial. Then try getting it back.
Griggs again: "But over the past four decades, since Richard Nixon announced a 'war on crime' as a cynical ploy to capture the loyalty of the uniform-worshiping 'Silent Majority,' all serious presidential contenders have courted the endorsement of police unions and associations. Each administration since Nixon's has cultivated a bond between the 'front-line soldiers in the war on crime' and their 'Commander-in-Chief'."
And although Obama was burned this time, there's no way he's going to reduce police powers -- because he needs them to enforce his diversity totalitarianism and "hate" crimes edicts.
Are you one of those pro-lifers or anti-Fed activists or gun owners DHS Gauleiter Janet Napolitano fingered earlier this year as a terrorist threat?
Then when the knock on the door in the middle of the night comes and you're hauled off to the Gulag, you might ponder that Louis Henry Gates, racial huckster that he is, should not have been treated like a serf.
Maybe Gates should have been arrested for some of the things he has written?
McCallum
"Actually, this is what happens to a *citizen* in an America where cops have free rein to brutalize, even kill, citizens with impunity. Gates never should have been arrested just for arguing with a cop. Is this America or the Soviet Union?"
This is rhetorical nonsense. It's clear you haven't watched the tapes of what actually happened. You are suggesting that a police officer having arrived to investigate a possible break-in should just turn tail and leave the scene if he is yelled at. "I'll go talked to yo Mama outside."
Gates' house had recently been broken into. That's the reason his door didn't work properly. Gates deserves having his address marked as a place no police will not respond if called.
I should add, there are plenty of legitimate complaints that can be lodged against the establishment, but blaming a policeman for following prudent and standard procedures is not one of them. This silly whining shows why there is not much hope for a real solution for the problem of racism: there are too many who need it and use it as a means of congratulating themselves on how wonderful they are.
#16, polemicscat.
"You are suggesting that a police officer having arrived to investigate a possible break-in should just turn tail and leave the scene if he is yelled at. “I’ll go talked to yo Mama outside.'"
No. I'm suggesting that a middle-aged man shouldn't be arrested for arguing with the cops. The authorities later dropped the charges -- admittedly because they didn't want the problem to continue.
"Gates deserves having his address marked as a place no police will not respond if called."
Can he then be excused paying taxes? And may I get the same arrangement: Pay no taxes and be left to defend myself?
Alternatively, could Gates or I hire private police in place of the ones the government forces on us?
Another article on Gates and the general matter of police tyranny is by Kelley B. Vlahos, "Today, Henry Gates; Tomorrow, You," at Antiwar.com. (Google it.)
She writes: "Former congressman and federal prosecutor Bob Barr agrees. 'Reducing this simply to a racial conversation pretty much guarantees future problems,' he said in an interview with Antiwar.com. 'The fact of the matter is, this situation raises troubling questions about citizens being required to be overly submissive and condescended to by police.' Sure, the badge should be respected, he added, but if the police are acting unreasonably, 'I don’t think the citizenry ought to sit back and take it'."
Gentlemen,
I detest, as a law enforcement officer of nearly 24 years, being defined as a Soviet N.K.V.D. thug. Do excesses occur? Hell yes, they do. But, Gates was a suspect in a burglary whom refused to cooperate with an investigation. What the Crowley antagonists suggest is when a suspect is encountered entering a dwelling and identification is requested the officer should accept the suspect's word he's the resident? Really.....I suspect if it were your home and someone was in it without authorization you would demand the police obtain verification of the suspect or arrest him for obstruction. This is exactly what happened to Gates. If he'd produced identification we'd never have heard of Crowley.
The naivete of some of the contributors at this post is dumbfounding. Join me on the streets of a large southern city on a hot July night and you'll be a life member of the Fraternal Order of Police in short order.
I wish those that experienced the injustices suggested in this yarn would provide specifics of abuse. Yours, not some remote authors.
"Join me on the streets of a large southern city on a hot July night and you’ll be a life member of the Fraternal Order of Police in short order."
I've been on the streets of Richmond and Charlotte at night, without your protection, and I'll spend my money on .45ACP ammunition instead of donating it to the FOP. You naively assume that your fellow Chronicles readers would be terrified at what you see on your job. I'm more scared by the prospect of being disarmed by politicians and having to rely on police for protection.
I also realize that if the politicians decide that the citizens are to be disarmed that you and your fellow police officers will be among the armed enforcers who come to disarm me. In my own view, the police are irrelevant in terms of protection for me. I'll defend my own family, since you can't do that for me. Just remember your oath to the Constitution if the day ever comes that you're ordered to disarm citizens.
"I suspect if it were your home and someone was in it without authorization you would demand the police obtain verification of the suspect or arrest him for obstruction. This is exactly what happened to Gates. If he’d produced identification we’d never have heard of Crowley."
Gates was arrested after Crowley had confirmed he was the homeowner. Crowley tricked Gates into leaving the house so that he could arrest him for disturbing the peace. Crowley is like most deputized petty tyrants: "Hey! I am a cop, and you will respect mah aurthoritah!"
Crowley twisted the law to serve his bruised ego. Nothing more.
Update:
The Gates Incident will end as these things usually do: with more power to the government.
Today, July 20, 2009, Henry Louis Gates met with the cop who wrongly arrested him, James Crowley, over beers hosted by President Obama and VP Biden. Obama said:
"I have always believed that what brings us together is stronger than what pulls us apart. I am confident that has happened here tonight, and I am hopeful that all of us are able to draw this positive lesson from this episode."
Translation: To make sure he and his fellow Democrats don’t lose the cop vote in 2010 and 2012, he’ll vastly increase federal spending on cops, thus further federalizing America’s “local” police.
And he’ll increase the powers cops have to harass and brutalize ordinary citizens. After all, he’ll never have to face those cops, nor will Biden. And Gates now will be immunized from future cop assaults.
The rest of us will be left to cringe and submit to the polizei in an ever more subservient manner.
"The rest of us will be left to cringe and submit to the polizei in an ever more subservient manner"
Nailed it!
If it had been me, I think I would have appreciated having a cop pull up and check me out to verify that I wasn't a stranger breaking into my house. I would have appreciated the neighbours calling the cops as well, especially if my house had been broken into recently.
I wouldn't be a cop precisely because of nonsense such as this. It's a bizarre event which reflects how much we have degenerated as a society, every bit as much as do instances of arrogant police brutality. The police must be able to do their legitimate job.
In the real world we all know deference to the badge is the first priority when dealing with cops, anything less will bring you one bad day, black or white.
#22 "The Gates Incident will end as these things usually do: with more power to the government." You are right. Both Obama and Gates were politically motivated, and they got what they wanted.
It was a mistake for Crowley to meet with them. The beer meeting was their opportunity to put a racial spin on the story. Now that they have made Crowley seem at fault, they can move on to other opportunities to create a "teaching" experience.
Obama will point to the story as justification for appointing another judge with a racial chip on her shoulder to the Supreme Court, and Gates will have an interesting story to tell his classes at Harvard about how he taught a Honky cop a lesson. Who knows, maybe he can work the story into one of his books on racism.
The website NNDB (probably extremely unreliable) also lists Prof Gates as the "overseer" of the Institute fot Jewish Research. It's no small wonder that Skip Gates didn't also accuse Cambridge PD of anti-semitism!
As this thread plays out, I am reminded of the law-and-order slogan from decades past: "Support your local police, and keep them independent."
With our taxes we perform the former function, whether we like it or not. It is the latter half of the old saw that is extremely problematic these days.
Thankfully, I live in a township, not in the nearby big city (Columbus OH). Do I trust our township cops? Only, and at most, to the extent that they are not yet federalized (a decreasing percentage, but still greater than that of their county or city counterparts).
My fundamental philosophy is to declare--to the greatest extent possible--independence from my local police: even as I support them, with marked limitations.
One advantage to living in my township is that our taxpayers "support" our local police exclusively via a dedicated levy: not via the "general fund." Thus, if we are not happy with the job they are doing, we can deny them funding upon levy-renewal or -increase votes.
The bad news is that we have nowhere else to turn, except to the county sheriffs (i.e. decreased service and accountability) or to annexation by the city (i.e. practically no police service or accountability at all or--worse--the kind of "service" that is fascist and unconstitutional).
Remember how Smokey Bear used to say: "Only you can prevent forest fires"? Any truly honest cop should tell any and all citizens: "Except by pure, dumb luck, only you can prevent or stop crimes. We can promise service only after one has been committed. And even then, only if we choose to respond."
#28 To speak of the police everywhere in generalities is as culpable as speaking of a racial group in generalities. It is a form of bigotry.
"To speak of the police everywhere in generalities is as culpable as speaking of a racial group in generalities. It is a form of bigotry."
Nonsense. A racial group is made up of autonomous individuals who are free to act in ways that are impossible to predict or categorize. Police are members of a profession, whose purpose doesn't vary one iota from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.
When we add to the description of the law enforcement profession the recent militarization of the police and the presumption that they are under command, ultimately, of the president, it's much easier to make generalized statements about the police that are accurate.
The law enforcement profession is a profession, not an ethnic group.
Also, your choice of the word "culpable" makes your inane statement a blanket accusation of everyone here who has used a genrality to describe predictable police actions. Your index finger is pointing at commenters on this thread while your other three fingers are pointing back at yourself.
"The bad news is that we have nowhere else to turn, except to the county sheriffs (i.e. decreased service and accountability) or to annexation by the city (i.e. practically no police service or accountability at all or–worse–the kind of “service” that is fascist and unconstitutional)."
This is a smear on police everywhere and is an absurd statement.
Instead of examining the particulars in the Crowley-Gates and deciding on the basis of evidence, you and others on this site have used this fallacious syllogism:
Major premise: Police are unfair in carrying out their duties.
Minor premise: Crowley is a policeman.
Conclusion: Therefore, Crowley was unfair to Gates.