Harvard Professor Arrested At Home

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Registered: 03-18-2000
Harvard Professor Arrested At Home
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Tue, 07-21-2009 - 10:28am

Police Report Says Henry Gates Called Officers Racist


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/20/AR2009072001358.html?nav=hcmodule


Henry Louis Gates Jr., one of the nation's most prominent African American scholars, was arrested last week at his home near Harvard University after trying to force open the locked front door.


According to a report by the police department in Cambridge, Mass., Gates accused police officers at the scene of being racist and said repeatedly, "This is what happens to black men in America." The incident was first reported by the Harvard Crimson.


Gates, the director of the W.E.B. DuBois Institute for African and African American Studies, has been away from his home much of the summer while working on a documentary called "Faces of America," said Charles Ogletree, a Harvard law professor and friend of Gates who is working as his lawyer. Gates returned from China last week and had trouble opening the front door with his key.


Gates, 58, was arrested Thursday by police looking into a possible break-in for disorderly conduct "after exhibiting loud and tumultuous behavior" at his home, according to the police report. Officers said they tried to calm down Gates, who responded, "You don't know who you're messing with," according to the police report.


Ogletree said Gates was ordered to step out of his home. He refused and was followed inside by a police officer. After showing the officer his driver's license, which includes his address, Ogletree said Gates asked: "Why are you doing this? Is it because I'm a black man and you're a white officer? I don't understand why you don't believe this is my house." Ogletree said Gates was then arrested and charged with disorderly conduct and racial harassment.


Gates did not return calls to his office Monday, and the police department would provide no further details on the arrest. He was released four hours later, and arraignment has been scheduled for Aug. 26, but Ogletree said they hope to resolve the case sooner.


Gates is resting on Martha's Vineyard, according to Ogletree, and will soon resume traveling. He is scheduled to interview cellist Yo-Yo Ma, whose genealogy he was researching in China.


Gates, is a founder of the Root (http://www.theroot.com), a Web site owned by The Washington Post Co. He is also host and co-producer of "African American Lives," a Public Broadcasting Service show in which he uses genealogical resources and DNA testing to trace the family lineages of prominent black Americans. He was named a MacArthur Fellow in 1981 and was among Time magazine's "25 Most Influential Americans" in 1997.


Gates's arrest points to broader racial disparities in the criminal justice system, said Ryan S. King, a policy analyst at the Sentencing Project, a think tank that researches incarceration rates.


"If you look at every stage of the criminal justice system from initial police contact all the way through sentencing and incarceration, you see that African Americans are disproportionately impacted by each stage," King said. "What we ultimately see as disparate incarceration rates are contributed to by all of these factors."


As news of the arrest spread Monday from Harvard into broader academic circles, one professor who follows Gates's work said the arrest was both "not surprising" and "disheartening."


"I felt bad that I would hear about something like this happening, especially to someone as recognizable and distinguished as , but in the academy we still sometimes encounter that. I've been in situations where I encounter people who don't believe I'm a college professor," said Jelani Cobb, an associate professor of history at Spelman College in Atlanta. "We have obvious signs of progress, but we're not there."

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iVillage Member
Registered: 01-22-2009
Tue, 07-21-2009 - 7:46pm
Just to follow up, the charges were dropped today.

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iVillage Member
Registered: 02-20-2007
Wed, 07-22-2009 - 10:46am

This story made me extremely angry. Being a white male, I have no idea how upsetting it must be for black males to have to go through this type of racial profiling.


I have little doubt that if he were white, this would have been handled in a different manner. Very disheartening IMO.


We have an all white suburb outside of my city. Time and time again the police there pull over blacks who happen to be driving through their 'burb. I'm not blind to the fact that crime does take place in those affluent towns, but the ratio of minorities pulled over compared to whites is way out of balance.


This will be a lawsuit in the making when all is said and done. And guess what? Nobody wins when that happens. Another blemish on our legal system.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-03-2009
Wed, 07-22-2009 - 10:53am

No party in the affair behaved well. By acting the role of the angry black male, Gates not only fed a stereotype but pretty much ensured that the arresting police officer would arrest him. The neighborhood had been prey to a number of burglaries and IF Gates had been a bit more thoughtful, he could easily have called the police first, told them he had just returned home from a trip and was having problems with the door being locked/stuck. Would have avoided the whole ugly mess.

To condemn this incident as a racial one is overly simplistic and quite possibly wrong.

Jabberwocka

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2000
Wed, 07-22-2009 - 11:12am

"I have little doubt that if he were white, this would have been handled in a different manner."


I agree. The incident wouldn't have caused a blip on the radar.


Gates deserves an apology IMO. If the same thing had happened to me, a white woman, I'd have been indignant at first then seething.


No charge, but Gates case seethes


http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/07/22/no_charge_but_gates_case_seethes/


Authorities abruptly dropped criminal charges yesterday against noted Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr., but for Gates and others, it appeared to be a case of too little, too late.


Black leaders continued to condemn the actions of a Cambridge police sergeant who handcuffed the African-American professor outside his own home Thursday. Gates extended an unusual offer to the officer: in exchange for an apology, personal tutoring sessions on the history of racism in America.


Gates, still angry five days after his arrest, broke his silence yesterday to chastise Cambridge police for his treatment, dispute their assertion that he had made inflammatory remarks during the encounter, and seized upon his brief incarceration as a teaching moment on race relations, not only for Cambridge, but for the nation.


“I believe the police officer should apologize to me for what he knows he did that was wrong,’’ Gates said in a phone interview from Martha’s Vineyard. “If he apologizes sincerely, I am willing to forgive him. And if he admits his error, I am willing to educate him about the history of racism in America and the issue of racial profiling.


“That’s what I do for a living,’’ he added.


Yesterday various parties took stock of last week’s run-in between Gates and police Sergeant James Crowley, who is white, and its meaning remained the subject of a vigorous debate.


Thursday afternoon, Gates had just arrived home from a trip abroad when a Cambridge police officer, alerted to a possible break-in at the house, appeared at the professor’s front door and demanded to see identification. According to a police report, Gates was arrested for disorderly conduct after he became belligerent, yelled at Crowley, repeatedly called him a racist, and declared that the officer had no idea who he was “messing with.’’


Gates denies raising his voice at Crowley other than to demand his name and badge number, which he said the officer refused to give. Crowley wrote in the police report that he had identified himself. Gates also denies calling Crowley a racist.


Yesterday, the Police Department and Middlesex District Attorney Gerard T. Leone signed a statement with Gates’s lawyers dropping all charges and declared: “All parties agree that this is a just resolution to an unfortunate set of circumstances.’’ They then declined to respond to requests for further comment.


Not so with Gates, who flatly told a Globe reporter, “I’m outraged. I shouldn’t have been treated this way, but it makes me so keenly aware of how many people every day experience abuses in the criminal justice system. This is really about justice for the least amongst us.’’


Some black leaders said that simply dropping the charges is not enough. The police and the city of Cambridge need to address the intricacies of race in a direct manner, they said.


Amid the accusations of racial profiling, many online commentators, bloggers, and analysts came to Crowley’s defense, saying he was putting his life on the line responding to a report of a crime in progress, basically doing honest police work. But for Gates’s bellicosity, those people said, the arrest would not have occurred and the encounter would have gone unpublicized.


Gates, 58, the director of Harvard’s W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research, gave his version of the events that disrupted the calm around his home on Ware Street, a tree-lined block near Harvard Square.


“The police report is full of this man’s broad imagination,’’ Gates said. “I said, ‘Are you not giving me your name and badge number because I’m a black man in America?’ . . . He treated my request with scorn.’’


Gates also said he was suffering from a bronchial infection and was physically unable to yell.


Furthermore, Gates said that as a man who is “half white,’’ who was married to a white woman for more than two decades, and whose children are part white, “I don’t walk around calling white people racist. . . . Nobody knows me as some lunatic black nationalist who’s walking around beating up on white people. This is just not my profile.’’


As news of Gates’s arrest spread around the globe and fueled accusations of racism, authorities scrambled to smooth things over. Leone summoned Cambridge police and Gates’s attorneys to a meeting yesterday morning to hash out a resolution.


During the meeting, the police agreed to drop the charge of disorderly conduct, and the parties drew up a conciliatory statement in which they called the incident “regrettable.’’


“This incident should not be viewed as one that demeans the character and reputation of Professor Gates or the character of the Cambridge Police Department,’’ the statement said.


Gates, who graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Yale, elevated Harvard’s African and African American studies department, and became one of the nation’s preeminent scholars on race, said he plans to use his arrest and his four hours in jail as a springboard: He may make a documentary on racial profiling.


Gates said he has gone out of his way in the past to avoid run-ins with police. When he first arrived at Harvard in 1991, he moved into a large house in the mostly white suburb of Lexington and promptly visited the police station to introduce himself.


“I wanted them to see my black face,’’ Gates said. “I would be driving home late from Harvard. I had a Mercedes. I didn’t want to be stopped for ‘driving while black.’ . . . I should have done that with the Cambridge Police Department.’’


Gates said he is concerned about the “unconscious attitudes’’ that police can hold.


“Because of the capricious whim of one disturbed person . . . I am now a black man with a prison record,’’ Gates said. “You can look at my mug shot on the Internet.’’


Harvard’s president, Drew Faust, said in a written statement that while she is gratified that the charges have been dropped, she remains “deeply troubled by the incident.’’


“Legacies of racial injustice remain an unfortunate and painful part of the American experience,’’ Faust said. “As President Obama has remarked, ours is an imperfect union, and while perfect justice may always elude us, we can and must do better.’’


Civic, religious, and civil rights leaders also said the case shows that more needs to be done to improve race relations.


“On one hand, there is a black man who is a millionaire who occupies the White House, and on the other hand, you have one of the most distinguished racial bridge-builders in the country, a scholar intellectual, being arrested,’’ said Rev. Eugene Rivers III, a black leader in Boston.


“The reality is that it doesn’t make a difference how distinguished or exceptional a black person thinks he or she is or may in fact be,’’ Rivers said. “You can be arrested for breathing while black in your own house.’’


Mayor E. Denise Simmons, the first black woman mayor of Cambridge, said the incident has reminded the city that people need to be vigilant about their own behavior and biases.


“Certain things just should not happen, to anyone, whether it’s Professor Gates, a renowned national figure, or a public works person,’’ Simmons said.


Two months ago, Cambridge held a public forum on race and class at City Hall. It will hold another dialogue on the topic in October with Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.


“Let’s not focus on the Police Department,’’ she said. “It’s all of our problem.’’

 


Photobucket&nbs

iVillage Member
Registered: 02-20-2007
Wed, 07-22-2009 - 11:21am

What came first, the chicken or the egg?


Why did Gates react so angrily? Tired of the steroetyping to the point where he finally snapped, or did he behave badly for no apparent reason?


That's for people far smarter than I to answer.


Question for you.....if this ever happened to you or a family member, would you think first to call the police if your front door wouldn't open? I wouldn't. And I seriously doubt if most of the posters here would either.


We can try to justify the police's actions till we're blue in the face. In my mind, a home owner having difficulty opening their own front door should NOT be made to look like a common thief and carted off to jail after being so upset he or she says something they may regret later. Word.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2000
Wed, 07-22-2009 - 11:42am

"IF Gates had been a bit more thoughtful, he could easily have called the police first, told them he had just returned home from a trip and was having problems with the door being locked/stuck."


I disagree. If one is locked out it's not a normal reaction, IMO,

 


Photobucket&nbs

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-22-2009
Wed, 07-22-2009 - 11:43am
Understood :)

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iVillage Member
Registered: 02-20-2007
Wed, 07-22-2009 - 11:50am
Was hoping so....:)
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-03-2009
Wed, 07-22-2009 - 11:55am

I wonder. What if Gates' house had been burglarized previously? Or what if it's burglarized in the future? By an African American. What will he do? Rant about racism compelling the burglar to rob him? Call the police he excoriated so intensely?

Here's my best guess about Gates' reaction and causes. He was tired after a long tip and short tempered. Already is defensive about being black--you can pretty much figure that one out from the tenor of the conversation.
<< The officer asked Gates to "step out onto the porch and speak with me," the report says. " replied, 'No, I will not.' He then demanded to know who I was. I told him that I was 'Sgt. Crowley from the Cambridge Police' and that I was 'investigating a report of a break in progress' at the residence.
"While I was making this statement, Gates opened the front door and exclaimed, 'Why, because I'm a black man in America?' "
According to the report, Gates initially refused to show the officer his identification, instead asking for the officer's ID. But Gates eventually did show the officer his identification that included his home address.
"The police report says I was engaged in loud and tumultuous behavior. That's a joke," Gates told The Root. "It escalated as follows: I kept saying to him, 'What is your name, and what is your badge number?' and he refused to respond. I asked him three times, and he refused to respond. And then I said, 'You're not responding because I'm a black man, and you're a white officer.'">>
http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/07/22/gates.arrest.reaction/

IMHO, Gates snapped when a cool head and soft words would have gone far to defuse the situation. Too bad. There is strength in patience and reason. Moreover, take a look at the picture in my link--there's an African American police officer as part of the team which took Gates away. Racism, my fanny.

To repeat, it is overly simplistic and quite possibly wrong to construe the episode as purely a function of bias or bigotry. Moreover, when people do so, it's tantamount to "crying wolf". Do it often enough and when the wolf is really among the sheep, nobody will heed your call of alarm.

I have a safety/privacy latch on my front door. Most times I leave the house through the garage and use a garage door opener. A couple of weeks ago, I had to have work done on my truck and left it at a repair shop. Also left the garage door opener in the truck and didn't realize it until after boarding the bus to go home. Front door bolted, garage door immovable, only access to house through man door in back of garage which is inside a high block fence backyard. No key to backyard gate either. So I climbed the fence. NOT a pretty sight. My neighbors know me though and would probably have recognized my derrière going over the wall since they see a lot of it during weedpulling season and it's not exactly tiny or inconspicuous.

Had anybody called the police, and had they showed up, I would have pulled out my driver's license and my checkbook, both of which identify my name with my address. And would have been damn grateful that they responded to what could have been a break-in rather than launching into a diatribe against police brutality, racism, whatever.

Get a grip, Gates. Pick your battles or you do irreparable harm to your message.

Jabberwocka

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-22-2009
Wed, 07-22-2009 - 12:16pm

~Had anybody called the police, and had they showed up, I would have pulled out my driver's license and my checkbook, both of which identify my name with my address.~


He

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