His front door refused to budge, which is why Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., just home from a trip to China filming a PBS documentary, set his luggage down and beckoned his driver for help.
The scene – two black men on the porch of a stately home on a tree-lined Cambridge street in the middle of the day – triggered events that were at turns dramatic and bizarre, a confrontation between one of the nation’s foremost African-American scholars and a police sergeant responding to a call that someone was breaking into the house.
It ended when Gates, 58, was arrested on charges of disorderly conduct in allegedly shouting at the officer; he was eventually taken away in handcuffs.
But the encounter is anything but over. Some of Gates’s outraged colleagues said the run-in proves that even in a liberal enclave like Harvard Square, even with someone of Gates’s accomplishments, a black man is a suspect before he is a resident.
“It’s unbelievable,” said Lawrence Bobo, a Harvard sociologist who visited Gates at the police station last Thursday and drove him home after Gates posted the $40 bail. “I felt as if I were in some kind of surreal moment, like ‘The Twilight Zone.’ I was mortified. . . . This is a humiliating thing and a pretty profound violation of the kind of trust we all take for granted.”
Neither Gates – who was named one of Time magazine’s most influential Americans in 1997 and now directs the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard – nor police would comment on the incident yesterday.
Gates’s lawyer and Harvard colleague, Charles Ogletree, said what angered his client was that the police officer stepped inside Gates’s Ware Street house, uninvited, to demand identification and question him.
Gates showed his Harvard identification and Massachusetts drivers license with his home address, Ogletree said, adding, “Even after presentation of ID, the officer was still questioning his presence.”
Said Bobo: “The whole interaction should have ended right there, but I guess that wasn’t enough. The officer felt he hadn’t been deferred to sufficiently.”
The Cambridge police report describes a chaotic scene in which the police sergeant stood at Gates’s door, demanded identification, and radioed for assistance from Harvard University police when Gates presented him with a Harvard ID. A visibly upset Gates responded to the officer’s assertion that he was responding to a report of a break-in with, “Why, because I’m a black man in America?” (Source)
You know, I think this is going to be one of those moments that the Cambridge police are going to want to take back. You arrest a prominent 58 year old black Harvard professor while he’s in his own gotdamn home. You enter into the man’s residence without his permission, then demand that he shows you ID to prove he lives there. So let me ask this…when you illegally walked into his house, did you not notice the pictures of him and his family up on the walls? Its like that Dave Chappelle bit:
“I’ve seen this before Johnson…apparently this negro has broken into this home and put pictures of himself all up over the walls….”
This is just ridiculous. The officer called for BACKUP on a 58 year old black man that Time magazine once listed as one of the most influential Americans. He WORKS at Harvard. Shit, how do you NOT know that he’s one of the “good Negros” that “belongs” there. He handed the police officer his Harvard ID…what else was there that he needed? The officer’s story just doesn’t make any fucking sense. Gates was on the phone when the Officer showed up. Yup, that’s what burglars do. They break into houses to make phone calls. Seriously, I like to usually “wait for all the facts” but right now…we have all we need:
- Black Man has a broken door and tries to get it unstuck
- Nosy ass neighbor or stranger calls the police because apparently the world’s dumbest criminals are trying to bust down a door instead of go through a window
- Police officer comes by and sees a man on the phone
- Officer gets the man’s Harvard ID but its still not good enough for him to just make a few checks on his own to verify the man lives there (because obviously, deductive reasoning is a lost art in police work)
- Black man gets rowdy because he’s just getting back from China and is getting harassed for being in his own gotdamn house
- Black man gets arrested for yelling at the cop to get off his property and stop being such a douchebag
I know I’ve been talking about race a lot lately but what I want any white person who thinks that the professor overreacted to do is to think about how they would react if they were in their own home, they clearly lived there and yet a police officer kept demanding that somehow you prove you lived there. The answer is that of course you’d be pissed. First off the officer should have known that it was his house and he also should have immediately left after being show the professor’s Harvard ID. Anyone who thought that “things are equal” now that we have a black President have been sadly mistaken.
July 21st, 2009 at 9:49 am
I’m usually pretty pro-law enforcement but the cop fucked up on this one.
July 21st, 2009 at 9:54 am
Exactly, this shit wasn’t even close.
July 21st, 2009 at 10:34 am
So apparently the officer said he would speak to Gates outside his house and Gates said, “Yeah, I will speak to your mama outside my house.” Made my damn day.
Something similar happened to my mom at Prince George’s Plaza. Her car broke down in the parking lot, a cop came by and wouldn’t let the tow truck take her car. So she called the cops and told them what was happening, which is what Gates should have done.
July 21st, 2009 at 11:50 am
It’s a damn shame that to the Cambridge police, Henry Louis Gates, Jr. was just another nigga.
July 21st, 2009 at 2:47 pm
I feel like while Gates may have gotten flip with the cop, the cop was wrong too. I mean the man showed ID, albeit angrily. And really…I would have been angry as well. I think the real question is not “who’s wrong” or “how did this happen”, but the real question is “why do police and Black men have such a f-ked up relationship”. That is what needs to be addressed. Of course, I know the answer, but for all those out there wondering why Gates reacted as he did or why he came verbally defiant against the cop, answering that question may shed some light on this and other situations.
July 22nd, 2009 at 2:35 pm
I’m sorry, but I fail to see how this is a case of racial profiling.
The police were responding to a reported possible break in. When the police arrived they had no idea who lived in the house it was or who may be inside that posed a threat to them. Accordingly, they asked Gates for his driver’s license and to step outside. This appears to be standard protocol regardless of race. A protocol that Gates refused to comply with while simultaneously escalating the situation with his words.
To me, this appears to be a situation where Professor Gates appears to have been having a tough morning and the police sargent appears to have overreacted to antagonism directed toward him. Two tempers flaired and the policeman did what most police will do if a person is not cooperating with them and is giving them a hard time — they arrest the person. Here, Prof Gates happened to be black, but this is no different than the time that Alan Dershowitz got arrested at Logan airport for pretty much the same thing — talking down to the cops. It happens.
July 22nd, 2009 at 3:42 pm
So an officer walks up to a house for a call about “two black men trying to break into a house with backpacks”, the door is opened by a 58 year old black man with a polo on the phone, the officer doesn’t notice his pictures on the wall, his luggage…but then demands that he shows ID. Give me a fucking break. As white ass Joe Scarborough said, if it had been him the officer would have just said “Sorry about that sir, nothing going on here” and been on his way.
July 22nd, 2009 at 4:21 pm
I respectfully disagree, Kriss, and just because Joe Scarborough says it doesn’t make it a reality.
Being a police officer is an exceptionally dangerous profession. The officer here was not profiling, he was merely responding to a report of two men breaking into a home. When he arrived at the home he asked Gates to step outside and Gates refused, presupposed that the officer was a racist, and went on to tell the police officer how he felt. Do you know how many officers have been attacked when walking into a residence? That’s why they have the protocol to have the person step outside rather than have the police go in. Here, the person reporting an alleged crime said that there were two gentleman breaking into the home. In the police officer’s mind there may have been another perpetrator inside waiting to attack him when he entered that door.
Had Gates simply taken a deep breath and realized that the officer was just performing his job the situation could have been averted. Instead, Gates presupposed racism. Racism is alive in well in America, and police officers are certainly some of the biggest perpetrators of it. We saw this in recent months when NFL running back, Ryan Moats, got pulled over on the way to the hospital. The facts of this individual case, however, do not support that racism was alive here. The picture of the incident on CNN shows that there was also a black officer at the scene. Was he also being racist?
This situation reminds me of when Cynthia McKinney slammed a white security guard over the head with her cell phone when he asked her for her ID. She alleged racism. He alleged that he was just doing his job. Sometimes, most of the times, these white people are just doing their jobs. The facts supported that in the McKinney case, and I think that the facts support it here. We need to stop presupposing that white people are racist, and we need to start looking at the invidual facts of the case.
July 22nd, 2009 at 4:58 pm
I agree that being a police officer is a dangerous job and in most cases, I actually think the police officer has the right to be overly aggressive. But he’s investigating a possible breakin. When he gets there, he’s expecting 2 black males wearing backpacks and what he sees is a old, 58 year old man ON THE PHONE. Let’s say he still can’t put 2 – and-2 together. He goes into the house and you want me to believe he doesn’t see evidence that ITS GATE’S FUCKING HOUSE? On top of that, there were 5 police officers on the scene. What the fuck? This isn’t some bad neighborhood. This is motherfucking Cambridge. Gates rides his bike to fucking Harvard. That shit was over the top and if he was white that shit WOULDN’T HAVE HAPPENED. Period.
July 22nd, 2009 at 5:04 pm
Also, you say its protocol for an officer NOT to go into a house…but this officer apparently broke that protocol by following Gates into the house when Gates went to get his ID.
Bottom line, that shit is absurd. The McKinney incident, which I think she’s crazy for making an issue is different. She avoided the metal detector in a federal building. She’s lucky she wasn’t shot. Gates on the other hand was IN HIS OWN HOUSE.
July 22nd, 2009 at 6:09 pm
Here’s another take on it….
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32085686/ns/us_news-race_and_ethnicity/
July 22nd, 2009 at 7:32 pm
Again, you’re not listening. An officer answers the call to TWO black men in bookbags BREAKING into a house. He arrives to find a 58 year old black man, in his house, who answers the door and IS ON THE PHONE. At that point, a police officer’s common sense should kick in and realize what’s going on. Not only that, him entering into the house while Gates got his ID was AGAINST PROTOCOL. And………FIVE OFFICERS…to arrest a 5′7, 150 lb 58 year old black man with a cane? Come on.
July 22nd, 2009 at 8:53 pm
” a police officer’s common sense should kick in and realize what’s going on.”
We’re obviously not going to agree on this. You think that the police officer’s common sense should have kicked in, and I think that Prof. Gates’ common sense should have kicked in. Gates should realize that cops have a stressful profession and he should not exacerbate it. Even if you accept that it’s not a stressful situation, Gates should be intelligent enough to realize that cops regularly have power trips and he should work to avoid it by simply complying with what the officer says (within reason, and this was) which is what most of us do.
Notice that I said “power trips”. That’s because white cops also do this to Asian people, Hispanic people, and, yes, even white people. It’s usually more about an authority issue than it is about racism.
Listen, as I established in previous posts, I don’t think this cop was being an A-hole. I think he was just doing his job. With that being said, there are white A-holes and there are black A-holes. Why do we accept that it’s just an A-hole black guy when a black guy does something bad to a white person, but we don’t accept it’s just an A-hole white guy when they do something bad to a black person? Why does it always have to be racism and not just boorish behavior?
July 22nd, 2009 at 9:47 pm
Because it’s called Racial Profiling. That’s why. It would not have happened if he was white. I keep saying that and its obvious you just don’t get that. Gates was in his house. HIS HOUSE. The cops can’t come into your home an demand to see your ID without cause. There is no cause here. A robber doesn’t open the door, while talking on the phone, for a cop when he’s in a house he’s busted into. Again, we’re not talking about some bad neighborhood. In his own house, Prof. Gates doesn’t have to say “Let be be the quiet good citizen and not say anything while this police officer challenges me in my own house”
July 23rd, 2009 at 12:30 am
LMAO!
@Kriss: Don’t you just hate when people don’t get it?
July 23rd, 2009 at 9:19 am
It’s haters like Gates who encourage AAs to be resistant. There are many people sitting in the tank at this moment who would not be there if they would keep their mouth shut.
I’ve been in the same situation. Yeah, the police came into my house. I said “I live here.”
Well a lying perp would say the same thing. Crooks do that…they lie and they steal.
So if the cop would have gone in and the little man in the polo shirt said “I live here” and the cops took an at-ease, and then were shot; it would be big news as “cops being shot for letting their guard down”
There are a lot of reports that say Gates did not show his ID, but he now says that he did.
He verbally said who he was, but…crooks of all ethnic persuasions….lie…because they are crooks.
Even if a cop is wound up and being a dick…you keep your mouth shut, you cooperate…and you won’t have a problem.
Look at the arresting picture. There’s a couple of black cops at the scene. I want to hear what they have to say. Who will they be loyal to? Will they tell the truth or bend to lie in pressures of profession or culture?
I would love to have Gates come home to a house that was robbed and ransacked…and then call the police; only to have them come over and say… “Well, people called the police and there were two guys here, but they said they lived here…so we just took their word for it and left. Sorry.”
Police investigate crooks. Crooks lie! Every one in prison “didn’t do it.”
If you don’t want cops to discriminate, they should not discriminate that “old men” in “Polo shirts” don’t commit crimes.
Gates is an advocate of this kind of thing, he’s going to “Jesse” it and make money on another speaking tour.
He’ll be crying all the whaa, whaa, whaaaay to the bank.
July 23rd, 2009 at 9:39 am
I totally agree, ChickenLittle. I’m not sure how you and Kriss can’t get it.
First, Kriss, you can say that there’s “no cause”, but that’s just factually incorrect. A neighbor called and said it looked like two guys were breaking into a home. The police officer was simply following up on that call. There is your cause to ask the man for his ID.
I’m not saying that the police officer acted perfectly. I’m sure he didn’t. But you can’t look at that fact pattern above and argue that there was no probable cause to ask the man for his ID. The same would have been done to a white man or an Asian man. I know that you’ll argue that it wouldn’t, but I’ve seen it happen. Gates didn’t have to say “lets be the quiet good citizen”, but he also didn’t have to be instantly confrontational.
Maybe being a member of law enforcement gives me a skewed perspective. It also gives me a perspective that comes from experience with similar matters. So I get it — I just simply disagree with you.
July 23rd, 2009 at 11:06 am
I have been trying to put myself into the shoes of the cop and the shoes of Gates. Our assumptions in this situation, as we are all sitting calmly at our desks, are that the two people involved would act rationally.
Gates just got home from CHINA. That’s a long ass flight. No doubt he was tired/cranky and just wanted to get home. To top it off he basically had to bust his door in; it was jammed to the point that he needed his driver to assist him getting into his house. As a guy, that can be mildly emasculating. *Sidenote: I know that at 28, I get mad at shit that I used to be able to do in half the time or go running without hurting the next day; add 30 years and there could be a lot more that I could be incapable of doing that I wish I could still do on my own.* After all of that going on, I know plenty of people that would be ill-tempered at that moment.
Then a cop arrives, approaching the situation as if it were a break-in which will have him acting cautiously and anxiously. The report was that there were two men breaking into the house, and he only saw one. He was likely not looking around to see whose pictures were on the wall, but was focused on the potential suspect (who by all accounts, as a 58 year old man, should not be much of a threat to a younger officer, but in situations like that I can imagine training and adrenalin must kick in), while keeping a watch for a second suspect.
There are varying detailed accounts of the situation; the police report states that Gates was resistant to showing his ID at first, then there is claim made he just showed his Harvard ID and not the ID that would have the address of that residence. If an ID was produced with that address, it should have been a dead issue as far as I am concerned. The officer should have just taken the verbal barrage – after all Gates’ taxes are paying his salary – and apologized for the mistake. Instead, the cop’s ego kicked into gear.
Furthermore, I agree in the assessment that after a few minutes, the officer should have recognized that the man was an older gentleman in a polo and tried to take hold of and calm the situation.
The fact of the matter is that none of us were there. We’ve got the account of an upset man and a cop that is interested in self-preservation; I have a high degree of doubt in my mind that we are going to get all of the details without some amount of filter. *Example: I’ve had a cop catch me speeding, then when I went to court to try to get the ticket reduced he tried to implicate me in racing.* I also agree that there is a questionable amount of assumptions made based on Gates’ race, enough that if in his situation (after flying back from China, basically knocking down my door, and being accused of burglarizing your own home) and were I black, I probably would have reacted similarly.
I would think that a cop with a reasonable number of years under his belt would have the ability to defuse a situation like this one. I do not think Gates is free from reproach and could have acted more calmly, but if I had to choose between who was wrong and right given the circumstances I would point my finger in the direction of the cop as being in the wrong.
July 23rd, 2009 at 11:30 am
Martin, for the last time…you keep leaving out an important fact. According to the Officer’s OWN WORDS in his OWN REPORT he already figured Gates was the owner and asked for ID anyway. WHAT…THE…FUCK? There goes the “probable cause”. Yes, when you approach a house on the initial call, the Officer had every right to do what he did. However, my problem is, situational awareness kicks in. You see a 58 year old, 5′7, 150 lbs black man answer the door. I saw Gates on CNN yesterday sitting next to Tom Joyner and Joyner looked more intimidating. At that point you don’t need to ask for ID. But fine, fuck it…he did. As Gates hobbles back to get his ID…the Officer enters into the house…again…he’s NOT suppose to do that. If it was another Harvard alum, Larry Summers..you think the officer is doing that? Fuck no. And on top of that 5 officers…FIVE. Come on. I give cops breaks all the time. When i saw that cop punt that guy in the head who lead them on a dangerous car chase, I laughed my ass off and said dude got what he deserved. But no one…NO ONE…should have to deal with the crap of having to show ID in their own gotdamn house. Especially when situational awareness says its your damn house.
@SLHOLMES – yelling at a cop inside your own home isn’t cause for arrest. That’s not against the law. Plus, the police officers own report says Gates showed his ID.
July 23rd, 2009 at 11:32 am
Well said, NC Chris.
I can definitely respect both your argument and your conclusion. You’re one of the few people that I’ve heard take a fair-and-blanced approach to this matter. The truth is that the matter probably isn’t as black-or-white (pun intended) that many are making it out to be. The truth lies somewhere in the grey in the middle. You do a good job of showing that.
July 23rd, 2009 at 12:43 pm
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view/20090722cop_who_arrested_henry_gates_im_not_apologizing/srvc=home&position=0
July 23rd, 2009 at 2:39 pm
I found this on cnn. its from the police officer’s perspective.
Crowley also said he was exercising caution and is clearly not a racist based on his previous actions.
Those actions, Crowley told the Boston Herald, include giving mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to former Boston Celtics star Reggie Lewis, who suffered a fatal heart attack in 1993 at Brandeis University when Crowley was a campus cop.
“I wasn’t working on Reggie Lewis the basketball star. I wasn’t working on a black man,” Crowley told the Boston Herald. “I was working on another human being.”
Gates was arrested last week at his home after a confrontation with Crowley. Cambridge authorities on Tuesday dropped disorderly conduct charges against Gates.
Crowley also told WEEI that when he asked Gates to come out of his home, he thought a break-in had occurred or was still happening.
“I didn’t know who [Gates] was. I was by myself. I was the only police officer standing there, and I got a report of people breaking into a house,” Crowley told WEEI. “That was for my safety first and foremost. I have to go home at night, I have three beautiful children and a wife who depend on me. So I had no other motive than to ensure my safety.”
July 23rd, 2009 at 3:02 pm
I agree that the cop isn’t/wasn’t racist. Guilty of not using the best judgment, sure, but racist, no. Gates seems to be an asshole. I’m sorry, but flashing a Haa-vard (anyone who has heard students or faculty say this, knows what I’m talking about) ID is not the same as flashing an ID with his address on it. Both are guilty of acting like overgrown teenagers trying to see who’s got the bigger balls in the situation.
July 23rd, 2009 at 11:25 pm
So, because Crowley saved a different black man’s life he is incapable of racial profiling? No matter who you believe was right or wrong, Gates was arrested on disorderly conduct charges. How does that even make sense? The officer wasn’t even supposed to be in the house in the first place. So what Gates asked for his badge number, is that any reason to be arrested? As soon as the Officer established that this was Gates house, why didn’t he leave? Can someone explain this to me? How could this Officer even begin to justify why he “broke protocol” and was in the house in the first place?
July 25th, 2009 at 7:05 am
Well Kriss obviously you are a moron, read what you type, did the person who called the police say 2 YOUNG black men, nooooooo! The person did not specify young or old. I don’t know about you but if I was the only cop at a residence to check a suspicious 2 man burglary call and not knowing if they have a gun, I would want to know where the 2nd person was, and I doubt the officer was sitting in his vehicle 10 feet away watching them trying to open the door knowing the second guy was the limo driver… Play the race card, but I don’t think it fits this case.
July 25th, 2009 at 9:21 am
Who is playing the race card? I said if you go to the house, see an older man standing in the foyer…do you really think he’s the robber? In the middle of the gotdamn day? Really? Do you really? Come on. You don’t. Nobody does. If the cop was THAT worried about his safety, he would have waited for back up. AND NONE of that takes away from the fact that he didn’t identify himself FIRST before demanding Gates out of his house.
July 26th, 2009 at 5:54 pm
What was this guy doing in China? I would suspect the true nature of his visit would expose the communist leanings of this radical black movement.
July 26th, 2009 at 6:44 pm
Shhhhhh….Chris…how did you know? There’s a secret black-communist china connection. Now that you know, we’ll have to kill you.
July 26th, 2009 at 10:24 pm
All I can say is, that I read the official police report. From my point of view, Gates was out of control and the police acted correctly.
July 27th, 2009 at 12:16 pm
Alan, for purposes of the debate, do you not think that the cop is going to write/remember things that will prove his case? When at work, very rarely is an internal memo that could be eventually subpoenaed in court going to be written that will cast a company in a poor light. Cops have a sense of self-preservation where they consider themselves brothers and will back each other up. Notice how Officer Figueroa’s report basically backs up Officer Crowley’s. These things get written back at the station, after the situation occured and they can discuss things. We are all subject to our perceptions, so how do it make the cop’s perception/recollection of the situation any better/more-correct than Gates?
July 30th, 2009 at 10:27 pm
FUCK Crowley!
That Bitch had the nerve, after sitting on white house property, to say maybe next time they’ll have Kool-Aid. FUCK HIM.
For those who say there was no racial profiling, you are right He wasn’t racially profiling Professor Gates What happened was he was enraged that “banana eating jungle monkey” as his fellow police offer stated in an e-mail today, had the nerve to talk back to him, a superior white man.
DO you remember those I AM A MAN picket signs from the civil rights movement! THIS IS WHAT THAT WAS ALL ABOUT.
You want to know why Black people don’t trust the police? Take a look at those old videos of our people being chased by dogs and sprayed by fire hoses and work your way to the California man being stun gunned to death while ignorant people proclaimed racism is over because Barack Obama is the president. Start reading up on AMERICAN HISTORY and you’ll understand we don’t get happy or feel safe when the police are around. We have to watch over our shoulders for criminals AND the police.
Racist Replys please note. Say what you want I will not be checking this site to read your ignorant reply. And oh yeah FUCK CROWLEY AND HIS FRIENDS.
August 12th, 2009 at 9:17 am
ann, 10 year olds with an anti police agenda aren’t welcome here, i believe that the officer acted like an idiot and gates just responded in a similarly stupid way, though gates was technically not doing anything wrong, and yes, he had just come back on a long flight from china, he could have worked with the police officer and just try to keep his cool, though the arrest then made the officer an idiot, caution is one thing, 5 police officers for 2 black guys is another.