Black Harvard Professor arrested after breaking into his own home?

This video was captured back in the mid 1990's and made rounds on all the popular news circuits back then like Hard Copy and A Current Affair. It is real. I even remember one of the shows set up a meeting between the officer and driver and the driver was embarrassed about his actions and apologized. I see tons of videos from police cars that include sound.

 

See he wasn't "targeted" as anything. An officer asked to talk to him and he went immediately to racism.

 

He was asked to talk to because they were exploring the possibility of him being a burglar. He was the target of that inquiry.

 

When they began retrofitting cruisers with video recording equipment it included audio (both internal and external) in most instances (but not all back then) that an officer could turn on or off with the video.

Today it is standard (but more advanced) for all cruisers. Also most officers carry around voice activated recorders as well.

 

That guy was so lucky he didn't get arrested then.

 

I guess....

 

"Whalen's attorney, Wendy Murphy, said her client did not mention the men's race to Crowley and is upset by news reports she believes have unfairly depicted her as a racist."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090727/ap_on_re_us/us_harvard_scholar_caller

Since when is it 'racist' to describe someone's skin color?

 

That's what she believes she has been labeled as.

 

It was mistakenly reported at first that the caller identified two black men. This isn't the case and I withdraw my own previous criticism of the caller. She did the right thing and clearly couldn't make out clearly enough that it was Dr. Gates.

 

If Obama drank something better he would be accused of being an elitist.

 

In that case, he should have went with Natty Light.

 

You have a right to demand the badge and name of an officer who has stopped you and, unless the officer is undercover, that is a matter of public record. It also isn't a crime to berate officers. Such things happen all the time and you don't see police hauling in every person that berates a cop.

 

That's what I don't get. I remembers seeing dozens of people berate police on the show Cops and they never got arrested. The guy in the video I posted severely berates the police officer and is allowed to go. I am willing to bet I can find more videos like that too.

 

But if you are reporting what you think is a crime, shouldn't you identify the race of the suspects as well as all of the pertinent information you can provide? Why is it racist to report that the perpetrators are black, white, asian, latino, arab, etc.?

 

The person on 911 tried to get her to identify that, and she said she thought one of them might be Hispanic. She tried, but it's painfully obvious she didn't get a good look at who was trying to get into the house.

 

I am talking in generalities. Regardless of where I am, if I think a crime is in progress, I am going to report it and, to the best of my ability, describe the suspects including their skin color.

 

I wasn't criticizing her for being a racist but that if she could see clearly enough to see the race shouldn't she have been able to recognize that it was Dr. Gates? Its not like Dr. Gates looks like a thug but is a rather short man with a cane and if she could see enough that it was two black men it seems to me she should've been able to identify Gates.

Obviously she didn't see well enough to make out much detail about either men.

 

Not if she didn't know who Dr. Gates was. It's also usually easier to recognize skin color before recognizing the person's face. I can look across the street and see if someone is white or black, but I wouldn't necessarily recognize them as my neighbor.

 

I feel, if the evidence holds up, that Gates owes the officer an apology and should have been thanking the man for helping keep his property secure by doing his job.

The question is will Gates be the bigger man now when he wasn't then or will pride prevent him from recognizing that his arrest was the result of his own preconceptions. Stereotyping the situation into a paranoid overreaction resulting in time in the clink for the continental breakfast and emotional cool down.

 

Gates is not smart for a pre-eminent Harvard professor, but acted understandably.

The cop is douche. Once he thought Gate was not breaking in, that should be end of it. Cops are not above civilians either. The escalation could have been avoided entirely had the cop toned it down a little IMO. People have every right to get upset when questioned like that out of blue in their houses.