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 19:47:42 -0400, Wizard of Woodstock
wrote:

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?

I didn't say it was OK but it is not a reason to arrest someone in
their own home who was incorrectly suspected of a crime. Big
difference.

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

wrote:
On Thu, 23 Jul 2009 12:32:45 -0400, "Eisboch"
wrote:

Just watching a local interview with the arresting officer.

There's another side to the story, folks.

Makes you wonder *who* was acting "stupidly".


Eisboch

Gates was clearly wrong not to produce ID immediately. Fighting with a
cop, responding to a burglary in progress complaint is the stupid
thing. I am an old white guy in a nice neighborhood and I would expect
the cop to be suspicious of me until I showed some kind of ID.
I am sure that if this happened while Gates was gone, and it was a
real burglar, he would be complaining that the cops were not forceful
enough with the burglars if they let them walk without showing ID.

I would be thanking the police for protecting my home. That is what I
pay them for.


I am not sure if it is true but my NBC news outlet was flashing a
picture of an arrest report with "intoxicated" in bold print on it. I
understand these people are petty sloppy with their "B roll" footage
and that could have really been Mel Gibson's arrest report since the
Cambridge police have not "officially" released the report but if this
was something that the news crew shot at the station this whole thing
might quietly go away.

This does say something about how well race relations are working in
liberal Massachusetts when his neighbor can't even recognize their
only black neighbor in broad daylight.

"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".

What if it had been a black officer and the student a white guy? Or
even if the student had been a white guy? Do you seriously think that
the cops aren't going to ask questions and if positive ID and
ownership can't be established, do nothing about it?

Come on - be reasonable.

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."

Interesting. Mr. Weinblatt isn't listed as a member of the faculty of
the Central Ohio Technical College.

http://newark.osu.edu/faculty/osun.asp

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.

On Thu, 23 Jul 2009 21:09:34 -0400, Wayne.B
wrote:

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.

Some of this stuff is the normal "paranoia" or touchiness of human
interaction. Some of this stuff is folks taking offense at police
authority. They're too "smart" and "important" to be bothered by
somebody "dumber" and "not as important."
Not saying any of this is fact, but here's a couple possibilities for
your cases.
In the first example you cite, maybe the cops weren't stopping you to
hassle you.
When you were a kid, you may have been a suspicious character to the
cops. Maybe you looked around too much, or your head was unnaturally
motionless. Maybe it happened that a car like yours was just reported
to be stolen or involved in a crime or a person fitting your
description. Cops key in on these things.
In the second incident, maybe the cop profiled your car, but just
maybe his ears mistakenly directed his eyes to it. By the time he
bought your explanation he had cooled down and shrugged the whole
thing off. Cops are human.
Anyway, I'm reposting my rules about this, first posted years ago in
the rec.autos.driving group when we were talking about cops and
tickets. Got it from Mendel.
******
A cop and a driver get together to make most traffic tickets. It can
be a complex process but let's concentrate on the prick chromosome of
the event, and its dominance. This is a simplification, and there are
exceptions, but as a general rule you can bet on it.
non-prick driver + non-prick cop = no ticket.
non-prick driver + prick cop = ticket
prick driver + non-prick cop = ticket
prick driver + prick cop = ticket - at least

On the surface, that looks a lot worse than it is. Because the vast
majority of cops aren't pricks, your odds are really good.
I won't go into the times a cop gave me a pass because I simply
treated him as I would any one else. Doesn't hurt to be a good
schmoozer either. Ran into prick cops twice. Beat both tickets.
I got profile-stopped once.
I tore down the boiler in my house one evening to clean it. Soot all
over. Decided to replace a part. Bathed, and washed my hair with
something really strong to get the soot out. Combed my hair straight
back and hit the sack. Got out of bed bright and early to get to the
parts store. Just tossed on clean work clothes and jumped in my
truck. As I'm hitting the stop sign at the end of my street I glance
in the rear view mirror and didn't recognize myself. My hair is
sticking straight up, and since I just woke up 30 seconds ago my eyes
looked like they're propped open with toothpicks or something. Scary.
As I stop, a paddy wagon rolls by on the cross street in the direction
I'm going, driver on my side. The cop glances at me, looks back ahead
then his head spins back at me. Classic double take. I'll never
forget it.
As I turned behind them the cop is already pulling over and has his
arm out the window waving me to stop. Asked if I lived around there
and wanted to see my license. Even though I'm usually crabby in the
morning, I didn't blame them. I saw myself in the mirror. Looked
like a ****ing psycho wacko cult killer. The incident made my day.
Another time in '68 I was working in the mills and had a beard,
catching up for it being disallowed in the Navy. I got ticketed for
backing into an empty street. Technically righteous ticket, but
the hippies were rioting downtown at the Dem convention, so the beard
nailed it. I could feel it. Human nature.
This Henry Gates guy lost his cool. Bad move with a cop.
I worked with a lot of black guys at IH who would be Gate's age now.
One I talked to a lot and went to the track with set me straight on
this profiling. Leroy, and he's probably dead now, or about 80.
This was about '69 and he told me he had been stopped on the way to
work - west side of Chicago. Wasn't the first time either.
I didn't see anything wrong with cops stopping him, since there was a
lot of crime going on there.
He said, "Vic, I'm here working with you, I go to church, I'm putting
2 of my kids through college, and I don't break the law.
You're out drinking every day and carrying on. Are you getting
stopped for nothing? What's the difference?"
I agreed with him mostly. He was a good man, and there were plenty of
racist cops in Chicago. But the larger problem was the crime, and
that's a cop's job to handle. If they weren't on their toes on the
west side then, the residents would be squawking about racist "lack of
police protection."
Lots of blacks of Gate's age carry a chip on their shoulder.
As the details come out, he don't look too good.
That chip will always exacerbate the race issue. When these guys and
their white counterparts are gone, much of it will go away with them.
Obama surprised me, saying the cops acted stupidly, but at least
he was smarter than Gates and didn't call them racist.

--Vic

On Fri, 24 Jul 2009 06:08:11 -0500, Vic Smith
wrote:


Lots of blacks of Gate's age carry a chip on their shoulder.
As the details come out, he don't look too good.
That chip will always exacerbate the race issue. When these guys and
their white counterparts are gone, much of it will go away with them.
Obama surprised me, saying the cops acted stupidly, but at least
he was smarter than Gates and didn't call them racist.

Gates was in a ****y mood. Was forced to break into his own house
after a long trip home. Gets confronted by a cop doing his job after
he's already in the house. The cop is able to confirm he's the house
owner and is rightfully there.

That's where it should have ended. According to any police agency, it
doesn't matter whether the home owner tells you you're a piece of ****
and get out of the house, you do not return fire and you find a way to
gracefully disembark. There's no business to be done at this stop and
the best thing a cop can be doing is preventing crime. There's no
crime happening here.

If you're on a public street and you give a cop ****, he's got every
reason to haul your ass to jail. But not in a private residence.

The cop lost his cool, let himself get sucked into an emotional
situation and the situation got the better of him.

That's very bad juju in the world of police enforcement.

They were both assholes but the homeowner had the right, the cop had
the right to get the **** out of his house and get on with his
business.