http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4KDsE70VsM

The fact is: Dr. Gates has chosen to deal with this encounter by hiding behind the color of his skin and as such has neglected the real source of error here- the content of his character.

Dr. Gates should have respected this, but rather chose to
act in a manner unbecoming of his position as a college professor. In essence, had Dr. Gates acted properly instead of unnecessarily “showing his butt” this would have been history. Now, Dr. Gates has chosen to dodge his irresponsibility by creating and hiding behind “racial profiling” which never happened here.

On another note- Our President chose to think with his emotions rather than his brains and tripped on himself. He owes an apology to the Cambridge law enforcement community and to Officer Crowley

I had another tenant that persisted to park on the private drive with a commercial vehicle. The lease clearly stated no commercial vehicle. She would not comply, I gave her three day noticed then blocked the drive. The police knock on the door and treat me like a criminal. The policeman’s first words out of his mouth after knocking on my door was “let me see your hands”. I said hey, you knocked on my door. He threatened me and accused me of taking advantage of a Spanish speaking only person. This woman had an interpreter and I went though each item of the lease. This officer then threatened to tow my car off MY property. I felt the argument rising and knew I would be arrested if it persisted. I went into my house and would no longer talk to him. I moved my vehicle and told him if she parks the vehicle on the drive again, I would tow it. This guy was a bully. I called the internal affairs and was given tips on how to handle bully cops should it happen again.

I don’t know what happened with Mr. Gates. The mere fact there is a controversy means it is an issue in the country. Misbehavior by the police, racial profiling, and giving people a little bit of power over others creates these situations.

From what I can see so far, the cop is coming off of this looking good.

My wife, caucasian, was moving from her mother’s house to an apartment (prior to our engagement). Because she was trying to avoid further argument, as well as suffering from a sleepless night, she did this at 2 am.

About 15 minutes in to moving items to her car, she was standing in her mother’s garage and heard “don’t move”, then, “turn around”, and found a gun pointing at her from the doorway. She was asked what she was doing, and explained the move. The person then identified himself as a police officer, and left after a brief conversation.

What if she had panicked with an item in her hand, thinking that they were a robber or rapist before she saw the gun (or after). I feel there would be a high likelihood she would have been killed and the officer would have claimed that she had acted agressively after he had identified himself to her. Taking control of the situation is fine. Doing it properly is another.

Gates exposed himself as nothing but a well-dressed punk.

Police officers generally realize when they are breaking up a domestic disturbance. If there are two people arguing loudly and one lives there and one does not — is it necessary to sort out which one is being a jerk? Or are they more likely to just say to the one who does not live there — “you don’t live here, go home.” if the non-resident party leaves, disturbance ended. If the cop just left here, problem solved.

I am disillusioned by his behavior during and, especially, post incident. I believe Gates is undermining the real message, that racial profiling exists and is detrimental to many lives. But I do not see this incident as an example of racial profiling, it seems more an issue of control, power, and social class. Like smashing that proverbial butterfly wing on a grist mill, Gates advances some serious social artillery to justify his unfortunate, albeit very human, behavior. But claims of racism should never be used for armoring one’s pride, or for protecting one’s scholarly reputation. The cop was reactionary, yes he was. But Gates was too.

But, Henry Gates wanted to make this into a racial conflict and provoked the arrest. He’ll wear this arrest as a badge of honor for the rest of his days to convince his fans that racism is alive and well, and that he’s a bona fide victim.

Yes, racism is alive, but Henry Gates is pointing the finger in the wrong direction.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2009/07/charges_to_be_d.html

The cop to Gates’ left is clearly trying to calm Gates down.

Reading both suggests that the real problem was a contest over dominance or control, with Gates likely so adrenalized that he suffered “auditory exclusion.”

“Auditory exclusion” is a well-known phenomenon, a side-effect of the “fight or flight” adrenaline response, by which very excited people do not respond to nor remember hearing speech or even loud noises such as gunshots during periods of great stress.

Gates was obviously very excited and fearful as well as angry at the police officer and shouted at the officer repeatedly. Gates claims the officer never answered, yet the officer claims that he did answer and Gates ignored him. The two stories are not inconsistent, because highly excited people commonly fail to hear things.

Furthermore, Gates was trying to dominate the police officer by shouting him down, repeatedly (per both stories) demanding the officer’s name and badge number (implictly threatening administrative punishment) and (according to the officer and other witnesses) calling the officer (with no evident basis) a racist.

The officer, like all police officers, has been extensively trained that he must establish and maintain control in every situation for safety reasons. Gates was trying to take control away from the officer; he wanted to officer to kowtow to him. According to the officer’s training, anyone who tries to take control away from the officer presents a threat, possibly a deadly one. Even if the officer might have realized, in quiet contemplation, that Gates had a 1st Amendment right to shout, at the moment of confrontation the officer was faced with a man who was trying to strip the officer of the authority he had been trained to maintain even at the price of violence.

Note that Gates’ and the officer’s stories agree that the officer decided to retreat from Gates’ premises, that Gates did follow the officer out, and that Gates did keep berating the officer until the officer finally arrested Gates.

As I pointed out above, it is perfectly plausible that Gates did not hear the officer’s replies to Gates (self-admitted) badgering “What’s your name? What’s your badge number?”

(If Gates thought the officer was a racist, then Gates had even more reason to be hyper-adrenalized, since Gates would feel that he was confronting an armed racist likely to commit violence on Gates.)

(There’s certainly no evidence in any of the stories that the officer displayed any racism whatsoever. Investigating a report of a possible burglary with the citizen complainant standing by, bolstering her credibility by her presence and willing cooperation with the police, is not a “racist” activity.)

Anyone who thinks police training with respect to “control of the situation” can or should be revised would do well to think very carefully about the limits of human behavior under stress. It may not be possible to effectively train police officers to manage violent punks without giving them reflexes that produce the “wrong” results when dealing with over-excited college professors.