The Good Citizen’s Reward
While the President serves beer to Henry Louis Gates and James Crowley in the White House today, Lucia Whalen will be at work in Cambridge, pondering the lessons of her phone call to the police last week.
In the aftermath of Barack Obama’s gaffe in saying the police acted “stupidly,” the White House is smoothing over the ensuing national rancor with a photo-op reconciliation for the principals in the confrontation without acknowledging the abuse that has been heaped on Ms. Whalen as a racist.
“If you’re a concerned citizen,” she told reporters yesterday, “you should do the right thing if you’re seeing something that seems suspicious. I would do the same thing.”
The tape of her call reveals she told the dispatcher she had “no idea” if two men were breaking into the house, repeatedly suggesting they might live there. She did not mention the men’s race until a dispatcher asked if they were black, white or Hispanic.
“There were two larger men,” she says in the tape. “One looked kind of Hispanic, but I’m not really sure,” adding that she did not see what the second man “looked like at all.”
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19 Responses to “The Good Citizen’s Reward”
This is the most sad part of this story. Reactionary types (with REAL chips on their shoulders) pulled out the “racist brush” and started painting this woman with abandon. Yes, as a black man, I have my fair share of officer distrust (doesn't rule my life) but not ONCE did I attack this woman (not the officer for that matter). I didn't even care until I started reading what some people were saying about her. Downright sickening. In my mind, I see two men (a professor and a police officer) who let hotter heads prevail. I don't see the racial angle in the incident. I only see the racial angle in the larger discussion even thought it doesn't play into the situation (in my opinion).
I don't get it. Even if she said she saw two black men that wouldn't have made her a racist.
Anyway, Crowley did everything by the book. You can not leave the scene when someone is screaming at you. You have to get that person to stop screaming. Crowley did exactly that.
The only two people who exhibited racism in this incident were Messers Gates and Obama.
As I recall from Obama's remarks, he applauded the way the situation was handled up until the officer decided he just had to arrest Gates because Gates wasn't respectful enough towards the badge.
Nothing wrong with a concerned citizen reporting suspicious activity, its sad that Whalen had to receive so much heat for doing what I hope any good neighbor would do.
Why exactly can you not leave when someone is screaming at you?
Anyway, Crowley did everything by the book.
False arrest isn't 'by the book'. In most municipalities, it is illegal. Not that Crowley even get a slap on the wrist for breaking that law. Police abuse usually gets ignored.
The same reason you can't use profanity in front of a judge. You lose control of the situation, you lose your authority. Police officers (and judges) need authority to properly do their jobs.
zzzzzzzzzz—if Ogletree believed it was false arrest, why didn't he file suit? He had the facts in front of him for a week before Obamafest was planned.
Because his conduct was disorderly and profane.
I think our friend zzzzzzzzzz got caught in the idea that Gates was arrested for breaking into his own home rather than being arrested for engaging in disorderly conduct.
The same reason you can't use profanity in front of a judge. You lose control of the situation, you lose your authority. Police officers (and judges) need authority to properly do their jobs.
The situations are NOT equivalent. A judge has a trial to conduct and needs to maintain order until that trial is complete. AFTER he had seen his ID and KNEW no crime was being committed, that police officers role ended related to this situation. He no longer had any right to be on this man's property. He no longer had any situation that he needed to control. He no longer had any proper authority in that situation. And it is after the officers business with Gates had effectively ended, that Crowley arrested him. It was false arrest. It was improper conduct. If it wasn't, the charges would not have been dropped. Cops are not allowed to be authority figures in all situations. Their authority is granted by the people ONLY in the act of enforcing laws. If no law is broken, they have no authority over the situation. We have a constitution, and particularly a 2nd amendment, to limit the authority the government can exert over the people. Frankly, the kind of obsequious deference to government authority Crowley's defenders have been showing is fundamentally un-American.
qwert321,
Gates behavior did not meet the legal definition of disorderly conduct. He got arrested for exercising his first amendment rights on his own property. To put it in simpler terms, he got arrested for saying stuff that made the cop mad. That isn't illegal.
Your first amendment rights stop at the tip of my nose. Gates harrassed the officer while the officer was leaving his home. He caused people in the neighborhood to gather with his screaming and was warned twice to stop before he was arrested.
If Gates did not engage in disorderly conduct, then no one has ever engaged in disorderly conduct. Gates is the poster child for DC.
According to the police report, parts of which a witness has already contradicted.
It's getting to the point where I want to arrest everyone who brings up this case for Disorderly Conduct. We haven't wasted as much passion on nonsense since the marketing team went to work for the movie version of Battlefield Earth.
According to the police report, parts of which a witness has already contradicted.
Then we are in agreement. The Gates described in Crowley's report engaged in DC and deserved to be arrested.
The police report itself would be discredited only if substantial facts in it were false. For example, if Gates never said the lame “I'll talk with your mama outside”, then it would cast doubt on the rest of the report. Minor errors in memory due to recent priming like “I responded to reports of B&E by a black male” instead of “I responded to reports of B&E by a Hispanic male” doesn’t discredit the report at all. What kind of error in the police report are you referring to?
I'm talking about how Crowley claimed that the lady who called 911 told him that there were two black males with backpack attempting to B&E. She said she didn't even talk with the officer. That is a pretty big contradiction. For another example of police abuse of power, see this one:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/29/disord…
If the arrest was justified, qwert, why were the charges dropped? The way you defend authoritarianism it sounds like Crowley was there to arrest Gates for DC in the first place. I enjoy reading it because it reminds me that Constitutional and civil liberties are only fantasy tales that exist in the minds of judges and legal experts. Out in the Real World ™, cops ARE law and order.
Even if Crowley had the power to arrest him, and even if he could charge him with something, should he have arrested the homeowner, who happened to be black and was obviously gunning for some kind, ANY kind of racially charged incident? Gates is tickled pink, of course, cause he has some street cred for true black intellectual immortality. The Medal of Wrongfully Arrested is already in the mail I'm sure.
Did Gates cross a line disrespecting a police officer? I don't think anyone's arguing against that. Was it disorderly conduct while he was on his property? That's for legal minds, who decided not to prosecute. I almost wish they had just to get the debate settled.
the arrest was justified, qwert, why were the charges dropped? The way you defend authoritarianism it sounds like Crowley was there to arrest Gates for DC in the first place. I enjoy reading it because it reminds me that Constitutional and civil liberties are only fantasy tales that exist in the minds of judges and legal experts. Out in the Real World ™, cops ARE law and order.
DC charges are usually dropped because the DA thinks the time served is punishment enough. In Gates's case, the charges were dropped because they feared following through with the charges would fan racial flames. And I'm sure being politically connected to the mayor, governor and President had something to do with it too.
And please, stop evoking the Constitution when it suits you. You respect the Constitution as much as the Sotomayor empathists.
QWERTY: The facts were not permitted to interfere with, but were cast aside when not conveniently misused to boost the cause of Victims Forever, Incorporated, Who Demand The Rest Of Us Feel Enternally Guilty In The Name of Political Correctness.
Nobody with an IQ above room temperature interpreted, much less assumed, racism by the cop here.