It may have happened nearly a week ago, but reports are only surfacing NOW that famed Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. was arreseted for disorderly conduct Thursday night after a neighbor reported seeing “a man” prying open Gates’ front door.
Turns out that “man” was none other than Gates himself trying to get inside his Cambridge, MA home.
Unsurprisingly — and understandably — Gates has decried the entire affair as a case of racism, saying to the officers nabbing him: “This is what happens to black men in America.”
Gates is keeping mum on the incident and referring media to his lawyer. Local police, meanwhile, are also keeping mum — and we suspect will be referred to immediate racial sensitivity training.
I feel very sorry that this individual was apparently arrested while doing nothing wrong. But from the sparse facts, it doesn’t seem like the police engaged in racial profiling or did anything wrong at all. If the neighbors report a white man they don’t recognize breaking into a house in the middle of the night, I’m sure the police would arrest him too unless he could quickly prove that he did in fact live there. It will be interesting to hear the back story.
So from now on, we will not call the police if we see someone we do not recognize trying to get into a house. That lady would have called the cops if it was a white guy also. The professor did not communicate who he was and yelled at the cops. I am tired of race being used as an excuse for everything. (As a young girl growing up in East Orange, NJ in the 1950′s, I was a victim of hate crimes by black kids because I was white.)
who knows what exactly is going on here
the problem is, that they chose the wrong black man to arrest
it will be indeed
Why not simply tell them its his house? Sure, they might detain him while they verify identity, etc. but there’s gotta be more to this.
Ok, I read the Herald version. Now, if its true that he refused to identify himself, then I’m not sure this is racism. Police observe person trying to bust a door down. They investigate. Person breaking in door starts yelling at them, he gets arrested. Happens all the time.
Like I said above, maybe there is more to this. And, the fact that he was tried with Disorderly Conduct and not B&E or attempted robbery indicates that the police may have figured out who he was by the time that they charged him.
Of course, that’s the Hearld/BPD version. I would like to hear his version.
we’re gonna hear his version alright!
well, when noam chomsky is arrested under similar circumstances, we’ll know it’s not racism. until then, let the debate continue!
Apparently, an older professorial-looking black male who quickly produced a driver’s license showing he lived there was arrested by police officers who still couldn’t believe he was just an accomplished black guy who owned a home. The police report says that Mr. Gates got increasingly upset that the police didn’t believe that he lived there and refused to leave despite Mr. Gates showing them evidence that he did live there, and they claim that this was appropriate justification for arresting him. I sincerely hope that the police officers involved get fired and the city quickly settle’s with the top-notch Harvard Law prof representing Mr. Gates.
No, fools & Kathleen, he DID identify himself to the cops (as news reports detail) AND he was INSIDE of his home when the cops asked him to come outside and ignored his identifications, still claiming that he was somehow a burglar. And you must be a wizard because you somehow know whether or not the white neighbor would have done the same thing to a white man. How can you be living next to Professor Gates in Cambridge and mistake his identity. The cops CLEARLY over-stepped their bounds. After he produced his IDs (which he did) they should have apologized for the intrusion and left. Simple as that. I wish to GOD white people would think about how they felt if they were CONTINUALLY profiled in these sorts of ways regardless of their station in life. But I’ve learned to NEVER expect that most white persons will EVER consider the gravity of the daily profiling that blacks endure.
As long as Black people use the race card, America will be a divided nation.
We are not Black Americans or Asian Americans or anything but “Americans”.
If you act like a criminal (not saying he did) you should be arrested , White, Black, Red or Violet.b
yes
but clearly we are not a nation of equals
Missing from this story but in the police report: it was noon, not the middle of the night. He showed the police his license — with his name, picture, and address of his house on it — and his work (Harvard) ID. And still they arrested him.
this story is crazy
heads are gonna roll
Vegetable – you apparently read a different version of the story than everyone else. If I lived next to Prof. Gates, I would not know who he was, unless he or another neighbor told me. (As for your wish to God about white people, I would like to show you my leg scar from two black boys shoving wood with nails into it when I was 11 years old.)
You mofos are idiots, no one is playing the race card but it is funny how this has happened to two different prominent African-American professors. We are a nation divided and were being divided by the same ones who turns their back and act in denial of serious social inequalities that go on a regular basis. You mofos need to wake the “F” up