Blue Star Chronicles

The case of the arrested Harvard professor has reached an impasse with Henry Louis Gates demanding an apology, the arresting officers refusing to apologize and being backed up by their department and, in fact, police from across the country and even the President weighing in while admitting he doesn’t know what happened. Now the Cambridge police department is mulling over releasing the Cambridge 911 tapes and police recordings to help put the matter to rest. Read about it below and see a video.

Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. was arrested last week for disorderly conduct. Pretty much everyone has heard the story by now. He had been out of the country and when he got home he couldn’t get into his house. A neighbor saw him and his driver breaking into the house and called the police. When the police arrived, Gates got huffy and belligerent and refused to show the police identification to prove that he was, indeed, the owner of the house. A crowd gathered, Gates accused all of the police at the scene racists among other things and ended up being arrested.

At this point, Gates has refused to back down on his accusations that Cambridge police Sgt. James Crowley only arrested him because he’s black and is demanding an apology. Crowley says that he will not apologize because Gates was irrational and out of control and he would have arrested anyone under the circumstances. Crowley is being backed up by his police department. In fact, cops from across the country are angry and outraged that Obama ‘acted stupidly’ by criticizing policemen who were trying to do their job.

Now, Cambridge police administrators and lawyers are debating releasing the 911 tapes and police recordings from the arrest to shed light on the whole incident.

It’s powerful evidence because the (people involved) have not had a chance to reflect and you are getting their state of mind captured on tape.

Gates seems to have failed to appreciate the fact that a neighbor cared enough to call the police when he or she thought he or she saw someone breaking into Gates’ house. He also seems to have failed to appreciate the fact that the police showed up to protect his house from an alleged robber. For all they knew, they were confronting someone who may or may not be armed and was breaking into Gates’ house. He failed to appreciate that they didn’t arrest him for breaking and entering, even though he refused to give proof of who he was or that this was indeed his house. They only arrested him after he followed them out of his house, basically raising unholy hell, drawing a crowd and accusing them of racial profiling and cursing their mothers. That IS disorderly conduct, regardless of who is doing it.

There are two statements from Gates that are very telling. One is that he said, ‘This is what happens to Black men in America’. Here again, he seems to have failed to understand or appreciate that he lives in a city with a black mayor, a state with a black governor and a country with a black President. That is what happens to Black men in America. Being arrested for disorderly conduct in your front yard after refusing to cooperate with police who are trying to protect your property is what happens to pompous, arrogant men in America who insist on being perpetual victims.

The other telling thing he said was, ‘You don’t know who you are messing with’. That statement isn’t the statement of someone who feels he’s being victimized, but it is the statement of someone looking for vengeance. That’s the statement someone would make who knows he’s got the connections to make the lives of the arresting officers miserable. He did have those connections. He knows the President of the United States. The President, in the spirit of Chicago politics, showed his willingness to throw the police officers under the bus at the behest of his friend by making a statement that the officers had ‘acted stupidly’, even while he admitted he didn’t know the details of the situation. With that one statement, the President undermined the authority of police departments across the country.

“Sgt. Crowley has been called a racist, a liar and stupid,” O’Connor said in an interview with ABC News. “Barack Obama just devastated the morale of the Cambridge Police Department. There are a lot of disheartened police officers out there. The remark was completely uncalled for. Sgt. Crowley — and the entire Cambridge police force — are owed an apology.”

How are our law enforcement officers supposed to effectively keep law and order when even the President is willing to weigh in, in support of a friend, by second guessing the actions of the police in a relatively minor incident?

Henry Louis Gates screamed racism at the top of his voice to cover his own bad behavior. It will be interesting to see if the Cambridge 911 tapes and police recordings are released and what they reveal in how this whole situation was handled. In the meantime, Obama has shown that he’s willing to play Chicago politics even as he holds the position of the most powerful man in the free world.