On Thu, 23 Jul 2009 18:49:10 -0400, Wayne.B
wrote:

On Thu, 23 Jul 2009 17:45:13 -0400, Yogi of Woodstock
wrote:

On Thu, 23 Jul 2009 14:47:02 -0400, Wayne.B
wrote:

On Thu, 23 Jul 2009 13:03:55 -0400, NotNow wrote:

Richard Weinblatt, director of the Institute for Public Safety at
Central Ohio Technical College, said the police sergeant was responsible
for defusing the situation once he realized Gates was the lawful
occupant. It is not against the law to yell at police, especially in a
home, as long as that behavior does not affect an investigation, he said.

"That is part of being a police officer in a democratic society,"
Weinblatt said. "The point is that the police sergeant needs to be the
bigger person, take the higher road, be more professional."

And that is absolulutely correct. The police need training to back
down gracefully, make their apologies and leave once the true
situation is known. A certain amount of racial profiling is probably
inevitable in police work but professionalism and respect can make the
difference in how it is perceived.

No offense Wayne, but there has to be something wrong with folks who
aren't cops telling cops how to be cops.

The officer in question has witnesses, including a responding black
officer, who verified his statements. The officer in question has the
training in racial profiling and teaches it. He is a decorated
officer and has been recognized as one of the best.

Gates on the other hand is an officious Harvard prig who has used his
"do you know who I am" attitude in confrontations with airport
security at Logan to confrontations with security guards and hospital
employees including his own staff.

Add to that - his neighbors hate his guts. That's got to tell you
something.

I'm sure that's all true but I still think the cops should have backed
off once they knew that he lived there.

Well, then we will agree to disagree. :)

On Thu, 23 Jul 2009 19:00:22 -0400, "Eisboch"
wrote:

I get scolded for snapping at an alarm company salesman.

I snap at telemarketers all the time, and get scolded, but there's a
big difference between a scolding and an arrest. :-)

I've had to excercise a lot of self restraint with the airport
security folks at times. That's probably about the closest thing to a
police state that I ever hope to encounter.

On Thu, 23 Jul 2009 19:29:51 -0400, Wizard of Woodstock
wrote:

Add to that - his neighbors hate his guts. That's got to tell you
something.

I'm sure that's all true but I still think the cops should have backed
off once they knew that he lived there.

Well, then we will agree to disagree. :)

Hopefully we can agree that having a bad attitude is not a crime,
especially in your own home.

:-)

On Thu, 23 Jul 2009 18:45:54 -0400, Wayne.B
wrote:

I have no doubt that there is plenty of culpability on the part of
Gates applying normal standards of behavior and decorum. The cops
however, once realizing that they'd made an honest mistake, should
have let it go. Although it would have been nice if Gates had shown
a little restraint on his part, he was probably already a bit out of
sorts even before the police arrived from the 20 hour flight, arriving
home to find himself locked out, etc. Who knows what else may have
gone wrong for him that day? There's plenty of opportunity for that
when you are traveling.

Let me ask you this in the spirt of discussion.

Why is it ok for Gates to be insulting, telling an officer who,
apparently and to all appearances and reports does not have any race
bias at all, that he's a racist and use a degoratory reference to his
mother because he's having a bad day - why is that an excuse?

In Sgt. Crowley's defense, it's standard practice, policy and
procedure to cuff and detain citizens who are unruly and or disorderly
both for the protection of the officer as well as the citizen on the
theory that it places the situation back in control.

Sgt. Crowley did nothing wrong, followed policy and procedure and was
called stupid by the President of the United States who admitted that
he didn't know all the fact before he made that statement.

Oh - it also appears that the open wireless mike that officers carry
which is part of the in-car camera system verifies Sgt. Crowley's
version of the incident according to news reports.

On Thu, 23 Jul 2009 19:00:22 -0400, "Eisboch"
wrote:

I get scolded for snapping at an alarm company salesman.

As you should have been you reactionary right wing whatever is the
derogatory term of the day. :)

"Wizard of Woodstock" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 23 Jul 2009 18:49:10 -0400, Wayne.B
wrote:

On Thu, 23 Jul 2009 17:45:13 -0400, Yogi of Woodstock
wrote:

On Thu, 23 Jul 2009 14:47:02 -0400, Wayne.B
wrote:

On Thu, 23 Jul 2009 13:03:55 -0400, NotNow wrote:

Richard Weinblatt, director of the Institute for Public Safety at
Central Ohio Technical College, said the police sergeant was
responsible
for defusing the situation once he realized Gates was the lawful
occupant. It is not against the law to yell at police, especially in a
home, as long as that behavior does not affect an investigation, he
said.

"That is part of being a police officer in a democratic society,"
Weinblatt said. "The point is that the police sergeant needs to be the
bigger person, take the higher road, be more professional."

And that is absolulutely correct. The police need training to back
down gracefully, make their apologies and leave once the true
situation is known. A certain amount of racial profiling is probably
inevitable in police work but professionalism and respect can make the
difference in how it is perceived.

No offense Wayne, but there has to be something wrong with folks who
aren't cops telling cops how to be cops.

The officer in question has witnesses, including a responding black
officer, who verified his statements. The officer in question has the
training in racial profiling and teaches it. He is a decorated
officer and has been recognized as one of the best.

Gates on the other hand is an officious Harvard prig who has used his
"do you know who I am" attitude in confrontations with airport
security at Logan to confrontations with security guards and hospital
employees including his own staff.

Add to that - his neighbors hate his guts. That's got to tell you
something.

I'm sure that's all true but I still think the cops should have backed
off once they knew that he lived there.

Well, then we will agree to disagree. :)


Maybe he had not proved he lived there.

On 7/23/09 6:54 PM, Eisboch wrote:

"H the K" wrote in message
m...


Gates on the other hand is an officious Harvard prig who has used his
"do you know who I am" attitude in confrontations with airport
security at Logan to confrontations with security guards and hospital
employees including his own staff.

Add to that - his neighbors hate his guts. That's got to tell you
something.




Cops lying for cops lying for cops lying for cops.

What else is new?


Harry, your logic circuit breaker tripped again. Reset it, read Tom's
post again and try again.

Eisboch



Tom has a kid who is a cop. Therefore, he is predisposed to believe cops.

I am not so predisposed.




Forget the cops since you don't trust any.

I was talking about this part of Tom's post:

"Gates on the other hand is an officious Harvard prig who has used his
"do you know who I am" attitude in confrontations with airport
security at Logan to confrontations with security guards and hospital
employees including his own staff.

Add to that - his neighbors hate his guts. That's got to tell you
something."


You opted to ignore that part.

Eisboch




His neighbors hate his guts, so one of them called the cops on him when
he forgot his keys? White American at it's best, eh?

It doesn't matter whether Gates was obnoxious or not. Once the cop
realized the guy was in his own house, he should have backed off and left.

Maybe the difference here is that you and Tom seem to have great respect
for people in uniform and think they deserve deference and respect just
because of those uniforms. Well...I do respect firefighters...they wear
uniforms.

On Thu, 23 Jul 2009 19:40:49 -0400, Wayne.B
wrote:

On Thu, 23 Jul 2009 19:29:51 -0400, Wizard of Woodstock
wrote:

Add to that - his neighbors hate his guts. That's got to tell you
something.

I'm sure that's all true but I still think the cops should have backed
off once they knew that he lived there.

Well, then we will agree to disagree. :)

Hopefully we can agree that having a bad attitude is not a crime,
especially in your own home.

:-)

Well, for the sake of fraternity, peace and universal harmony, I will
stipulate that having a bad attitude isn't a crime in certain
circumstances.

But that's as far as I go. :)

On 7/23/09 7:47 PM, Wizard of Woodstock wrote:
On Thu, 23 Jul 2009 18:45:54 -0400, Wayne.B
wrote:

I have no doubt that there is plenty of culpability on the part of
Gates applying normal standards of behavior and decorum. The cops
however, once realizing that they'd made an honest mistake, should
have let it go. Although it would have been nice if Gates had shown
a little restraint on his part, he was probably already a bit out of
sorts even before the police arrived from the 20 hour flight, arriving
home to find himself locked out, etc. Who knows what else may have
gone wrong for him that day? There's plenty of opportunity for that
when you are traveling.

Let me ask you this in the spirt of discussion.

Why is it ok for Gates to be insulting, telling an officer who,
apparently and to all appearances and reports does not have any race
bias at all, that he's a racist and use a degoratory reference to his
mother because he's having a bad day - why is that an excuse?

In Sgt. Crowley's defense, it's standard practice, policy and
procedure to cuff and detain citizens who are unruly and or disorderly
both for the protection of the officer as well as the citizen on the
theory that it places the situation back in control.

Sgt. Crowley did nothing wrong, followed policy and procedure and was
called stupid by the President of the United States who admitted that
he didn't know all the fact before he made that statement.

Oh - it also appears that the open wireless mike that officers carry
which is part of the in-car camera system verifies Sgt. Crowley's
version of the incident according to news reports.


The cop was in Gates' house on suspicion of a burglary. Once he
determined there was none, he should have left. The cop comes across
like a townie with an attitude, and he sounded exactly that way in a tv
interview I saw this evening.

On Thu, 23 Jul 2009 17:26:38 -0400, Zombie of Woodstock
wrote:

"Black students and professors at Harvard have complained for years
about racial profiling by Cambridge and campus police. Harvard
commissioned an independent committee last year to examine the
university's race relations after campus police confronted a young black
man who was using tools to remove a bike lock. The man worked at Harvard
and owned the bike.

Please don't take offense at this, but you know - that's stretching
the whole idea of "racial profiling".

Police do all kinds of profiling, not just racial/ethnic but also
economic. I know, I've been the victim of it a few times. Ha ha,
very funny you say, Wayne B, a moderately prosperous white boy with a
half decent education the victim of economic profiling? Most
definitely, here's a few examples:

1. As a college student I was far from prosperous and used to drive
around in older cars, usually well maintained, but not exactly show
room fresh shall we say. I used to get stopped on all kind of
pretexts, some obviously trumped up, like an allegedly inoperable tail
light that some how became operable right after being stopped. It
doesn't take too much of that to realize that it's happening to other
people also, and it breeds disrespect for the law.

2. As a resident of a very well off community in Westchester County
(Larchmont Woods), at one time I used to keep a ratty old Plymouth
Duster for driving to the train station. There was always a police
officer outside the station directing traffic in the morning. One
day the car in front of me made an abrupt stop and I also stopped
quickly in a nice orderly fashion. The white Cadillac behind me was
not so lucky and had to lock up his tires in a screeching halt to
avoid hitting me. The cop looked up to see what the commotion was
about and immediately decided that I must have been to blame. He came
over to my window ready to read me the riot act or worse. I patiently
explained that it was the car behind me (the white Cadillac) that had
skidded to a stop. He accepted my answer but said absolutely nothing
to the driver of the Caddy.