Normally I don't blog about serious issues - unless you count my Market Basket adventures as serious - but after all the hullabaloo (it's so rare I get a chance to actually use that word...) over the arrest of Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. in Cambridge, I wanted to chime in.
The story is basically this: Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. was returning home from traveling last week. When he arrived at his home, the door was jammed shut, so he was forced to break into his own home. A neighbor saw this and, not realizing that Gates was the homeowner, called the police to report a possible break-in. Sgt. James Crowley responded to the call. Now this is where things become muddled. According to the police report, Sgt. Crowley asked Gates for ID. Gates refused and shouted, "This is what happens to black men in America!" He also apparently told the officer, "You don't know who you're messing with."
There's a gap in the police report as the officer filling out the report left Gates's home to go speak with the person who called about the possible break-in. When the officer returned, Gates and Crowley were on the porch of Gates's home and Gates was still shouting at Crowley and calling him racist. By this time a crowd of about seven had gathered and was watching the incident. Gates was arrested for disorderly conduct.
According to Gates, his "disorderly conduct" was to merely demand that Sgt. Crowley give him his name and badge number.
Since then, the charges have been dropped and almost everyone up and down the totem pole - from the Cambridge Police to the Mayor of Cambridge - has apologized to Professor Gates. Arresting officer Sgt. James Crowley has not apologized, however, and says, "There will be no apology."
In his speech last night, President Obama remarked that, while he didn't have all the facts about Gates's arrest, he believe that the Cambridge police acted "stupidly" by arresting someone who'd already proven that the house was his own, and commented that, despite the fact the the role of race/racism in the arrest was unclear, the incident served as a sad reminder that minorities, particularly African-Americans and Hispanics, are more often the targets of criminal suspicion and unjust arrests.
Sadly, it is true that minorities are more often the target of suspicion and arrest. I'm not disputing this fact, and I doubt that there are many people who would. Race relations in America are far from perfect - in many places, they're far from
acceptable,
let alone perfect. But in this particular case, the question is not "Does America have a race problem?" but "Was Sgt. Crowley wrong to arrest Professor Gates?"
As far as I'm concerned, the president himself acted "stupidly" when he commented on an event that a.) was a local - not a national - incident, and b.) he openly admitted he did not have all the facts on. If I were making a speech on national TV, a speech that would be heard by people both in America and around the world, I would want to make damn well sure that I had my facts straight, for the sake of personal and national integrity and for the sake of my own political well-being. I've been inclined to approve of President Obama up until this point - I did vote for the man, after all, and I will admit to celebrating his win with much cheering and hugging and jumping around - but this was a major political faux pas. Scratch that, it wasn't a faux pas - "faux pas" makes it sound too cutesy - it was a major political mistake. Please redeem yourself, President Obama. I don't want to give up on you just yet, but know that I won't forget your horning in on an event that - race-motivated or not - did not and does not officially concern you.
Moving on to the broader issue of the arrest in general: Sgt. Crowley is accused of racism for arresting Professor Gates. Let's lay out the facts of the case: A police officer responds to a report of a possible break-in. When he arrives, the suspect is already inside the house. The officer doesn't pull his gun. He doesn't yell at the suspect to get on the ground. Instead, he asks the suspect to step outside and requests ID to ascertain if the suspect is indeed the homeowner.
According to the police reports of both Sgt. Crowley and the officer accompanying him, Professor Gates initially refused to provide identification. According to a statement released by Gates's lawyer, Gates told the officer he was the homeowner and a Harvard professor and when he was asked to prove it, he walked to the kitchen to get his IDs from his wallet. I obviously don't know which of these stories is correct, not having been there. It's entirely possible that both stories have some degree of the truth in them; it's also entirely possible that stories are way off the mark. It's easy to misinterpret actions or words, and the situation is obviously a stressful one for everyone involved - for a police officer, any call can turn violent in a matter of seconds; for the suspect, one false move or perceived threat can mean arrest or having a gun pointed at you. (That sentence is not meant to imply that police are trigger-happy, merely that they have to worry about their safety when responding to reports of suspicious behavior.)
At any rate, if Professor Gates had merely furnished his ID without a problem (as his lawyer's statement claims), this would all be over and done with. And maybe he did show the ID immediately; again, I don't know, I wasn't there. However, it's what happened afterward that led to his arrest. Because Professor Gates wasn't arrested for breaking and entering; he was arrested for disorderly conduct.
According to his lawyer's statement, Professor Gates followed Sgt. Crowley out onto the porch, calling after him repeatedly to get his badge number and name, which Sgt. Crowley never provided him with. Once Gates stepped out onto his porch, the statement says, he was "astonished" to see several more police officers standing there. He asked the other officers for Sgt. Crowley's name and badge number. (Apparently none complied with his request.) Officer Crowley apparently then said, "Thank you for accommodating my earlier request [for ID]," then arrested Gates.
The abruptness of the last bit sounds fishy to me, especially when Gates's lawyer's account fails to mention the fact that by this time, several witnesses (according to the police report) had gathered outside. If it weren't for the witnesses, I might be more inclined to believe this part of Gates's story - after all, police intimidation and racial bias are nothing new (in general or in Cambridge), and it's entirely possible, theoretically, that some racist dirty cops could gang up on an innocent man and arrest him simply for the color of his skin. It's happened before in America and it will sadly no doubt happen again.
HOWEVER, are we to believe that seven witnesses stood by and watched as a calm man was inexplicably handcuffed on his porch and led from his home for no reason at all? Are we going to contend that ALL these witnesses are so racist that they would allow the CPD to infringe upon some of the most basic rights of American citizenry? I could maybe believe that power-hungry police attempting to play God could arrest a man they were biased against for no real reason. What I have a very hard time believing is that said man's fellow citizens would allow it - knowing, as they do, that if one innocent person is the victim of power-hungry police, anyone could be the next victim.
According to the police report, Professor Gates was yelling at the officers and causing a scene. No witnesses have disputed this (although, in the interest of fairness, none have confirmed it, either. Why isn't the media talking to these witnesses? Why haven't they been made part of the investigation?). Although almost every report of the incident points out that it is not illegal to yell at a police officer, what is the very definition of disorderly conduct? According to FindLaw.com, "Almost every state has a disorderly conduct law that makes it a crime to be drunk in public, to 'disturb the peace', or to loiter in certain areas. Many types of obnoxious or unruly conduct may fit the definition of disorderly conduct, as such statutes are often used as 'catch-all' crimes. Police may use a disorderly conduct charge to keep the peace when a person is behaving in a disruptive manner, but presents no serious public danger."
Everyone has agreed that Professor Gates "present[ed] no serious public danger." If the police report is indeed correct, however, and not biased (as many people have pointed out is possible), Gates was most certainly "behaving in a disruptive manner"; after all, the whole situation drew a crowd of witnesses and prompted Professor Gates's neighbor to snap the now-infamous photo of the arrest. Calmly conversing with officers and complying with requests just doesn't draw attention like that.
The question now becomes, was Professor Gates's outrage warranted? Was he indeed the target of racial discrimination, thus igniting the angry and indignant behavior that led to his arrest? If he were the target of such discrimination, did he really believe that yelling at the police about it was going to make the problem go away? Whether or not other aspects of this situation were racially motivated, the disorderly conduct arrest in and of itself appears to be totally justified. If Professor Gates felt that he was targeted as a result of discrimination, there would have been ample opportunities for him to address the issue in court rather than from his front steps.
The charges against Professor Gates have since been dropped, but Professor Gates is still demanding an apology from Sgt. Crowley, who refuses to acquiesce. If he was indeed the target of racism, I can absolutely understand Professor Gates's demand for an apology; my only question is this: if he truly believes that he was the target of racism AND he believes that his arrest was totally unwarranted, why isn't he pursuing this through litigation rather than in the court of public opinion? I feel like his point about the racism entrenched in the American criminal justice system would be better taken if he could achieve some kind of official decision on the matter, rather than a "Gee, I sure am sorry (but not really)," from the arresting officer.
The biggest problem of all in this case is the media and public whirlwind surrounding the case, which has only made headlines because - let's face it - one of the men at the center of it happens to have his own page on Wikipedia. If Joe Nobody had been arrested on the same charges in the same situation, there would have been a couple angry letters to the editor about the sad state of American race relations and that would have been the end of it. However, because Professor Gates is well-known in academia and is friends with many poiticians, including Massachusetts state governor Deval Patrick and President Obama himself, the entire incident has been whipped up into a media frenzy of finger-pointing and speculation (and here I must apologize for my blogger self's part in all of it). What would be best would be for both parties could just drop the specifics and move on, while the rest of America uses this not as a debate over who was right and who was wrong (again, I'm as guilty of this as the next person, but I'll try and contain myself from here on out) but as an opportunity to take a hard look at race in modern America - as far as we've come, we still have a looooong way to go.
(The view from my balcony, looking up the River Saone)
