So here, the questions are: What did Gates actually say? If he was addressing the officer, where those statements intended to provoke the officer to react violently? Could the statements have provokes another bystander to violence?
Of course, the decision as to whether or not a particular incident such as this amounts to a crime happens later, in court. At the scene, practically speaking, the officer has the discretion to arrest and charge disorderly conduct as he sees fit. That charge may or may not hold up in court, and often it doesn’t. Realistically the officer would probably not face any backlash (unless the accused happens to be a prominent Harvard professor.)
Regardless of your take on this incident -- and I believe that the arresting officer, James Crowley, was probably in the wrong -- I think it's fair to say that the president of the United States should not be weighing in on a matter that involves his own friend. The president admirably acknowledge his own bias, but he really should've stayed out of it publicly -- even if he was asked about it directly.
More importantly, has anyone else noticed that this is pretty much the premise of the film Amos & Andrew?
Update: The Gates police report (via The Smoking Gun).
Earlier, a friend suggested to me that the president's comment was not a "big deal." I don't exactly disagree with that -- the amount of media coverage this comment has generated is absurd. But I also take Connor Friedersdorf's point:
Isn't it notable that six months into his presidency, the most prominent advocacy President Obama has done on behalf of minorities mistreated by police is to stand up for his Ivy League buddy? Somehow I imagine that Professor Gates would've fared just fine absent help from Harvard's most prominent alumnus.
Whereas if President Obama spoke up at a press conference on behalf of people wrongly imprisoned due to "testimony" by police dogs, or advocated for those sexually assaulted by an officer, or spoke against prosecutors who block access to DNA testing, or called out the officer who choked a paramedic, or objected to the practice of police killing family pets, or asked the Innocence Project for a clear cut case of injustice to publicize . . .
I think, most importantly, the president's comments were politically imprudent.
President Obama tends to come across as a uniquely fair-minded person -- a characteristic that will likely help him achieve many of his policy objectives -- but trivial incidents like this could easily undermine that public impression. Why even cultivate the illusion of a conflict of interest?
I agree here with Tyler Cowen:
Most of all, engaging with the incident has been one of the few major tactical mistakes of the Obama Presidency. Presidents (and many others) make big mistakes when they "respond" to people with much lower status than themselves, in this case the policeman and his ilk. The net effect is to lower the status of the Presidency and this will prove especially important when Obama is trying to pass a controversial health care plan. Today he looks less "post-racial" than he did a week ago and although it was only one slip it won't be easy to reverse that.
Update II: President Obama backs off of his comments:
This has been ratcheting up, and I obviously helped to contribute ratcheting it up. I want to make clear that in my choice of words, I think I unfortunately gave an impression that I was maligning the Cambridge Police Department and Sgt. Crowley specifically. And I could've calibrated those words differently.
11 comments:
I thought it was pretty strange for Obama to comment on the incidence, but he clearly wanted to. Do you think he will issue an apology at some point? At least by commenting, he is acknowledging these issues.
I found it interesting that Gates was glad that a neighbor called the police, becuase it proved what a good neighborhood he lived in and that he had caring neighbors.
But the question remain: Why did the incident escalate? Why didn't Officer Crowley believe Gates' ID? And why was Gates locked out of his house in the first place?
The officer did ultimately believe Gates's ID. Gates was arrested for disorderly conduct, not breaking and entering.
It's important to point out that there are very different accounts of what happened -- and, from what I gather, the other officers on the scene are standing behind Crowley. You're right that it's important to try to figure out how the situation escalated so quickly.
Obama has tried to clarify the comment, but he's clearly not backing off of it.
I think it's fair to say that the president of the United States should not be weighing in on a matter that involves his own friend. The president admirably acknowledge his own bias, but he really should've stayed out of it publicly -- even if he was asked about it directly.
I don't know - I thought it was a great way for him to work in something he has been passionate about for a long time, and that is disproportionate responses minorities receive from police officers. The fact is, this type of thing is rarely reported if it isn't a Harvard professor involved.
It's important to point out that there are very different accounts of what happened -- and, from what I gather, the other officers on the scene are standing behind Crowley.
See, what I wonder about is how often someone who wasn't a black guy has, if we go by the police's description, engaged in the same amount of disorderly conduct and not been arrested.
Connor Friedersdorf had a good post on this:
"Isn't it notable that six months into his presidency, the most prominent advocacy President Obama has done on behalf of minorities mistreated by police is to stand up for his Ivy League buddy? Somehow I imagine that Professor Gates would've fared just fine absent help from Harvard's most prominent alumnus."
You said, "See, what I wonder about is how often someone who wasn't a black guy has, if we go by the police's description, engaged in the same amount of disorderly conduct and not been arrested."
I wonder about that, too. And I think profiling is a big problem. But do you think it's fair for the president to automatically assume that is the case, when he has a clear conflict of interest?
There were multiple officers on the scene when Gates was arrested, and at least one of the other officers was black.
Like I said, I think it's certainly possible that -- whether or not his actions were racially motivated -- the arresting officer acted "stupidly." In my experience, cops have a tendency to throw their weight around when people don't respect their authority.
But, I'm not the president, and I don't know Gates personally . . .
Obama's comments weren't smart politically--I'm sure Gibbs & Co. are wishing he merely said "No comment" (which would probably unleash a story in itself)--but he was asked a question and answered honestly.
I can understand why James Crowley was offended, and, at least according to the police report, it seems that Gates did indeed make the incident much larger than it ever should have been.
I also assume that his door was just jammed (as a result of heat?), and that Lucia Whalen doesn't know or didn't recognize Gates.
Aside from the whole thing being blown out of proportion (as dumb/bad things presidents say, this is on the low scale, but it did ruin any coverage on his health plan objectives), do you still believe that James Crowley was in the wrong? The police report makes it clear that Gates provoked the arrest.
The police report makes it clear that Gates provoked the arrest.
Except police reports aren't objective statements of fact, but are the arresting officer's justification for the arrest.
There's a great Mike Birbiglia routine about how police reports are like school reports, and how his officer was likely to be at the bottom of his class.
But do you think it's fair for the president to automatically assume that is the case, when he has a clear conflict of interest?
I think it it is fair for him to say, as he did, that he didn't "know what role race played in that" particular instance, but to point out that the police "acted stupidly" and that there is a long and continuing history of disproportionate treatment. And that he, himself, if he weren't our president, would in all likelihood at some point find himself in a situation similar. That is the "there but for the grace of Secret Service go I" bit that I think is most important about Obama's answer. Because he makes it not just about Gates but about himself. Not all of us know of Gates or who Gates is as a person, but I think most of the people watching Obama's press conference could be fairly certain that Obama doesn't deserve to be arrested for being testy with an officer who may or may not have handled the entire situation prior to the arrest with aplomb.
You said, "Except police reports aren't objective statements of fact, but are the arresting officer's justification for the arrest."
Absolutely, but we shouldn't simply dismiss the police officer's account -- especially since parts of his story were verified by other officers on the scene. Police reports have to hold up to some scrutiny.
Police officers aren't objective, but neither are Harvard professors.
Absolutely, but we shouldn't simply dismiss the police officer's account -- especially since parts of his story were verified by other officers on the scene. Police reports have to hold up to some scrutiny.
I'm not suggesting that.
The hard part of race (and gender) studies is that it so often is predicated on unconscious cues. Expectations shift in ways that the person in question generally doesn't anticipate or recognize. In other words, if the arrest was predicated by the race of Gates, it wouldn't necessarily shine through the police report - and not even because the officer in question wanted it to hold up under scrutiny.
The other part of this, the whole "other officers held up his story" part of this, isn't as convincing for me because police officers have been known to cover for one another on matters large and small. They may not be in this case, but that also isn't something I personally take on faith.
You don't have to take the officer's report "on faith." I certainly don't.
But suggesting that the officer acted "stupidly" means discounting Crowley's version of events -- as well as all of the other officers who claim that he acted appropriately. Since the president acknowledged at the time that he didn't know all of that facts, I think it's clear that he prejudged the situation in a way that was unfair to the arresting officer.
I did the same thing, mind you. And I still suspect that the officer acted "stupidly" because of my own biases and preconceptions about police officers. (And maybe because I've been watching The Wire a bit too much lately.)
But, again, I'm not the president, and it's not my friend who was arrested.
I think that racial profiling is a big problem, but it's something that's really difficult to measure accurately. You have to control for so many factors.
This was not by any means a cut-and-dry case of racial profiling. Crowley didn't have a whole lot of discretion here. A neighbor called the police, and he had to investigate a suspected break-in. Whether Crowley acted inappropriately in arresting Gates depends largely on whether Gates's conduct was technically "disorderly."
That's why the narrative is so important. If Crowley is telling the truth, he acted appropriately. If Gates is telling the truth, Crowley acted stupidly.
This was not by any means a cut-and-dry case of racial profiling. Crowley didn't have a whole lot of discretion here. A neighbor called the police, and he had to investigate a suspected break-in. Whether Crowley acted inappropriately in arresting Gates depends largely on whether Gates's conduct was technically "disorderly."
There's a couple of things I have a problem with, and one of them is that for the entire incident, Gates was in his own home, and then on his own porch. He wasn't in public, and he does have a right to be less than polite to the cops in or around his home. The bar for "disorderly conduct", then, would be rather high.
The other thing is that the police arrived in response to a report of possible breaking and entering. The only reason why Gates would become disorderly is because the police came, and the police are trained to deal with less than polite conversation.
Either way, even if Gates was being a dick or an asshole or even less than cooperative, it does seem like the cops acted stupidly in arresting him. Because Gates doesn't have to be squeaky clean in order to have his arrest be unjustified.
The statutory definition of "disorderly conduct" is extremely vague. And without having been there, it's tough to know how the events actually played out.
Would you agree that there are some circumstances -- however extraordinary -- under which it would be appropriate to arrest a man in his home for disorderly conduct?
Like I said, I suspect that the officer may have acted stupidly. The issue is whether it was appropriate -- or politically prudent -- for the president to suggest that the arresting officer "acted stupidly" when he did not know the details of the case and he had a clear conflict of interest.
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