This Race Card Shit is out of hand
 

..

I think race is one of a number of factors that led to this outcome. Would this have happened to a white person? Probably not. Did Mr. Gates handle the situation maturely? Probably not. If I had had to force my way into my own home, I wouldn't be surprised if the cops showed up and viewed me with suspicion.

The fact that you think this wasn't racism is far more revealing than Al Sharpton's predictable overreaction.

The mindset that "Racism is dead" or that "We're all equal now." or "Slavery has been gone for a long time now, why are we still paying for it" is far more damaging than the "race card" ever will be.

I'm scared by your very different perception of the same event.

Take Sharpton out of the equation. He has nothing to do with this incident.

Looking at what happened, and granting the fact that that we likely don't have the whole story, I'd say there can be no doubt that this is case of racial profiling. Sure the cop was just doing his job but arresting Gates for breaking into his own home? I don't care if he was rude to the cop. The cop should have apologized for troubling him and moved on.

"a disorderly conduct charge after police said he "exhibited loud and tumultuous behavior.""

This sounds to me like, I am a cop and you shouldn't get up in my face. I have the power here not you, citizen! To prove it I am going to arrest you.


As for Sharpton... he reminds me of an ambulance chasing lawyer only with greater stakes.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/bre...t_redacted.pdf

Here is a link for a PDF file of the police report.

For someone that is supposed to be so smart, it was pretty stupid of him to continue the argument outside the house.

This was the front door of his own home at noon. I doubt anyone would even call the cops if it was a 58 year old white male in the same situation. But regardless of that, the police did not leave when the he produced photo id with his address on it, and the police officer refused to give his badge and number. And then finally he was arrested, get this, for disorderly conduct in his own home.

Now, none of us were there. But I think that it is quite probable that race played a part here, even if one wants to reduce it strictly to the woman making the call. It also is undeniable that the police went far and beyond "doing their job."

Even if we look at just the police report, and take it as 100% unadulterated truth:
The police officer continued to question someone inside his home even after he had already established that he was the lawful resident, refused to provide identification, lured the professor outside where he went on to arrest him for disorderly conduct within his own property.

The professor might be an asshole, but it is clear that the police officer, even according to his own police report, went completely over the line.

---------- Post added at 09:46 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:31 PM ----------

Now, as for the part that the report didn't say:
How did the officer go from not being allowed in to being yelled at at the professor's kitchen?

Why, if the police officer had already radioed central that the person was the resident, but was uncooperative, did he insist on getting a photo id with address?

Why did he keep questioning the person he had already established as the resident inside his own home? Without a warrant, isn't this trespassing?

Why did he insist so much on talking to the resident "outside?"

EDIT: and to add: why, once the IDs had been produced and further established him as the resident, did they have to still call harvard pd?

The professor is a self important asshole and deserved what he got. If the cops didn't investigate, they would have been chastised for not caring that a black persons residence was possibly being broken into.
The professor is the racist.

Well, it's really simple. I see a person (black white green don't care) looking like they're "forcing" a door open I'm calling the cops. If a white kid robs me I'll ask for the ID card of every single fucking white kid in my block till I get him and shoot him in the knee caps, well, maybe not the knee caps.

The cops were doing their jobs here. I don't see racism. Had it been me being stopped and asked for my ID, I'd inquire first and asses whether or not the cop is a "real" cop and produce one. I expect the same from everyone else. A simple ID from the dude forcing the door open would have cured the entire situation. Even if he was robbing the place no one sticks around to rob the place and produce an ID when prompted.

Last I checked, being an asshole is not a crime. And according to the police report itself, the "investigation" was long over and the cops were still inside the house questioning him.

---------- Post added at 09:59 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:56 PM ----------

Read the police report. Even the officer acknowledges that he stayed inside and kept questioning the man long after he had established that he was the resident.

Meanwhile, what we don't know is what the police officers themselves first said, first acted, and how they got into the kitchen.

Seems like a lot of people here are more than happy to jump to conclusions without even reading the officer's side, much less waiting for the professor's side.

Actually, what has gotten out of hand is police profiling, whether it's different races, different sexes, or different cultures.

I'm white, but I have a mohawk. I know how profiling goes. It's bullshit, and it's simply naive to think that shit doesn't happen.

Oh, I dunno. I happened to fit the description of some punk that'd been firing a gun into the air in the neighborhood where I was walking a few years back. The cops saw me as a white male and made me put my hands up until they could establish that I wasn't the guy they were looking for.

The neighbor in this case called the cops and said that a black male was breaking into the house. If the cop comes over and finds a black male in the house, it's entirely reasonable for the cop to want to make sure that the particular black male in the house actually belongs there. The cop was trying to protect the man's property. All the guy had to do was to prove that he lived there (easy enough - here's a bill to this address and here's my driver license with the same name on it).

The racism door swings both ways. I've personally interviewed cops that I know damn well are racist as hell, and who WILL pull you over for driving-while-black. So I'm not trying to say that cops are perfectly non-racist at all. And for all we know even this cop is racist as hell. But in this case, his actions are justified and should therefore not be assumed to be racist.



As a thought exercise, let's pretend the cop was also black. What do you think the reaction from Mr. Gates would have been then? How about your reaction? Does that not prove that Mr. Gates, and probably some of you, are assuming that a white guy has racist motivations in his dealings with a black man? Is that not prejudice?

The issue is that the cop himself admits in his police report that he had already concluded that this was the lawful resident as he continued to question him inside.

And so far this story is based ONLY on the police report. We still don't know what happened between the time the professor refused to let the police officer in to the time the police officer was in his kitchen, but we do know that the police officer was still in and still questioning him even after he had radioed central reporting that the person seen entering the house was the resident.

If I've ever seen bait offered as an invitation to discuss a topic - that original post certainly takes the cake.

Here's Gates' lawyer statement
no "race card" here, and whether or not the boston globe decides Al Sharpton is relevant to the story is not really his fault.

Henry Louis Gates Jr. Arrested

Now, regardless of whether or not Gates is a jerk (and he sounds like one), it is clear, even from the police report, that the officer overstepped his boundaries. As much of a jerk Gates might have been, as soon as it was determined that he lived there, the officer should have just left.

A black man appearing to break in to a home in what looks to be like a well to do neighborhood, so a neighbor calls the cops. why doesn't this neighbor who called the cops know who their neighbors are?

this should never have happened in the first place. what a sad society we've become when people can't even bother to get to know who their neighbors are.

lol
What do you think "disorderly conduct" means?


As an aside, Cambridge is well know to be a very liberal city in a liberal state.

disorderly conduct by definition cannot happen inside one's own home, and the definition was then stretched to make the guy's porch a public place.

And what does being a liberal city in a liberal state have to do with anything? Are liberal cities less likely to be racist?
Last I checked, the last fight over segregated buses and the such took place in Boston...

We have a winner! Get to know your neighbors!

No, it can. If you're disturbing the peace, that's disorderly conduct. If I go stand on my porch and start shouting at the top of my lungs, and the cops tell me to stop and I don't, that's disorderly conduct.

Of course, assuming the cop really had no reason to be there, he's guilty of disorderly conduct too ;)

That said, if the police report is accurate, then Gates was being a tool. If the lawyer's report is accurate, then Gates was being a tool. We have to wait until witnesses step forward and tell us whether Gates was yelling or not. Until then, to assume the cop is racist is jumping the gun.

Outside is outside. Doesn't matter if its the porch or the edge of the property. Gates should never have continued with his rant once outside. He should have just closed the door, then made his phone calls or write his letters to complain about the cops actions. Instead, he thought he could brow-beat a white cop because he is black and get away with it. If it was a black cop or if Gates was white, it would be a non-story.

As far as laws/ordinances/whatever against racism, yes. Cambridge is pretty well known for its tolerance towards the minority, be it race, religion or whatever.

The bus thing was the desegregation of the schools, when the city mandated that some black kids had to go to white schools and vice versa.

See, it might not have started as a race things but possibly became one. I don't have a problem with a cop inquiring when it looks like someone is breaking into a house - race shouldn't have anything to do with that. But once Gates showed it was his house, the cop should have tipped his hat, said "good day, sir," and been on his way. But that cop clearly has some ego issues, as lots of cops do. These are people who are given some power and some of them like to use it every now and again just to make themselves feel better, so if someone disses them, they get to use their power. That happens no matter what the race of the citizen is. But it's certainly possible - heck, more than just possible - that this cop has race issues, too - that he'd take much less guff from a black guy than from a white guy, and especially an uppity black guy with a fancy Harvard ID. That strikes me as a plausible explanation of why the cop acted the way he did once Gates showed it was his home.

But of course, this is speculation. We don't know what was in the cop's head or in Gates's head.

As a person who has had a disorderly conduct in my own home it sure can and does happen. And I live in a blue state!

Disorderly conduct is not just for public drunkenness anymore

depending on the state you reside in, this could be correct. Disorderly conduct is used as a catch all charge, kind of like an article 134 in the military code. disturbing the peace is also a bit different.

what manic skafe said.

"Ya, I’ll speak with your mama outside"

I can't believe such an educated man would say such a thing, not that it's impossible, but for some reason I imagine a Havard educated man to not utter such sound bites.

..

... are you suggesting that those in the education field are incapable of working "real jobs?" That a higher education career is a farce?

Tell me... what is a real job? Plumber? Military? Construction worker? Lumberjack? Pirate? Ninja?

interesting that I can no longer access the Boston Globe PDF

Gates Incident Report Redacted

Here comes Step 3: Lawsuit

Step 4: Profit.

You have no idea how much you've just insulted yourself. You should report yourself for personally attacking yourself so it doesn't happen again.

You forgot the mandatory cultural sensitivity training for the entire department.
Then the book deal/profit.

If you read the articles that have already been posted here, it was already said that yes, a black officer was present. In fact, it was the black officer who uncuffed his hands from the back and cuffed him again, with his hands in front, as he would not be able to use his cane otherwise. That officer was not the one inside the home.

As far as the real job jab, last I checked there were thousands of people willing to pay several thousand dollars to go there, so I don't see what is "unreal" about his job.

---------- Post added at 10:34 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:24 PM ----------

As someone mentioned, this varies from state to state. Massachusetts specifically has a case that defines it:

Commonwealth v. Mulvey

so, again, and specifically to MA, disorderly conduct can only take place in an area accessible to the public. The police officer was surely aware of this, and in a clever attempt to arrest Gates, came up with a lame excuse (the acoustics in the kitchen) to ask Gates to step outside, where he proceeded to arrest him in his porch, which certainly is a stretch of the law, since the officer asked him to go there.

i know henry louis gates.
i wouldn't call us pals, but i know him.
he used to tell me i looked like jesus.

what surprises me about this is that it is getting the kind of attention it is getting.
once it kept into the triviastream that passes for news, i figured that the result would be anything goes in terms of interpretation.
this thread has confirmed that.

this seems like the kind of thing that could happen to almost anybody.
the difference between almost anybody and skip gates is that he is who he is.
because he is who he is, you are reading about this relatively banal event and feel compelled to say stuff.
but it really is banal.
i don't know why this thread exists. i don't know why this is worth the time to comment on. i don't know why this is a news story.

...I don't know why you bothered saying that.

because of how curious it is watching this happen with respect to someone you kinda know.

I've always found the concept of the "race card" fascinating. What is it? It's how disgruntled white people objectify a non-white's entering into race politics. The cool thing about objectifying something intangible is that it makes it easier to nullify it and file it away somewhere without having to engage it directly. You know, with logic....maybe counterarguments, if not some kind of problem-solving or information-gathering procedure.

Cop ego driven? Possible. Race driven? Also possible.

Here is another theory...asshole driven. The cops show up to a reported B&E. There is a bit of stress there to begin with because they don't know for sure what is going on and if what was reported is really what was going on then there is the possibility of a very bad response when they get there. Instead, they find a home owner who is immediately offended at being questioned, uncooperative and apparently determined to make this incident about race regardless of what is going on.

Had the professor reacted better this whole thing would have been different. All he needed to do was open the door and produce some ID. My guess is that the officer would have then said thanks and gone about his business.

But could the good professor, a supposedly educated man, do that? Apparently not. He had to be an asshole to an already stressed guy and drag out what could have been a quick encounter. Once that happened, my guess is the cop may have wanted to mess with him a bit and pushed the interview a bit far. Was the cop right to do it? Absolutely not. But the professor needs to own up to his part in this farce and realize that cops are people with tough jobs. Bating them in a bad situation is not a good idea. Even the best of men have bad days.

I'd be pretty pissed, too if I were bothered by the police after returning from a long and greuling trip.
They both had bad days...

But the cop is paid a pretty penny to not have those bad days.

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.

Even if you're in the right, it's best not to respond to law enforcement with insolence. That's just common sense.

Um, yeah, but as soon as the professor did step out of the house, he got arrested.
There's a reason why some people are scared by the police. They can make your life suck, and it's not their job to make your life suck.

I don't see why everyone in this thread is jumping to "the professor is racist," or "the cop is racist."
The call to the police was maybe made out of racial profiling, and I think it's normal Gates got angry, and I think he was within his rights to stay right where the fuck he lives, and shown them ID.
I'm not sure that the cops did anything to defuse the situation, they did not need to go inside, they didn't need to stick around for so long. I agree with Will.
I don't get where you people get your conclusion that the prof was racist.

And that's where we need to wait and see what witnesses say. If as the cops claim he was screaming and shouting at them, then he was breaking the law.


And we're saying the prof is racist because he's assuming the cop is racist. I'm a white guy, and I've had white cops try to violate my civil rights any number of times. Sometimes the cop isn't racist. Sometimes the cop is an equal-opportunity asshole. The professor has NO idea which is true, even if he was completely accurate about the chain of events (I was calm, polite, and the bastard arrested me anyway!).

Being an asshole to a cop isn't illegal. It's just stupid to piss off someone that can negatively effect your life so much with actions that don't have as much overview or are taken at their word.

I think that the discussion of the motivation of the cop loses sight that we are still talking about the motivation as to why he overstepped his boundaries.

In any case, as to the discussion of whether the cop was racist or not, I don't know, and neither do any of you calling the professor racist.

But there is an easy experiment that can help us if we really want to determine that:

The history of the Cambridge police is a matter of public record, so we can check how many times they've been accused of racial profiling and so on. From what I gather, this is far from the first time they've been accused of such.

Similarly, the professor we are talking about is a public figure who has published extensively and made quite a few documentaries on the subject of race. If he has a history of assuming racism on part of others, of wrongly accusing others of racism, it should be easy enough to establish. Can anyone point to such an occasion?

And I find the argument of "Im white, police are assholes to me too" utterly unpersuasive. And the statistics and the anecdotal information are out there to show that yes, there is a substantial difference in how the police treat people of either race.

---------- Post added at 09:52 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:51 AM ----------

Which law, specifically? And this is not to mention the fact that he was inside his home, and was asked outside by the cop.

Funny how whenever you read the phrase 'race card' you know right where a person is going with it.
My question about this situation is, what about it is so earth-shattering that it makes a person say 'this race card shit is out of hand'?
Far as I can tell, only people who love to talk about 'race cards.'

As soon as somebody feels like race might have had a part in the way they were treated, others will say "it's the race card."

I think if I were in Gates' situation, I might have been angry at the (rather likely) possibility that my skin color would have anything to do with it.
I don't get it when people say that we should always be courteous to cops, even when they're pushing the boundaries. Yes, we might be stupid for questioning a police officer's motives, since he can bring hell into our lives, but at the same time, the cop shouldn't have the power to do whatever the fuck they want. A lot of times, if they get even a little backtalk from a suspect, they'll make a point to make his/her treatment a lot worse, stick around more, ask more unnecessary questions.

If its the cops' right to be a dick, it should be ours too.

What are you guys talking about? Racism is clearly a thing of the past.

Anyone claiming racism nowadays is pulling the race card, don't you know?

Conservative Activist Forwards Racist Pic Showing Obama As Witch Doctor | TPMMuckraker

..

You are correct. I have been searched for no reason, stopped at airports for no reason. Was I wrong in just letting the cops do their search and then let me go, or should I have just screamed and made an incident of the whole thing? Who knows. The path of least resistance worked out for me. But then, I have nothing to hide. This proffessor could have just showed a driver's license. He could have said, " Boy, I know how this must look, but this is my house. Oh, here is my id." And the cops would have looked about for a nano second more, and carried on. But then, we wouldn't know this guy's name now, would we? When your whole life is based on how the black man is being screwed over, your mind set is slanted or should I said, prejudiced towards a bias that permeates everything.

Example. I was a manager at a GNC. The policy there is every person gets a personal greeting. I was working with a new cashier, when she didn't great a customer. Fearing this could be the secret shopper, I walked up to them to give them the personal greeting. The couple, black, shouted at me. " We WERE going to spend 50 dollars in this store, but since you are a racist who thinks all blacks are theives and ahve to follow us around wil, and all our friends, will not spend a dime in this racist store. ( I cleaned up what they really said).

Who is the racist here? They didn't even want to hear an explaination. IN their mind the ONLY reason was racism. Couldn't possibly be a store policy or fear of my paycheck being cut down, no racisim. Some people have been conditioned and their minds are closed. I think this proffessor is one of the conditioned if not the conditioners.

---------- Post added at 07:02 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:01 PM ----------

Quoted for truth!

the notion of "the race card" is kinda interesting. if you remember, it entered masscult through johnny cochoran's closing arguments at the o.j. simpson trial, which was a kind of amazing bit of televised theater. if memory serves, he used it as a way of insinuating exactly the opposite of what it's come to mean--it was a device he used to undermine a guilty verdict by going after the motives of those who chose to see simpson as guilty. at stake really was the jury and this whole presumption of innocence/beyond a shadow of a doubt business (which is itself kinda odd if you really think about it: absolute certainty? what the fuck is that?) anyway...somehow it migrated into conservative ideology. out there, it turned into a cheap-and-facile device the effect of which is to treat racism in the united states as if it were some arbitrary factor introduced into an otherwise normal and fun game by Bad People. so it trivializes the matter. it also relativizes positions--if one "plays the race card" one is making a move. the game could have proceeded without it: there is nothing necessary in it. nothing follows from reality, from history---o no. it is a move in a game.

it is of a piece with the bigger conservative-specific fiction that the united states has somehow managed to entirely shed its history and the effects of that history in one Magical Moment, kinda like that Zero Hour that was supposed to have happened sometime in the early summer of 1945 at which point all those bad fascists suddenly went away and the Modern Post-War nation-state emerged in all its Heroic and Pure Grandeur blah blah blah---but like the stunde null, the precise location and timing of which remains of course always a Mystery as most things that never happened seem to do.

something that big happening...you'd think people would notice. like they'd wake up that day, whenever it was, and feel differently. or there's be dancing in the streets maybe and/or fireworks a week later and you'd be able to look back because obviously the press would have noticed that Event, the one that enabled the united states to magically shed it's history and all the effects of that history.

you'd think.

anyway stupid premises lead to stupid arguments and so it is in this thread. blah blah blah the persecuting Other who plays the "Race Card" into an otherwise fun and exciting game in which everyone is all kumbaya equal four square and regular and all that. blah blah blah the cops were right. blah blah blah i don't like academics.

maybe the more interesting question: when exactly *did* this Magical Moment when the entirety of american history ceased to matter happen? someone shook the etch-a-sketch....why didn't we notice? did anyone notice? why doesn't anyone tell the rest of us about such things? maybe it's a conservative secret, something that comes along with the clown nose and the decoder ring when you join the club.

"The Messiah"?
:expressionless:

It's a thing. A very revealing thing. :)
Oh my, oh yes...kind of like Morse code for political forums, it seems.

---------- Post added at 07:16 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:15 PM ----------

Yes, really.
Or maybe this requires too much thought and too little catchphrases.

It's conservativise for "I want to say 'President Obama' but I don't want to do so without making a personal attack against him and anyone that might have voted for him." It would be the equivalent of me calling Senator McCain "that old piece of crap that some idiots voted for". Of course, I'd never say that seriously, while I disagree with Senator McCain politically, I don't take that disagreement personally.

Axe to grind much?

I know, I get it, I was just trying to express my disbelief at somebody using such a moniker and still wanting to be taken seriously.
Nobody referred to Bush as some stupid name, Bush was quite sufficient.

No, the more ignorant of liberals called him Shrub, and were rightfully chastised for it.

Back to the thread, no, being an asshole to a cop is not illegal. Shouting in a manner to disturb or annoy others in the neighborhood is. It's called disturbing the peace, which is often lumped into the disorderly conduct crime.

And while being an asshole to a cop is not illegal, it's a very good way to ensure that they will look for any reason, legit or not, to fuck with you. Again, that doesn't mean they're racist, it just means they feel they should have the right not to have people be assholes to them. And whether they're right or not, if you don't want to end up in cuffs, you don't act like an asshole to a cop.

I am surprised,
and sadly not surprised,
that the term 'uncle tom', has been used in this thread.

My anecdotal experience with hearing the term race card:
I have only heard that term mouthed, by the most racist people,
that are not of color. ( any color..it seems to be a predominately, lilly white term)

Okay, one time this really handsome bookie and I talked
about race cards, but that was a horse thing.


Ms. Mixed, thanks for your post,
and to all the others as well,
that can see clearly...and have been able to keep a civil tongue.

and now for an entertaining and instructive video for our
intermission pleasure.


To the OP....I wasn't there. I know not, the intentions of either party.

gee, what to do when the cop is the instigator.........shall we ever know?

per the police report, Gates was the instigator....of course the cop in question WROTE the report....