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