From the "Black People Arrest Themselves" files

[ulmont]

His job was to respond to a call, make sure a crime was not being committed, and secure the area. He did that. All the other bullshit that went down was completely secondary to his job.

He arrested a person who said they lived at the house and provided ID to that effect, for no better reason than being yelled at (even from his own police report).

[DontSayBanana]

To be honest, the people who like to use the compensatory 'owed' approach tend, I think to be those who haven't been successful in their own eyes and need an excuse.  Other people will become bigots of various sorts for the same reason.  I don't think this would be the issue here, even assuming the reports are accurate.  Jaron makes a good point too - it's difficult to decide when someone is being unpleasant to you, or just lacking tact when you've been subjected frequently to unpleasantness.  Actually, I don't think that can be used as an excuse for the policeman here either.  Any professional is expected to be able to respond appropriately to a range of different situations - or not be good enough for their job

Noted and mostly agreed, but the standards for "successful in their own eyes" is in their own heads. Maybe it's that extra 5K to make a round $300K a year, maybe that patent they feel should have been under their name instead of a group, but lack of confidence in one's success isn't solely reserved for the poor and underprivileged.

Questioning motive for actions is simple cynicism and totally understandable, but it's not helpful beyond righting material wrongs.

[swallow]

How was he not good enough for his job?

Even if he was an asshole, and didn't kiss Gates ass as much as his "eminent" position demanded, that says nothing about his ability to do his job.

The worst case scenario, as far as I can tell, is that the sergeant in question could be a bit more tactful and considerate. But shit, there are a lot of cops out there, and we aren't willing to pay to train them all that much, so what do you expect? They aren't all going to be super polite guys.

His job was to respond to a call, make sure a crime was not being committed, and secure the area. He did that. All the other bullshit that went down was completely secondary to his job.

At best, he over reacted.  That's a pretty bad failing in that job.  They do without doubt deserve more pay and training than they get.

[alfred russel]

For the cop, it had to be a bit unnerving to respond to a call to a break in and have to confront a person who for all you knew was a criminal. If Gates acted belligerently and refused to leave the house at the first request (a reasonable request to reduce your chance of getting shot), I can see why the cop would be pissed off.

I still don't see a good reason to arrest the guy though.

[DontSayBanana]

For the cop, it had to be a bit unnerving to respond to a call to a break in and have to confront a person who for all you knew was a criminal. If Gates acted belligerently and refused to leave the house at the first request (a reasonable request to reduce your chance of getting shot), I can see why the cop would be pissed off.

I still don't see a good reason to arrest the guy though.

It depends at what point he started cooperating with the officer. This is starting to sound like a less violent version of the Granny Tasing incident.

[ulmont]

It depends at what point he started cooperating with the officer. This is starting to sound like a less violent version of the Granny Tasing incident.

Yeah, but.  Gates was arrested for disorderly conduct, which requires more than yelling at a cop from your house or the porch:

The resulting definition of "disorderly" includes only those individuals who, "with purpose to cause public inconvenience, annoyance or alarm, or recklessly creating a risk thereof ... (a) engage in fighting or threatening, or in violent or tumultuous behavior; or ... (c) create a hazardous or physically offensive condition by any act which serves no legitimate purpose of the actor.' "Public" is defined as affecting or likely to affect persons in a place to which the public or a substantial group has access.

[DontSayBanana]

Not disagreeing. I'm kinda starting to lose interest in this, as it's quickly dumbing down to a "he said, she said" debate. There's no doubt that the cop mishandled the situation, and there's no doubt that Gates mishandled the situation. The question now is which had less reasonable justification for escalating the conflict, and to be honest, they're both pretty far out there.

[ulmont]

Not disagreeing. I'm kinda starting to lose interest in this, as it's quickly dumbing down to a "he said, she said" debate. There's no doubt that the cop mishandled the situation, and there's no doubt that Gates mishandled the situation.

Yes, I agree.

[alfred russel]

It depends at what point he started cooperating with the officer. This is starting to sound like a less violent version of the Granny Tasing incident.

Yeah, but.  Gates was arrested for disorderly conduct, which requires more than yelling at a cop from your house or the porch:

The resulting definition of "disorderly" includes only those individuals who, "with purpose to cause public inconvenience, annoyance or alarm, or recklessly creating a risk thereof ... (a) engage in fighting or threatening, or in violent or tumultuous behavior; or ... (c) create a hazardous or physically offensive condition by any act which serves no legitimate purpose of the actor.' "Public" is defined as affecting or likely to affect persons in a place to which the public or a substantial group has access.

That seems fairly broad--if the text represents the statute. Under the language, that covers someone "recklessly creating a risk" of public annoyance through "tumultuous behavior."

I think shouting at a cop from your porch could qualify--the public place under risk of annoyance being the road.

[grumbler]

Either might have been angry depending on the circumstances and threatened consequences.   No way they get arrested.  Of course, if it had been one of those guys, the officer probably would have conducted himself very differently in the first place.

If your point is that the accusation of racism caused the arrest, I think that proves my point.

I find it interesting that you would take one side so vociferously based on the data at hand.  Do you have more information here that indicates the professor is much more innocent than the publicly-available data I have seen?

It sounds to me like both sides went overboard, but that the professor did it first.  The cop was out the door, no arrest, no foul, but the professor couldn't leave it at that.  He had to chase the "racist" cop down outside the house and pretty much dare him to arrest.

As you note, the professor got want he wanted; he is now a "hero" to the "anti-racist" crowd, though ironically he became that hero by playing the race card.

I would agree that the cop should have ignored such pathetic whining, but cops aren't noted for their strategic thinking.  The latter is probably a good thing.

[The Minsky Moment]

.  He had to chase the "racist" cop down outside the house and pretty much dare him to arrest.

When did that happen?

My background assumption is that the City of Cambridge has minimum professional requirements for its police officers, provides basic training in dealing with civilians, and requires some level of experience and skill before promoting officers.  Based on those reasonable assumptions, I therefore presume that a police sergeant would ordinarily be capable of handling garden variety situation like this involving a 60 year old man using pretty tame language by say network television standards (not Fox), without completely losing it and making an obviously improper and baseless arrest, and then compounding that error by cuffing him and subjecting him to hours of detention.

On that reasoning, the only way something like this could happen, barring some kind of mental breakdown by the officer, or glitch in the Cambridge personnel system that allowed a complete incompetent to be promoted to sergeant, is that something else is going on here.  And the only something else that comes to mind is race.

[Admiral Yi]

ABC News is reporting that he initially refused to hand over an ID.

Maybe no move to Idaho.

[The Minsky Moment]

That seems fairly broad

Criminal statutes are supposed to be read narrowly.

I think shouting at a cop from your porch could qualify--the public place under risk of annoyance being the road.

Under the statute, the identity of the person being shouted at is irrelevant.  So the question then becomes whether shouting two sentences from one's porch constitutes a criminal offense, in the absence of any evidence that anyone was bothered by it.

[CountDeMoney]

See Professor Gates.
See Professor Gates still yelling and acting like a fool in handcuffs.
See white officer motioning to Professor Gates to keep it down.
See Sergeant stripes on the black officer.

[HVC]

See Sergeant stripes on the black officer.

He was airbrushed in. If they can do it for the moon landing then the white man can do it to keep the brothers down.