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Panel Formed to Review Arrest of Black Professor

ewiley — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 13:18:07 +0000

Saying that Cambridge wants to learn something from the arrest of Black Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates by a White police officer two months ago, city officials announced Thursday that an independent panel has been formed to review the details of the case. The panel includes a dozen experts from across the United States whose insight might add meat to a comprehensive analysis of what many have called the most high-profile racial-profiling case in recent memory. Led by Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Washington, D.C., Police Executive Research Forum, the committee also features Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey, former FBI Assistant Director Louis Quijas and Yale Law Professor Tracey Meares. “This is a historic opportunity for the city to emerge as a stronger community,” Cambridge City Manager Robert Healy said in a statement. Added Cambridge Police Commissioner Robert Haas, “Cambridge wants to take away something meaningful from this process that can be helpful for the city and the nation.” Cambridge Police Sgt. James Crowley couldn’t have known that he would reignite a contentious – and long-burning – national debate over the way police behave with Black suspects when he arrested the preeminent African-American scholar at his own home on July 16 after answering a call to look into a suspected burglary. Within days, the image of the slightly built, disheveled-looking Gates being led from his home in handcuffs had the whole nation talking about the role that race played – or didn’t play – in the episode. Before the din died down, the duo would be sipping beers at the White House with President Obama, and all parties involved had promised to glean constructive lessons from the turmoil. Thursday’s announcement about the ad hoc panel put action behind the rhetoric. The panel will provide an “independent assessment” of the arrest and facts leading up to the arrest, Haas said, but he did not give a date for a report to be released.

Gates Gets Death Threats

ewiley — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 13:07:49 +0000

Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates said Sunday that his recent arrest by a White police officer not only triggered a national dialogue about race, but it has sparked a barrage of death threats and sleepless nights. Gates, in his first appearance since sharing a cold beer with the arresting officer and President Obama at the White House Thursday, said that he has been forced to cancel his public e-mail and change his cell phone number because of bomb threats and hateful messages. “You should die; you’re a racist,” read one of his messages. While the controversy following his July 16 arrest at his Cambridge, Mass., home has ignited wide discussion about the status of race relations in the United States, little has been resolved between the races, Gates told a crowd of more than 150 people at the Martha’s Vineyard Book Festival, where he was on hand t promote his latest book, In Search of Our Roots: How 19 Extraordinary African Americans Reclaimed Their Past. “They have not been resolved at all,” he said. But there have been some positive things to come out of the chaos, Gates said. For example, he said, he and Sgt. James Crowley have begun to see the incident through different eyes. In the future, they will take in a baseball game or have their families join one another at dinner, he said. “I offered to get his kids into Harvard if he doesn’t arrest me again,” he said, as the crowd roared with laughter.

President Pulls Off Anticipated Beer Summit

ewiley — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 13:01:17 +0000

President Obama can now add “top diplomat” to his list of titles after successfully pulling off the much ballyhooed Beer Summit in the White House Rose Garden Thursday. With TV cameras capturing the visuals, Obama and Vice President Joe Biden sat at a table with Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates and Cambridge Police Sgt. James Crowley, sipping brewskies and chatting about how a chance encounter made them unwitting players in a long-playing melodrama they wish would just go away. “At this point, I am hopeful that we can all move on, and that this experience will prove an occasion for education, not recrimination. I know that Sergeant Crowley shares this goal. Both of us are eager to go back to work tomorrow,” said Gates, who was arrested by Crowley for disorderly conduct at his own home on July 16. The officer had been called to look into a suspected burglary but ended up in a verbal battle with the esteemed scholar before cuffing him and leading him out in handcuffs. The incident garnered national attention and triggered an ongoing debate about race relations and proper police conduct. “It is incumbent upon Sergeant Crowley and me to utilize the great opportunity that fate has given us to foster greater sympathy among the American public for the daily perils of policing on the one hand, and for the genuine fears of racial profiling on the other hand,” Gates said in a statement on his Web site, The Root. “Let me say that I thank God that I live in a country in which police officers put their lives at risk to protect us every day, and, more than ever, I’ve come to understand and appreciate their daily sacrifices on our behalf. I’m also grateful that we live in a country where freedom of speech is a sacrosanct value, and I hope that one day we can get to know each other better, as we began to do at the White House this afternoon over beers with President Obama,” he said. Obama, who immediately thrust himself into the middle of the brouhaha by commenting that police had acted “stupidly” by arresting a 58-year-old, slightly built man with a cane, thanked his guests after the White House meeting. “Even before we sat down for the beer, I learned that the two gentlemen spent some time together listening to one another, which is a testament to them,” the president said in a statement. “I have always believed that what brings us together is stronger than what pulls us apart. I am confident that has happened here tonight, and I am hopeful that all of us are able to draw this positive lesson from this episode.”

Officer Who Made ‘Jungle-Monkey’ Quip: I’m No Racist

ewiley — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 13:55:37 +0000

In an apology issued Wednesday, the Boston Police officer who sent out an e-mail blast last week describing Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates as a “banana-eating jungle monkey” says he’s no racist and that he even has some Black friends. “I regret that I used such words,” Officer Justin Barrett told WCVB TV in Boston. “I have so many friends of every type of culture and race you can name. I am not a racist.” Barrett, 36, was blowing off some steam after the controversy surfaced involving the preeminent Black Harvard scholar, who was arrested at his home in Cambridge, Mass., by a White policeman who was investigating a suspected burglary. An active member of the National Guard, Barrett sent his incendiary e-mail to several fellow Guard members, and to the Boston Globe, which had run column about the arrest. In that column, Yvonne Abraham asked readers, “Would you stand for this kind of treatment, in your own home, by a police officer who by now clearly has no right to be there?” Barrett’s response, posted on a Boston television station’s Web site, was that if he had “been the officer [Gates] verbally assaulted like a banana-eating jungle monkey, I would have sprayed him in the face with OC (oleorosin capsicum, or pepper spray), deserving of his belligerent non-compliance.” During his online tirade, Barrett repeated “jungle monkey” four times. He continued, saying, “I’m not a racist but I am prejudice [sic] towards people who are stupid and pretend to stand up and preach for something they say is freedom but it is merely attention because you do not get enough of it in your little fear-dwelling circle of on-the-bandwagon followers.” Barrett’s attorney, Peter Marano, said his client was taken out of context. “Officer Barrett did not call professor Gates a jungle monkey or malign him racially,” Marano said. “He said his behavior was like that of one. It was a characterization of the actions of that man.”” Boston Police Commissioner Edward Davis was convinced. He snatched Barrett’s gun and badge. The officer is now “on administrative leave, pending the outcome of a termination hearing.”

Powell Weighs in on Gates’ Arrest

ewiley — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 13:29:35 +0000

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell, in an interview with CNN, said that the Black Harvard professor who was arrested by a White policeman at his own home, merely wanted to get to bed after a long trip. But he noted that Henry Louis “Skip” Gates would have had a much easier time had he chilled out a bit during the officer’s July 16 investigation of a burglary of his Cambridge, Mass., home. Gates “might have waited a while, come outside, talked to the officer, and that might have been the end of it,” Powell told Larry King this week. “I think he should have reflected on whether or not this was the time to make that big a deal,” he said. However, Powell said, Gates was just home from China and New York and “all he wanted to do was get to bed.” The encounter between Gates and the officer, Cambridge Police Sgt. James Crowley, kicked off a firestorm of controversy. A neighbor who witnessed Gates struggling with the lock of his door called 911 to report a possible burglary in progress. When police arrived and saw Gates inside the home, they asked him to step outside, perhaps suggesting he was a suspect. Gates lambasted the policeman, asking whether he was being targeted because of his race. His comments resulted in his arrest on charges of disorderly conduct. Many have characterized the incident as brazen racism, because Gates was home at the time. Others contend that Gates should have been more cooperative with the officer. Even the president weighed in, saying the officer acted “stupidly.” Obama later said he regretted using such language and invited Gates and Crowley to the White House for a beer.

Story of Gates vs. Police Unlikely to Go Away

ewiley — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 13:58:14 +0000

While the lead characters in the most talked-about incident of the past week – Harvard University Professor Henry Louis Gates, Cambridge Police Sgt. James Crowley and President Obama – say they’re praying this story will finally go away, recent circumstances suggest that that’s far from likely. The president’s suggestion that the three of them guzzle a beer together guarantees a lingering subplot; Gate’s promise to use the incident as a teaching moment means he won’t be leaving the topic alone just yet; and the revelation Monday from the woman who called police to report a suspected burglary on July 16 never mentioned Gates’ race shines the light back on police, who assumed the professor was a suspect when they showed up at his home to answer the call. On Friday, Gates said that “in the end, this is not about me at all,” noting that it could serve as a way to promote fairness in a system where Black men are categorically racially profiled and denied justice. On Friday, on his Web site, The Root, Gates said he told Obama that he’d be glad to meet with him and Crowley. “I told the president that my principal regret was that all of the attention paid to his deeply supportive remarks during his press conference had distracted attention from his health care initiative,” Gates said. “I am pleased that he, too, is eager to use my experience as a teaching moment, and if meeting Sergeant Crowley for a beer with the president will further that end, then I would be happy to oblige.” Just a day or so before those comments, it was apparent that Gates was getting ready to levy a megabuck lawsuit against the Cambridge Police Department, whom the professor’s attorney argued had no right to arrest him for disorderly conduct at his own home. No word yet on whether the lawsuit idea has been abandoned. Meanwhile, Lucia Whalen, the 40-year-old woman who made the 911 call after observing men on the deck of the Gates home, said she is “personally devastated” by media accounts that she phoned police because the men she reported seeing were Black. Wendy Murphy, a Boston lawyer, said that Whalen only called police because she was aware of recent burglaries in the area and that she only saw the backs of both men and never knew their race. Police now acknowledge that their report, saying Whalen observed “what appeared to be two Black males with backpacks on the front porch,’’ is inaccurate. If that’s not enough to keep the story percolating over the next several days, remember, there’s still tapes of the police encounter with Gates floating around, and many people are demanding to hear what actually went on.

“I’d Get Shot,” Says Pres. Obama

thenry — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 02:33:09 +0000

When Lynn Sweet of the Chicago Sun-Times asked President Obama about Harvard professor Henry Louis “Skip” Gates’ arrest, the President got a few laughs from his audience, but gave a pointed response to the question.

First he issued the caveat: “I may be a little biased,” he said. “Skip Gates is a friend.”

“I think it’s fair to say, No. 1, any of us would be pretty angry. No. 2, the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home. And No. 3, what I think we know separate and apart from this incident is there is a long history in this country of African Americans and Latinos being stopped by police disproportionately. That’s just a fact.”

He capped it off with the joke that had his audience laughing. If he tried to jimmy his way into the White House, he said, “I’d get shot.”

Police Withdraw Charges Against Arrested Black Scholar

ewiley — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 13:40:36 +0000

Amid claims of racism, authorities in Cambridge, Mass., have abandoned charges of disorderly conduct against Harvard University Professor Henry Louis Gates, the world-renowned African-American scholar arrested last week after trying to gain entry into his own home. Initially, police in the Boston suburb claimed that Gates, 58, who had just returned from a trip to China, displayed “loud and tumultuous behavior” against officers who showed up at his home after a neighbor called police to report that an intruder was trying to break into a home. Gates said he immediately told officers that he was merely having a hard time opening his door. On Tuesday, Cambridge Police Department issued a statement saying, “The City of Cambridge, the Cambridge Police Department, and Professor Gates acknowledge that the incident of July 16, 2009 was regrettable and unfortunate. This incident should not be viewed as one that demeans the character and reputation of Professor Gates or the character of the Cambridge Police Department,” the statement said, adding that the charges were dropped. But the statement will do little to draw back the embarrassment experienced by Gates, and the incident serves as a reminder that even a preeminent Black scholar can be manhandled based on race. “I’m outraged that this could happen to me in my own home but I’m outraged that it could happen to any individual,” Gates said in an interview with The Washington Post. He called the episode “deeply painful and traumatic,” saying he would use it as the basis for a documentary on “racial profiling.”