Because a cop is not an ordinary citizen, and when one gives you a command-what is known my own state as a ‘lawful order’-you are legally bound to comply. If that entails asking you to step outside a dwelling, show ID, move along, etc, you can’t reply by telling him where to stick it. You are required to co-operate. All of which is really moot to the issue of racism anyway. Crowley might be the biggest SOB there is, but could still have just as well done the same thing to a white man.

Are we to seriously hold that any disagreement at all between a black man and a white man, be he a cop or otherwise, is de facto racism? Well, in the world of identity politics it is, which guarantees that “racism” will exist for as long as human beings have disagreements. In other words, until the end of time.

It’s undeniable that people like Gates have a vested interest in keeping “racism” alive. Having African-American studies become a matter of quaint antiquarianism just doesn’t serve the way ongoing controversy does to sell books and get TV appearances. This requires African-American studies to continue to be be activist, as opposed to merely historical, and that demands that there must always continue to be something to be active about. Popular culture views history as boring, whereas controversy brings fame and fortune.

Furthermore, leftist Critical Theory sees any cultural criticism as a good thing and this mindset is calcified into identity politics. An end to racism would mean the denial of an important avenue of such criticism. This is why white kids, without a racist bone in their bodies, go off to college only to be “educated” about how they really are racist. It’s the idea of unknowing racism. In a case like Crowley’s, even if he genuinely believes he is not a racist, well, he still is, but just doesn’t know it, and thus needs to be taught. So we’re back to any situation like this ‘of course’ being the result of “racism”.

One such, about 7 pm, nice weather, mid evening. Pulled over, black cop (I am white). Said one of my taillights was out. I had checked earlier in the day, and I was surprised, I started to get out and check. He firmly ordered me to stay in my car, and I did. He was talking on his handheld radio, and after a few minutes, the dispatcher’s voice rather disapprovingly came over the radio, and said, “You’ve got the wrong car. It’s not him.”

I angrily got out of my car, over his voice firmly commanding me to get back in and “just drive off.” I walked to the back of my car, and both taillights showing. I told the cop that I didn’t appreciate his lying to me, and that I intended to file a complaint. He walked to his car, pulled out a clipboard, and started walking around my car, inspecting. Just then another cop car pulled up, and I started to walk to it. A loud speaker voice from the second car ordered me to return to my car. I shouted at the second car that I was being harrassed. The second officer (who was white) had rolled down his window, and he said to me, “I’m just an observer. I have no power to interfere. Return to your car.”

I got a ticket, $150, for one taillight cover being “dirty”. It wasn’t. The second cop refused to come look.

A month later, I got to court so angry I was shaking. I waited for an hour, the judge talked a few seconds, and then asked me what I thought. I got halfway through my first sentence, “There never was any dirty lens cover…”. The court clerk, a lady, standing beside the male judge, glanced down at paperwork, then up, and they both chorused simultaneously, “Officer Terry!”

The judge instantly banged his hammer gently, and declared, “Case dismissed. Next.”

I stood, dumbfounded, trying to search for words, and the judge remarked, “If you don’t want any trouble, leave now, while things are going your way.”

Luckily, I wasn’t some reverse-racist, with a reverse-racist friend for a president, and maybe a harvard professorship. Or my troubles might have been more that just an outraged memory. This discussion makes me realize that I was pretty full of myself back then, even more than now-a-days.

Several commenters have speculated that the officer needed to get Gates out of the house for his own protection. The police report states that Gates in fact followed the officer out of the house. My guess is that the officer had a belly full of Gates and was allowing him to follow so that he could make an arrest on the grounds of disorderly conduct.

The post sixties drive for greater “professionalism” in law enforcement was driven by government lawyers desire to limit police officers discretion. They felt that policemen used their discretion to victimize minorities and impose middle class value judgments to questions of public order. This really took off with the war on drugs. If you train a whole department that getting drug seizures and arrests is the holy grail, you’re going to get a whole lot of intrusive policing.

The result of this is a militarized police force, trained to view all of us as suspects all the time.

One thing that I can’t help addressing as someone who once wore a blue uniform is the following. Considering that this happened in Cambridge, why didn’t the responding officer know Gates face? I lived for a long time in Princeton NJ and I’m sure that all the Princeton PD guys knew the campus/community high profile citizens. University settings are notorious for attracting eccentric and unpleasant residents. Both campus cops and locals usually have an idea of who the high profile ass*****’s are. My totally unscientific guess is that Gates may have been incensed at the lack of deference paid him by a COP who “Should Have Known” him.

It needs to be remembered that the officer was told by the dispatcher that this was a “possible B&E in progress.” B&E means breaking and entering, a felony and a serious situation. If I had responded under my old training, I would have been in a heightened state of vigilance.

I miss the days when policemen where trained to know the difference between “citizens” and the criminal underclass. Citizens, within reason, were to be treated with due respect and a bit of forbearance while the lowlifes were given the boot. Oh, and any officer who couldn’t or wouldn’t tell the difference got booted off the force.

“while others such as TomB are quite happy to be living in a police state.”

You misread me badly Kurt. I only explained it, not endorsed it. (Which indeed I don’t.)

Cheers,

“I just don’t see how being a jerk to a fellow citizen is not a crime, but being a jerk to someone with a badge will still land you in a jail cell.”

Well Jack this is exactly what I meant by talking about how people in general (and Gates in particular obviously) just don’t have any good idea about the latitude police have. And the limits of that latitude represents the limits of your ability to be a jerk without consequences.

Regardless of what it’s called—disturbing the peace or disorderly conduct or refusing to obey a lawful demand of a police officer or obstructing justice or interfering with an investigation or etc.—the very vagueness of those words which have long been upheld as being not overly vague should give people pause right there.

That’s not to say it’s right, but for all the anger at the Courts’ “siding with the criminals” (which they no doubt have on occasion), the average person would just shake their head at the latitude the cops have been given.

Maybe best example: SCOTUS case of Mapp v. Ohio (1961) imposed “exclusionary rule” on the states meaning that evidence seized illegally—contrary to 4th Amendment—was excluded from use in state prosecutions.

Okay, so along comes Terry v. Ohio, 1968 S. Ct. case. Officer sees three men he believes to be acting “suspiciously.” (He thought they were casing a store for a robbery.) Stopped them on the street (a “seizure,” never disputed I don’t think), and then even searched them. Found pistols, charged ‘em with possession of concealed weapons, they moved to exclude, lost, and appealed.

“No probable cause!” they said, and went to the Supremes. And, soto voce-like, the Supremes agreed. No probable cause. But no, the exclusionary rule wouldn’t be applied said the Court, too bad. The convictions would stand. Let ‘em sue for civil damages, ha ha. (With Chief Justice Warren writing the majority opinion!)

And “Terry-type” stops and seizures are still the law of the land.

Still a great boggler of first year law students.

Wanna get a chuckle out of a cop? Ask ‘em what they can do if you flip one the bird and then veer even one inch out of your lane of travel without signalling. Or even just wiggle a little “erratically.” Ask how hard it would be for them to use same to get you out of your car, introduce your face to the hood of same, handcuff you, arrest you, take you “downtown,” search you up your fundamental orifice if they want and all the lesser ones too, take your car and search the living hell out of it from stem to stern including probably every piece of locked luggage within too, and God knows what else.

Even worse, descending from the theoretical to the real consider that the term “probable” as in “probable cause” can only mean by its very definition “more likely than not.” But then go and watch some exclusion hearings at your local courthouse and see how “probable” has in essence just become “vaguely reasonable, to a naturally suspicious cop.”

Rather interesting that Mr. Gates, who I believe purports to be a scholar at least somewhat concerned with the African-American experience in our society which of course includes a disproportionate involvement with the criminal justice system, seems to have absolutely no idea the authority that cops actually have. And so when the cops act as they routinely do with him, he spouts off and African-Americans naturally feel that the rules are different for them only because no-one—not even people like Mr. Gates—has bothered to take the time to understand what rules have been developed and applied to everyone.

Want to lessen African-American feelings that the cops break the rules when dealing with them? Just give a lesson as to what the rules actually are.

Not that there isn’t racial discrimination in policing and in the *use* of those rules; there sure is. Just that a good deal of the perception of discrimination is that the cops don’t have the right to do all sorts of things that in fact they sure as hell do.

Cheers,

And so what if the guy provided I.D.? That is NOT the last of it since the issues around the suspicious entry are not resolved. What if there were a Restraining Order by the wife, the resident against the husby, the wife beater? Its the cops DUTY to eliminate all possible scenarios, and then …remove himself in his own good time from the home of a citizen who should know enough to thank the officer for his concern and diligence. The only profiling here was anti cop prejudice. I have a bit of it myself. It keeps me from bad encounters with those who justify it. Course some of them even use that…”you act like you know the routine, been in trouble before???????” to start the intimidation. Smile, comply, be clean….go on when they’re done.

“How is it that you have determined the officer was in fear of being “ambushed” after he had determined that no crime had been comitted?”

Firstly because I saw a news report in which that question was put and the answer said it was for reasons of officer security, which I suppose could mean not only ambush but making sure Gates was not under duress or so the cop could speak freely on his radio or even to isolate Gates from his interior surroundings so as to place him under arrest (for the DC) more safely or etc.

Secondly because my profession has made me familiar with cop work.

As Giraldi said, it’s somewhat SOP in many situations to try to isolate a person from an area in which some danger could lurk. That’s why in some circumstances you’ll see cops ask folks to get out of their cars so that, for instance, there can’t be sudden reach for a hidden gun or etc.

And as for this happening “after the identification has been resolved” that means nothing. As the primary cop’s (African-American) partner said, and as a civilian witness said, Gates was acting strangely.

From there of course you can go on about a person’s Constitutional rights to act strangely, but in terms of urging either public opinion or the law to require cops called to a scene to utterly ignore same before first making sure of their own safety and secondly ascertaining within the bounds of reasonable discretion on their part that no criminal activity is going on, good luck with that. I think you’ll find it’s called “good police work.”

Gates and Obama were wrong for playing race card where it was not needed.

Cop was wrong for not completing ID on the spot (on the porch or sidewalk, of course), and then leaving. He got hooked into an arrest for personal and ego reasons, totally violating Gates’ property rights.

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A lot of idiots, who were also not there, will buy into claims of the chattering-class, and not consider what may have been the actual facts. For example:

As Gates at first refused to ID himself, Crowley was required to go into the house.

As Gates was belligerant, Crowley needed to go outside where there were additional witnesses, and also because Gates may have been trying to get himself outside, because of possible unknown danger. There were 2 reported men in the house, but was the other man visible and identified?

Idiots will assume that because a driver’s license was offerred, that the College’s house was in Gate’s name, and that Gate’s ID had that address on it.

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All 3 of these people hurt race relations in the US, and hurt the cause of sanctity of property rights. They all 3 owe me, the American Public, an apology.

Gates sounds like a jerk, but he had no legal requirement to present identification.

Obama was like the cop, stupid for allowing a reporter to bait him with that idiotic question. He too was stupid for taking the bait.