Stickin' his nose in where it doesn't belong

[Babagounj]

home ownership was not the problem......Gates's not complying was......you don't yell at police, you just do what they say, or you get dragged down to the station.

From what I've heard about Gates, from other nicer Cambridge people, his attitude that day was common behavior for him.

 

[diesel96]

I don't claim to be at the scene like BaBa does, but IMO Officer Crowley's ego clashed with Professor Gate's racial tantrum......problem is no law has been broken once home/property owner was established......

Actually I was in cambridge that day, a couple of blocks away, meeting drivers to exchange misloads. And the Id that Gates handed over was his Harvard Id, which does not have his address on it ( he was renting the house from Harvard Univ.), that was when Sgt Crowley requested Harvard univ. police.

And i'm waiting to hear those police tapes.

Being in Cambridge a couple blocks away from the scene, is the same as being in Alaska 3000 miles away....

home ownership was not the problem......Gates's not complying was......you don't yell at police, you just do what they say, or you get dragged down to the station.

Establishing home ownership was every bit of the problem....once innocence is established, Gates can call him every name in the book and throw the racial card all he wants to, question is, was this Officer's ego big enough to walk away from a 58 yr old black Professor with a cane all up in his face...obviously not, hence a false arrest that would never have stood up....

 

[over9five]

This is not news....obviously your not aware of a Police officers code of honor.....Can you imagine what his career would evolve into had he not support his fellow officer.....nice spin though...lol

So you call the black officer a liar? I think that even if his story was reversed (ie the sargent arrested Gates becuse the sargent is a bigot), his career would have been a lot BETTER.

Perhaps a White House Secret Service gig could have been arranged.....

 

[moreluck]

I think Gates probably has a chip on his shoulder and an attitude like the young Hollywood stars of "Do you know who I am?" Like a Jeremy Piven who is a completee ********* about his celebrity.

Gates has been waiting to encounter police and start yelling racism ever since his last NAACP meeting........

I include my own brother in this next description.......college educated dummies !! There's a lot of them out there....all book-learnin' and no common sense at all.

 

[soberups]

Here's the deal;

We live in a society that has criminals running around, so we have a police force to deal with them. We give those police badges and handcuffs and guns and tell them to put their lives on the line every day to keep the bad guys off the streets.

The cops in this case got a call of a reported breaking and entering. The arrived on scene without the facts that are now available to any Monday-morning QB with Internet access. For their own safety they had to treat the call as a felony in progress.

That means that when they arrive the first order of business is to take control of the situation until such time as identities are confirmed and there is an understanding of who is and who is not a bad guy.

We the people have an abundance of rights in regards to our dealings with the police. We have the right to an attorney, we have the right to remain silent and to be informed of the charges against us, and we have the right to be free from search and siezure without warrant or probable cause.

Those rights....carry with them some responsibilities. For starters, we have the responsibility to behave in a calm, polite, and cooperative manner when dealing with the police. We have the responsibility...to remember that it isnt all about us and that there is a reason for the procedures that the police must follow when responding to a report of a felony in progress.

Mr Gates was apparently unaware of or chose to ignore his responsibilities in the situation. He was so busy playing the victim card that he overlooked his own role in creating the report of a felony in progress.

Like it or not, if the cops are called to your home to investigate a burglary in progress they are going to be there a while and they are going to question and detain everyone present until the situation is clarified. Yelling, whining and throwing a tantrum because you feel "discriminated" against wont make things any better. It is sort of like dealing with a contract violation at work; like it or not you still have to work as directed, so the appropriate way to deal with the problem is to cooperate with management, work as instructed, and grieve it later.

 

[tourists24]

Establishing home ownership was every bit of the problem....once innocence is established, Gates can call him every name in the book and throw the racial card all he wants to, question is, was this Officer's ego big enough to walk away from a 58 yr old black Professor with a cane all up in his face...obviously not, hence a false arrest that would never have stood up....

I think in this case D,,, you are asking the right question and making the correct arguement. Unfortunately this is not was the whole story was about.... It was entirely based on racial lines to grab the headlines....

 

[toonertoo]

Excellent post read it again.

here's the deal;

we live in a society that has criminals running around, so we have a police force to deal with them. We give those police badges and handcuffs and guns and tell them to put their lives on the line every day to keep the bad guys off the streets.

The cops in this case got a call of a reported breaking and entering. The arrived on scene without the facts that are now available to any monday-morning qb with internet access. For their own safety they had to treat the call as a felony in progres

that means that when they arrive the first order of business is to take control of the situation until such time as identities are confirmed and there is an understanding of who is and who is not a bad guy.

We the people have an abundance of rights in regards to our dealings with the police. We have the right to an attorney, we have the right to remain silent and to be informed of the charges against us, and we have the right to be free from search and siezure without warrant or probable cause.

Those rights....carry with them some responsibilities. for starters, we have the responsibility to behave in a calm, polite, and cooperative manner when dealing with the police. We have the responsibility...to remember that it isnt all about us and that there is a reason for the procedures that the police must follow when responding to a report of a felony in progress.

Mr gates was apparently unaware of or chose to ignore his responsibilities in the situation. He was so busy playing the victim card that he overlooked his own role in creating the report of a felony in progress.

Like it or not, if the cops are called to your home to investigate a burglary in progress they are going to be there a while and they are going to question and detain everyone present until the situation is clarified. Yelling, whining and throwing a tantrum because you feel "discriminated" against wont make things any better. It is sort of like dealing with a contract violation at work; like it or not you still have to work as directed, so the appropriate way to deal with the problem is to cooperate with management, work as instructed, and grieve it later.

 

[diesel96]

Sober, you seem to be placing our constitutional rights as individuals/homeowners on the same plane as emotional responsibilities....we all can agree, the police have a difficult job to carry out. They deal with difficult and highstrung people everyday. However they are supposed to have a basic knowledge of the law, otherwise their arrest will be nix by the DA or be thrown out in a court of law in a heartbeat....as difficult as it was to obtain proper id and ownership, Officer Crowley's deed was concluded at the Gates residence. At that point Gates doesn't have the responsibility to behave in a calm, polite, cooperative manner to avoid arrest. At that point,(I wouldn't recommend it) Mr Gates can order the police off his property. I still can't believe, because of the individuals, race, and the politics involved, my conservative and libertarian friends are giving this arrest of an innocent but angry man, in his own home, a free pass. I am not that willing to give up our freedoms...even if I dislike Prof Gates behavior....

 

[toonertoo]

I would bet you as a rational person would have behaved differently.
I know I would, and I do not like being bothered in my home. It is easier to do what is polite and correct. It isnt like he was rifling through his personal effects.
I say he acted irrationally.
But then I was not there, so I will not say either acted stupidly.

 

[soberups]

Sober, you seem to be placing our constitutional rights as individuals/homeowners on the same plane as emotional responsibilities....we all can agree, the police have a difficult job to carry out. They deal with difficult and highstrung people everyday. However they are supposed to have a basic knowledge of the law, otherwise their arrest will be nix by the DA or be thrown out in a court of law in a heartbeat....as difficult as it was to obtain proper id and ownership, Officer Crowley's deed was concluded at the Gates residence. At that point Gates doesn't have the responsibility to behave in a calm, polite, cooperative manner to avoid arrest. At that point,(I wouldn't recommend it) Mr Gates can order the police off his property. I still can't believe, because of the individuals, race, and the politics involved, my conservative and libertarian friends are giving this arrest of an innocent but angry man, in his own home, a free pass. I am not that willing to give up our freedoms...even if I dislike Prof Gates behavior....

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2009/0723092gates1.html

Here is the official report of the arresting officer.

Not only did he initially refuse the officers request that he come outside and identify himself...but once his identity had been established he followed the officer outside his home and continued shouting and yelling obscenities at him. He was warned...twice...that if he continued this behavior he would be arrested and charged with disorderly conduct. He chose to continue the behavior, so he was arrested.

The arrest was legal. His behavior met the legal standard for disorderly conduct. He was warned. He chose to break the law. More importantly...he made a decision to be a victim, and to accuse the officer of racial bias, rather than to obey the law and cooperate with the police in their investigation of a reported felony in progress.

Obama owes the Cambridge PD a public apology for his ignorant statements during the press conference.

 

[Jones]

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2009/0723092gates1.html

Here is the official report of the arresting officer.

Not only did he initially refuse the officers request that he come outside and identify himself...but once his identity had been established he followed the officer outside his home and continued shouting and yelling obscenities at him. He was warned...twice...that if he continued this behavior he would be arrested and charged with disorderly conduct. He chose to continue the behavior, so he was arrested.

The arrest was legal. His behavior met the legal standard for disorderly conduct. He was warned. He chose to break the law. More importantly...he made a decision to be a victim, and to accuse the officer of racial bias, rather than to obey the law and cooperate with the police in their investigation of a reported felony in progress.

Obama owes the Cambridge PD a public apology for his ignorant statements during the press conference.

You're acting as if whatever the officer wrote down must be the way everything happened, without question.
You do realize that an arresting officer always writes a report that supports his version of events and casts himself in the best light, just following proper procedures, suspect was completely in the wrong, etc, right? It's not gospel and it's certainly not objective. I've actually been arrested under false pretenses, and when I saw the [-]exercise in creative writing[/-] report that the officer had written it was amazing how little resemblance it bore to what actually happened. Fortunately I had several witnesses who saw what really happened and the charges were dropped.
I'm not saying that Crowley is a liar, or that Gates didn't act like a jackass (I suspect he did). But I certainly wouldn't rely solely on the police report of the officer involved to determine the truth. The only guarantee with a police report is that it's going to cover the officer's ass.

 

[Babagounj]

So the only way to prove who is telling the absolute truth would be from the audio police tapes and the statements for the witnesses ( course they only saw what happened when Gates was on the porch ).
Or we could just wait until all the lawsuits make it to court .

 

[Jones]

So the only way to prove who is telling the absolute truth would be from the audio police tapes and the statements for the witnesses ( course they only saw what happened when Gates was on the porch ).
Or we could just wait until all the lawsuits make it to court .

Well, thats why we have a court system, judges, juries, etc. You're not guilty just because a cop says so in his "report". And that's a good thing.

 

[soberups]

One of the cops was black, and he is reporting the same thing as all the other witnesses; that Gates followed the officer out on the porch yelling and screaming and engaging in behavior that met the legal definiton of the crime of disorderly conduct.

If you have a problem with "disorderly conduct" being a crime thats one thing; but the cops dont write the laws they only enforce them.

The whole point of this case was the accusation of racial bias. There wasnt any, according to the witnesses on the scene one of whom is black himself. The police were there investigting a possible felony in progress; they did their jobs in an apropriate manner; and Mr Gates chose to inflame the situation with his totally unfounded accusations of "racism" and his uncooperative, disorderly behavior. And Obama only made it worse by making more false accusations of racism and stupidity against the police dept when he had no factual basis for doing so.

 

[soberups]

If we as a society are going to classify a broad range of criminal behavior as "hate crimes" worthy of harsher consequences solely because of racist motives on the part of the perpetrator....then we need to look at both sides of that coin.

If a cop is doing his job and gets falsely accused of being a racist....then that action should also be classified as a hate crime and whoever makes that false accusation should be charged with such.

You cant have it both ways. You cant play the race card only when it suits you and then expect no consequences when your accusation is false.

Such false accusations can destroy someones career. And they are based upon the race of the person involved; therefore in my opinion they meet the legal definintion of a hate crime.

 

[Jones]

One of the cops was black, and he is reporting the same thing as all the other witnesses; that Gates followed the officer out on the porch yelling and screaming and engaging in behavior that met the legal definiton of the crime of disorderly conduct.

If you have a problem with "disorderly conduct" being a crime thats one thing; but the cops dont write the laws they only enforce them.

The whole point of this case was the accusation of racial bias. There wasnt any, according to the witnesses on the scene one of whom is the [-]arresting officer's partner[/-] black himself. The police were there investigting a possible felony in progress; they did their jobs in an apropriate manner; and Mr Gates chose to inflame the situation with his totally unfounded accusations of "racism" and his uncooperative, disorderly behavior. And Obama only made it worse by making more false accusations of racism and stupidity against the police dept when he had no factual basis for doing so.

You have absolutely no evidence of that beyond what the officer wrote in his report. Surprise surprise, the arresting officer wrote a report that justified everything he did and his partners backed him up. Why it's like Jesus himself has spoken .

 

[Jones]

If we as a society are going to classify a broad range of criminal behavior as "hate crimes" worthy of harsher consequences solely because of racist motives on the part of the perpetrator....then we need to look at both sides of that coin.

If a cop is doing his job and gets falsely accused of being a racist....then that action should also be classified as a hate crime and whoever makes that false accusation should be charged with such.

You cant have it both ways. You cant play the race card only when it suits you and then expect no consequences when your accusation is false.

Such false accusations can destroy someones career. And they are based upon the race of the person involved; therefore in my opinion they meet the legal definintion of a hate crime.

Who's talking about a hate crime here? Gates claims he was arrested for something he wasn't guilty of, ie, disorderly conduct. If the cops had a good case they shouldn't have dropped the charges. If they had a good case and still dropped the charges then that's almost as bad, because it shows that they really don't treat everyone equally(another shocker!). He's also claiming that he was targeted because he was black, and while that may not be true in this case if you think that cops, particualrly in large cities, don't engage in racial profiling you need to get out more.

 

[diesel96]

It's astonishing, how some here so eagerly side with the Cambridge Police as the word of God, embracing an angry but innocent man's unconstitutional arrest within his own home/property.Yet when it comes to fear mongering rumors of Obama and the Police coming to your home to take your gun or arrest you, all of a sudden, the gov't/police is the enemy...."you'll have to pry that gun from my cold dead hands".....You know who you are out there.....

 

[moreluck]

I usually do side with the police.....I sided with the police with Rodney King. They have the guns, I do what they say.

 

[diesel96]

I usually do side with the police.....I sided with the police with Rodney King. They have the guns, I do what they say.

Sounds like your afraid of the dark, unfortunately it may have been instilled in your younger days. Hopefully your kids and grandkids have seen the light......maybe they can order you some night-vision goggles for X-mas....