Harvard Professor Arrested At Home

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2000
Harvard Professor Arrested At Home
161
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: 02-06-2009
Thu, 07-23-2009 - 5:35am


Actually, we're not entirely happy about it. There have been quite a few campaigns to reduce the number of cameras on our streets - it's really getting ridiculous.


OT, but just thought I'd mention it :o)


iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2000
Thu, 07-23-2009 - 8:44am
Gates Devastated by Arrest, Says Daughter
Prominent Black Scholar Believes in "Following the Rules"; Arresting Cop Won't Apologize

Article & video at link.........


http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/07/23/earlyshow/main5181951.shtml


The daughter of prominent black scholar and Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. said her father's arrest last week at his Cambridge home has deeply saddened him.

"My father was so sad about this," Elizabeth Gates, told CBS' "The Early Show" Thursday. She said her father may have been "one of the last black men on earth who actually believed in the justice system."

Henry Gates' arrest came after a neighbor reported a possible burglary. The neighbor allegedly saw Gates force open front door and called the police. The arriving officers demanded that Gates show identification. Gates was arrested shortly afterward for disorderly conduct, a charge that was dropped Tuesday.

Gates said the officer, Sgt. James Crowley, walked into his home without permission and arrested him as the professor followed him to the porch, after repeatedly demanding the sergeant's name and badge number.

Elizabeth Gates, a writer for the Web Site The Daily Beast, described her father as a law abiding citizen upset over his treatment by the Cambridge police.

"My father has always been on the right side of the law," she said. Elizabeth Gates added, "he believes in following the rules."

The incident has drawn lots of attention the past few days with even President Obama weighing in on the case.

"Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof he was in own home," Mr. Obama said during a prime-time news conference that otherwise focused on the health care debate.

"What I think we know separate and apart from this incident is that there's a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately," Mr. Obama said. "That's just a fact."

As for the arresting officer, he defended his actions saying he followed procedure.

"There will be no apology," Crowley said outside his home Wednesday.

Gates, the 58-year-old director of Harvard's W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research, author of several books on race and host of a popular PBS program "African American Lives" will undoubtedly view race relations in a different way after the experience, his daughter said.

"It changes the tone."

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Community Leader
Registered: 04-05-2002
Thu, 07-23-2009 - 8:45am

What will he gain? A police force which will no longer approach a minority criminal for fear of being called "racist"? Fomenting more hatred and ratcheting up racial tensions for purposes of..........what, precisely?


What did Rosa Parks gain from sitting in the front of the bus?






iVillage Member
Registered: 02-20-2007
Thu, 07-23-2009 - 10:18am

My sentiments exactly. The LAST thing I would think to do would be to call the police when my door to my house was stuck.


Jim Cramer, the loud, sometimes crazy man who has his own show on TV (financial guru, or so he thinks), was on MSNBC this morning. He's from the same area that Gates is from. He told the story that Harvard has ALWAYS had a reputation for having racial issues dating back decades ago. This same scenario has happened numerous times over the years. And they ALWAYS, according to Cramer, involve blacks. He told the listening audience to check it out if they doubted him.


I would be absolutely livid if my local police dept. banged on my door and wanted me to show proof that I was in my own house. Ridiculous to even think that this wasn't a case of profiling.

iVillage Member
Registered: 02-05-2009
Thu, 07-23-2009 - 11:16am

I would be absolutely livid if my local police dept. banged on my door and wanted me to show proof that I was in my own house.


A little over 10 years ago, 3 black men from Dallas were in the country (about an hour and a half south), going door to door knocking.

iVillage Member
Registered: 02-20-2007
Thu, 07-23-2009 - 11:35am

That's a good question. I truly believe we're talking about two different scenarios here, but no, I wouldn't be livid if the cops came to my house looking for the "bad" guys. Of course not. That's one of the resons we pay city/local taxes is for police protection.


In the Gates situation, I feel as if he wasn't shown the respect that a white man would have received under similar circumstances. That's the point I was trying to make. It's unfortunate that these type of incidents continue to take place, but they do, and then everyone takes sides to try and explain why it was, or wasn't, a racist act. Just observing what happened as an outsider, I think he was unfairly treated, and I'll leave it at that. Nothing more to say or add from my perspective.


As for the situations involving yourself personally, you were extremely fortunate that nothing happened to you. If I was in your shoes back then, I would have been mortified that I came "that close" to having some terrible things happen to me. Thank god you didn't make it back to the house alone when they were still there. Now we all get to enjoy reading your posts on In The News!!

Community Leader
Registered: 04-05-2002
Thu, 07-23-2009 - 12:17pm

The thing is we don't know when Gates got livid in this case.






iVillage Member
Registered: 02-05-2009
Thu, 07-23-2009 - 12:21pm

I truly believe we're talking about two different scenarios here, but no, I wouldn't be livid if the cops came to my house looking for the "bad" guys. Of course not.


But weren't the cops looking for the bad guys when they showed up at Gates' home?

iVillage Member
Registered: 02-05-2009
Thu, 07-23-2009 - 12:35pm

I have no doubt that if I were trying to get into my house and the police showed up and I proved it was my house that they'd be the first to help me get in.

iVillage Member
Registered: 02-20-2007
Thu, 07-23-2009 - 1:01pm

After reading a couple of your posts, I have this tremendous urge to do 100 push ups and a 1000 situps!!! You did a much better job of stating the case that Gates may very well have been targeted because of his race than I did.


That said, your observation that you've had nothing but positive dealings with police only means you've never spent much time in my state. Granted, I've had more moving violations in my life than 99.9% of the human race ( pun intended), but I have had some pretty nasty encounters with police officers over the years, mostly just because of the power plays some love to make on the public at large. Funny thing is, my worst encounters involved female officers. One even lied on the witness stand when she said I had "rolled" through a stop sign, when I knew I hadn't, and my friend was a witness that swore I had stopped because he was directly in front of me. It was the only time I had ever pled innocent to a traffic violation (I was guilty as charged in all the others). I saw this same officer on her beat about a month later and very politely approached her and asked why she lied on the stand and cost me a ticket......she said with a very smirky, bitchy look on her face...."Cause I can". I nearly did something that I would still be in prison for, but instead just walked away from her.


Okay, back to my push ups.......I got carried away!


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