Paid a whole lot less than a Harvard professor. . .

I don't think I'd automatically assume the cop was being an asshole, even if I had just been on a really long trip. Especially if I knew that I had just been breaking in to my own house in full view of the entire neighborhood. Why wouldn't someone get concerned about that? In fact, I'd pretty much expect a police response, and be somewhat disappointed if there was none, because that would indicate that a real burglar could probably break in without a police response.

Whether the cop is racist or not, the good Professor appears to be a reactionary asshole.

I don't know what this particular cop makes but I do know that I don't consider what the cops in my city make to be a "pretty penny" and likely not in the same league with a Harvard professor. And I think we both know which of those jobs is harder, even the professor's worst day at the office.

Don't get me wrong, I am not saying the cop is right. What I am saying is that if you want to start something with a cop, you need to be prepared for the hassle that can follow. Much better to cooperate if you have nothing to hide and be done with it.

Consider for a moment the chance to set a great example for thousands of young black this educated man just passed up. Granted, if he had handled like an adult university professor and not like a teenage punk I doubt anyone would have heard of it. But this way he has set a very bad example and everyone has heard of it.

And this is without even touching on the firestorm that would have descended if the B&E were real and cops had not responded. Feels a bit like a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation for the cops to me.

I don't know, I might be at odds with many here, but I feel for the professor. To spend your life pursuing academia, knowledge, and to dedicate yourself to teaching, and for this to happen to him when he comes home. I think understand his reaction, even though I don't have the experience of being black, I've been discriminated against in different situations. The first reaction must be "well, I spend my life doing this, but I'm still a walking stereotype to them, just another nigger in their eyes."
To be accused of breaking into your own house must be infuriating. I personally think the cop should have realized this, given him a chance, and tried to defuse the situation. Maybe it would have been the right thing to do, but even if it wasn't, it's better than exposing your department to a race-based lawsuit.

Also I'm having a hard time understanding why he(Gates) was an asshole.
How do you think you guys would react? Realistically, not just a level-headed reaction, that would seem the smartest from a distant observer. In his place, with his ethnicity, with the history, and the same situation, how do you think you'd react? I think I'd be super-pissed, and it'd be very hard to control myself.

I'd have the officer escort me to my ID with my hands in plain sight, answering every question to the best of my ability. Its the same thing i would do in any situation with a police officer. Being a dick isn't on my list of things when dealing with cops.. even when they're in my own home. Why? Because if you're a dick they can and will arrest you.

That's the problem with cops. Being a dick isn't cause for arrest. Breaking the law is cause for arrest. You shouldn't arrest someone just because they are yelling at you and being a dick.

Once the cop established that the man was the resident the cop needed to GTFO. Gates should have been within his rights to forcibly remove the cop from his residence once the cop no longer had business to do there.

..

Here is the way this conversation should have went

Officer: "Sir I'm going to need you to step outside."
Professor: "I'm sorry officer is there a problem?"
Officer: "We have received a call about someone breaking into this property and are here to investigate. Please step outside."
Professor: "Ah, I can explain officer. I live here and just returned from a long trip. The door was swollen shut and I had to forcible enter."
Officer: "Can you please show me a photo ID with your address."
Professor: "Here you go officer, I appreciate you putting your life on the line to protect my property."
Officer inspects the ID and sees the address. Calls into control and verifies the ID and homeowner of the property.
Officer: "Thank you sir, i'm sorry to bother you."
Professor: "No problem officer, again thank you for putting your life on the line to protect my property."

Let's face it this is not a case of racism but instead a case of assholism. So many things in this world go much smoother if you are nice.

Rekna, that was positively sane. You're 100% right.

There just isn't any way to know definitively from the competing versions of the facts whether the asshole was the cop or the professor or both. From the speed of escalation in the situation, it might have been both.

What reason did the cop have for continuing questioning once the professor confirmed it was his house?

timalkin, once the police saw the man's identification, they no longer had any evidence of a crime and were on this man's property without permission. The chip that may or may not exist on this professor's shoulder is nothing compared to the "victimized white culture" chip on yours. You seem to have some unfounded sense of Caucasian victimization. Are you one of those white people that are mad you've been in charge for so long? It must be nice to be black, you think, that you have a race card to play. I wish I were the white Jesse Jackson so I could wail and moan about the sad state of white America, the numerous abuses against the underprivileged whites that are just trying to live honest, hard working lives. But you're not really understanding what it's like to be in that situation. In your lifetime, your culture has been in charge of things. Add to that your (presumably conservative) mistrust of people that are educated, and here we are.

You've invented a race for yourself along with racist (or reverse racist) oppressors. The poor, honest, white man has to live under the thumb of the multiracial, liberal, academic ruling class. The reality of the situation—the neighbor never even familiarized herself with the appearance of this professor enough to recognize him, resulting in her calling the police; the police arrived with good intentions, but became angry when the black man assumed correctly that racism might have been involved in their presence and then they refused to leave—disappears into the haze of your projected reality.

You should visit roachboy's thread about "the backfire effect".

The professor was in the wrong, end of story. I've had the same shit happen to me, I've had the cops called on me for getting water from the backyard faucet of the house we were moving out of because the landlord died and the house was willed to family, and they wanted to sell it.

It was right around midnight and we still had a "right" to be there until the end of the month. But all of our stuff was packed up in the car and we weren't ready to leave until dark because it was in TX, and it was hot, so we thought we'd do night travel instead.

Basically the cops were dicks, we cooperated to the best of our ability but they still treated us like scum.

and hey, guess what, i'm white! *shrug*

..

would you also be this submissive if they wanted to search your home without giving a reason why?

You're inventing things, projecting your bias into the story. Notice how "presumably" made it's way into your recounting. You presume too much. Newsflash, the police had no reason to be there. They came to the home just to double-check, to ensure nothing funny was going on. They showed up based on the claims of a neighbor that couldn't even recognize someone that lived within visual distance of her home. That's flimsy to begin with. That they stuck around after determining that the man was breaking in to his own home, speaks in volumes. The police are not all-powerful, they do not have permission to go wherever they want for whatever reason they deem appropriate. The fact remains that as soon as the identity of the professor was verified, there was no longer any evidence of a crime. The police were to leave. To paraphrase you, if the police wanted to stick around, tough shit.
You've taken apologism in the other direction. You're offended by the fact that truly the black people in America had it very bad for a very long time, and that many still have it bad for no other reason than their skin color, the genesis of what you call apologism. Instead of feeling sympathy, you covet their victim status. You want that attention, you want what you perceive to be that power. You want to the white Jesse Jackson, to (as you see it) take advantage of your race's position having been victimized for so long. Look at your own take: the victims are the police officers that went to investigate a man that was breaking into his own home, that stuck around after realizing the mistake. The aggressor is the black man, racially profiled by his neighbor that never took the time to recognize him, a man that happens to be an "academic", a man that happened to be angered by the very real bias that lead to the police showing up at his home.
It always fascinates me that people that hate college seem to think they know everything about it's people.

Or maybe the reason we can't bury the race hatchet is because there are people, just like in this discussion, that whenever there is a conflict between a black man and a white man, immediately assume the black man is at fault, filling in the blanks with whatever suits them.

Now, Im not saying that Gates wasn't an asshole. But here's your account of what happened:

Which is unsubstantiated by anything, including the police report. So you've made up this scenario entirely from your head. The police report itself said that the professor was "talking shit" to the police while he was inside his home, and the police officer asked him out to the porch. Also, yeah, you do have a right to say whatever you want to the police as long as it is not physically threatening or any of the usual limits on free speech we recognize. Threatening unspecified administrative action, even if in an obnoxious manner, is entirely within one's rights.


And you want to talk about "double standards..."

---------- Post added at 04:40 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:38 PM ----------

After they determined you had a right to be there, did they ask or want to check if there were other people there? Did they call for additional police even after you showed you had a right to be there? Did they hang out in the kitchen?

They have to give you a reason. And yes i have let a cop search my home after asking. He had a good reason. If the officer didn't have one, or a warrant, i probably would not allow him inside. Everything always depends on the situation and if it is handled in a non-assholeish manner.

The officer had a reason to be in the house in the case of this professor. Staying? That's something else, but it may have had something to do with the way the professor was acting toward the officer that provoked a longer visit. Who knows.. maybe the officer thought that there may really be an actual burglar still inside the house that the newly returned homeowner had not yet discovered? That's the way a lot of cops are trained and/or think.

..

It's deduction taken only from the information in your posts in this thread. The fact that several other individuals here seem to have come to the same or similar conclusions suggests my observations and conclusions are not so far fetched.

Accusing someone of racial bias is not, in and of itself, racist. Professor Gates came to the conclusion—which may or may not ultimately be correct, we can't know for sure—that the police officer's presence was racially motivated in some way. When you take into account that there may also be a pattern of racial profiling around Cambridge, as the article mentions, his accusations may have been founded in reason instead of racism. The fact you're willing to overlook this tells us that, as Dippin correctly pointed out above, you "immediately assume the black man is at fault, filling in the blanks with whatever suits [you]." Look at what you posted:
Emphasis mine. This information came from your own mind, not any verifiable source.

Cops getting pretty pennies, HA! No they're the same level of attractiveness as other pennies, just fewer of them. And you only earn them for going out each day with a big target on your back. And you get to put up with all kinds of great stuff like people screaming at you, physically assaulting you, sometimes even shooting at you.

As for the Op I think loquitur has it right, I have nothing I could add to his statements.

How is a black man being arrested by a black cop racist? Man, the word racist is now officially the most over used word next to icon.

He wasn't arrested by the black cop. The black cop showed up later.

no, you dont' have to if they ask. If they ASK, they obviously have no reasonable articulate suspicion or probable cause. You do NOT have to let them search if they ask.


I've said this before. The police are not your friends. They don't care about situations or circumstances. If they ask to search, they are wanting you to let them go on a fishing expedition. You do not have to let them do so.

The officer would have been in his rights in ONLY checking out the house to make sure there was no other immediate situation going on like a hostage situation. That would have been it. Once that was ascertained, the officer had no further reason to be there and definitely no reason to start asking a bunch of questions. The Professor was well within his rights at that time to demand that they leave and they would have been obligated to do so.

Whoa, did somebody just suggest that law enforcement guys get paid appropriate to their profession? Wow, that's a friggin' hoot.

Smells like somebody needs to go talk to a local cop about the events of his daily hours vs. monthly paycheck.

I've noticed (both on TFP and in my own life) that there are two types of people when it comes to cops. I'll provide a brief example:

After being pulled over for speeding, a police officer asks if he can look in your trunk. You know there is nothing in the trunk besides the spare tire, jack, and a change of clothes for the gym.

Person A allows the officer to take a look, knowing that they've done nothing wrong and that the officer won't find anything.

Person B raises a huge stink, yells at the officer about not having a warrant and that his rights are being broken, etc.


Now, is Person B in the right or in the wrong? Technically, they're probably right, but I'm of the opinion that you have to choose your battles. Then again, I don't have a chip on my shoulder about authority figures and have never had a bad run-in with the police....

You have to be Person B because if everybody was Person A... what's the point of the system?

If I get pulled over for speeding and they wanna look in my trunk... they better cuff me first.

As the cop has no right to be poking around in your trunk (not a euphemism) I wouldn't let him look. If he can give me a reasonable explanation as to why it's important that he look in my trunk, then I might consider opening it for him.

I have met great cops and I have dealt with asshole cops. I approach both with caution.

I'm going to get DK a T-shirt that says, "Cops are people, too!"

If there's nothing in my trunk for them to find, why make a scene about it? Is it worth getting arrested for?

You're missing the "big picture" "erosion of the system" point that I'm not nearly eloquent enough to detail at midnight.

Cops love to push their power. If we don't push back there will be a lot of issues as practice becomes procedure.

I'm all for cops doing their job aggressively. I'm also for citizens pushing against them. The two forces create balance.

yeah, nobody could EVER be person C and say, no thanks officer, am I free to go now? :rolleyes:

---------- Post added at 11:22 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:21 PM ----------

I could use another one, thanks. my first one is kind of wore out. :thumbsup:

---------- Post added at 11:23 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:22 PM ----------

1) you have a right to privacy.

2) if the cop has to ask, he has no probably cause. If you refuse, he cannot legally arrest you for the refusal.

Except sometimes there is no speeding to even speak of, and you are just being pulled over so they go on a fishing expedition. And sometimes it's not your trunk, but your house, your wallet, etc. And sometimes people in positions of power get so brash as to simply abuse the "Im not going to raise a stink" crowd:

Nation & World | Texas town stops black motorists, seizes assets | Seattle Times Newspaper

Yup. That's what I do. The constitution specifies rights for all of us, not just the criminal element. I don't have to have something illegal in my car in order to not want the cop to go pawing through my stuff.


Correct, and to add to this, if in response to "am I free to go now," he says "no" you are under arrest, even if he did not tell you that you are, and even if he denies that you are. He is allowed to arrest you while writing your speeding ticket (you are considered to be released from arrest on your own recognizance once he hands you the ticket), but if he attempts to detain you after he gives you the ticket (beyond obvious small stuff like "wait for this truck to pass before you pull out") then he has to have cause to keep you under arrest. And if he does not have cause (and standing up for your constitutional rights protecting you from unlawful searches is not cause) then he has just falsely arrested you, which is a crime, and an actionable tort. This means you can sue him and his department (which generally means whatever city he's working for).

The courts have done a lot to shit on the Fourth through Sixth amendments. There are quite a few cases out there where cops have been cleared of all charges on unconstitutional arrests and evidence from unconstitutional seizures has not been suppressed. It's surprisingly difficult to get the 4th amendment to work the way that you'd think it ought to, archaic grammar notwithstanding.

I have little interest in criminal law, but the crim pro class I took in law school was one of the most eye-opening and terrifying.

Responding to the OP, I think we have a bad mix of poor reporting and bad choices all around. I'm sure race played a part in the final outcome, but I don't think it played so disproportionate a role as to make this some sort of issue that we should care about more than we would otherwise. For better or worse, the human brain works and learns by grouping things and we base our responses on our previous experiences. Race is a taboo grouping, but that doesn't stop the brain from doing it anyway.

Not that I'm sure white people don't break into houses in Boston...

I think most people (including me) have a problem with the cops here precisely because they didn't stop once he finally did produce ID.

And fuck Al Sharpton. Seriously. Him and Nancy Grace.

I'm aware of my right to privacy, and I'm aware of my right to refuse a search. I also value my time, and as a law abiding citizen, I know I have nothing to hide. I don't need to make a demonstration out of it.

But hey, I'm a 30-something white guy, so the chances of being harassed by the cops is pretty low

---------- Post added at 09:42 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:40 AM ----------

I'm not going to throw every cop into the same boat in terms of ego or whatever....many are assholes, many are not.

But the ones that like pushing their authority WANT you to push back at them. Why give them them the pleasure?

It takes less time to say "No. Am I free to go?" Than it does to say "Yes." and let them paw through your trunk.

Bad excuse for being unwilling (or unable) to stand up for your and my fundamental rights to privacy.

It's not about pleasure it's about standing up for our rights and not letting police erode and erode and erode them because people are either ignorant of their rights or unwilling to stand up for them. The "if you have nothing to hide" defense is a perfect example.

The very fact that this HAPPENED means there are officers who think they can do whatever they want on a man's private property. This HAPPENS because they're not trained by their departments and citizens saying "No" to keep their power in check.

because that pleasure gets turned in to a smackdown by the city council when they have to hand over a 5 digit settlement check.

you've won a lot of these settlements, I take it?

Well now, hold on. There's no reason to search a car when it's pulled over for speeding and there are no suspicious odors or visible crack pipes. But when a cop is called to a house with a report of a possible burglary in progress, it's his job to make sure that there isn't one in progress.

Were I the cop, I'd ask him to step out on the porch, to make sure there wasn't some jackass behind the door pointing a gun at his head to get him to convince me to go away.

This professor has a chip on his shoulder about either white people or the police. . .Or both. The cop's request that he join the cop on the front porch was not unreasonable. Nor was it unreasonable for the cop to be there.

If there actually HAD been someone breaking into the house, our professor would have been the first one howling that the goddamn cops don't do their jobs. And I wouldn't be shocked if he claimed the cops wouldn't protect him 'cause he's black.

me personally? no, i've not had the ordeal of dealing with cops overstepping their lawful authority, however, because I follow the gun laws and boards so closely, i've had numerous occasions of reading the end results of these 'incidents', more often than not ending up with a settlement to the citizen.