Who Blew It? President Obama, Professor Gates or Sgt. Crowley

@Yankee,

You sure do have an aversion to facts, don't you, Yankee?

@engineer,

engineer wrote:

If someone bumped me, resulting in me stepping on someone's foot, then I shouldn't apologize because I did nothing wrong? If that person then gets into my face about it and I'm a police officer, I can arrest them? The courts in Mass. have established that being loud and insulting to a police officer is not grounds for arrest. If we arrested people who ever get loud and insulting, the six remaining people would have to build jails non-stop. Crowley did do something wrong. He over-reacted to Gates' over-reaction. But Crowley did it with his badge, using his authority to arrest someone for something that is not a crime.

Refusing to comply with a reasonable request by an officer of the law, and particularly doing do insultingly and aggressively has always been grounds for arrest. Once it became generally known that when police ask for reasonable cooperation in an investigation, you could tell them to go *&^$& themselves and refuse to comply with every reasonable request that they made, it would be almost impossible for the police to function anymore. Crowley did nothing wrong because he functioned completely within the bounds of accepted procedure. He simply has nothing to apologize for to someone whom he arrested for very good reason. In this particular case, an arrest would be an implied admission of guilt, when, in fact, the only thing he was guilty of was investigating a reported burglary and trying to maintain order. Gates, on the other hand, does have something to apologize for, but I note that he hasn't done so.

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@Cycloptichorn,

Cycloptichorn wrote:

Brandon9000 wrote:

engineer wrote:

What I don't understand is why Sgt. Crowley doesn't just apologize. If I accidentally step on someone's foot, I would say "I'm sorry". I didn't mean to step on his foot. There was no bias involved. Maybe someone bumped me so it wasn't even my fault. Still, I would say "sorry". Crowley was just doing his job, but he essentially stepped on Gates' foot. Sure, Gates got in his face. Crowley should have said (even if he didn't mean it) "sorry to disturb you" and been on his way. I don't see how arresting Gates constitutes following "proper procedures."

He doesn't apologize because he did nothing wrong. Why doesn't Gates apologize for going haywire in Crowley's face? When a cop tries to resolve a potential crime with an innocent party of interest and the latter is substantially uncooperative, loud, and insulting, it is probably very standard for the cop to arrest him for disorderly conduct.

He clearly did do something wrong, Brandon. He arrested Gates for bullshit reasons. That is an abuse of his power.

Gates was not engaging in disorderly conduct in any fashion. You can't just throw a legal term like that around like it means whatever you want, in a discussion about whether or not a cop is right to arrest someone.

Cycloptichorn

I'll agree that if Gates was not engaging in disorderly conduct, he shouldn't have been arrested for that, but what the accounts seem to show is that he was.

1 Reply

@Brandon9000,

Quote:

I'll agree that if Gates was not engaging in disorderly conduct, he shouldn't have been arrested for that, but what the accounts seem to show is that he was.

Do you know the definition for 'disorderly conduct' in MA?

Cycloptichorn

1 Reply

@Cycloptichorn,

Cycloptichorn wrote:

Quote:

I'll agree that if Gates was not engaging in disorderly conduct, he shouldn't have been arrested for that, but what the accounts seem to show is that he was.

Do you know the definition for 'disorderly conduct' in MA?

Cycloptichorn

If he was insulting, uncooperative, and aggressive, and if he responded to really reasonable requests with insults, that's good enough for me. Any precedent which makes it even harder for the police to function is not a good idea. Any precedent which allows people to refuse reasonable and justifed requests by police performing proper investigations, but to mock them and insult them instead is a bad idea for society.

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@Brandon9000,

Quote:

Any precedent which makes it even harder for the police to function is not a good idea.

Woah there. Actually, precedents which make it harder for police to function are great. These precedents are the ones which protect our personal freedoms - just as Mr. Gates' freedom to say what he wishes, within his own home, to a peace officer who was not invited in and had no warrant, deserves to be protected.

Cops are public servants who exist in order to assist the orderly function of society. We owe them our thanks and respect, but they have no special power over citizens which compels citizens to act obediently around them.

I take it then that you don't know the legal definition? It is important for cops to, yaknow, follow the law when dealing with citizens; not make decisions based on what is 'good enough.'

Cycloptichorn

1 Reply

@Cycloptichorn,

Cycloptichorn wrote:

Quote:
Any precedent which makes it even harder for the police to function is not a good idea.

Woah there. Actually, precedents which make it harder for police to function are great. These precedents are the ones which protect our personal freedoms - just as Mr. Gates' freedom to say what he wishes, within his own home, to a peace officer who was not invited in and had no warrant, deserves to be protected.

Cops are public servants who exist in order to assist the orderly function of society. We owe them our thanks and respect, but they have no special power over citizens which compels citizens to act obediently around them.

I take it then that you don't know the legal definition? It is important for cops to, yaknow, follow the law when dealing with citizens; not make decisions based on what is 'good enough.'

Cycloptichorn

I agree, but it's really about a proper placing of the bad behavior threshold. When you get to the point of refusing reasonable requests which the police make so that they can proceed with their investigations, and bellowing insults, it seems to me to be over the threshold. If that's not within the definition of disorderly conduct, it should be. I don't want the police to have unreasonable discretionary authority, but I don't want their job to be so difficult that only a nut would do it.

1 Reply

@Brandon9000,

Cycloptichorn wrote:

Do you know the definition for 'disorderly conduct' in MA?

Brandon9000 wrote:

If he was insulting, uncooperative, and aggressive, and if he responded to really reasonable requests with insults, that's good enough for me.

If I may summarize your answer in my own words, it is that, no, you don't know the definition for "disorderly conduct" in Massachusetts. And you can't be bothered to look it up. Your own, subjective, seat-of-the-pants sentiment is "good enough" for you. Frankly, I find this remarkable. You've been dwelling on the issue of disorderly conduct from page one. Is it really too much trouble for you to run a Google search on "disorderly conduct Massachusetts"? It would have quickly yielded a fine summary by a lawfirm specialized in these things -- a secondary, but professional source unrelated to the case, easily good enough for our discussion. Here's what it says:

Quote:

A "disorderly person" is defined as one who:

* with purpose to cause public inconvenience, annoyance or alarm, or
* recklessly creates a risk thereof
* engages in fighting or threatening, violent or tumultuous behavior, or
* creates a hazard or physically offensive condition by any act which serves no legitimate purpose.

Source

May I suggest that you work from the actual definition for a change, and that you show us specific documentation of Gates's behavior fitting the definition? How did Gates cause public inconvenience, annoyance, or alarm? How did he recklessly create a risk thereof? How did he engage in fighting or threatening, violent, or tumultuous behavior, as opposed to just being uncooperative? How did he gratuitously create a hazard or physically offensive condition?

I'm willing to be persuaded -- but don't expect to persuade a lot of people by hiding behind lines like "that's good enough for me".

EDIT: At the end of the page I linked to, they reprint the relevant part of the actual statute:

Quote:

MGL CHAPTER 272. Mass General Laws, excerpt.

Section 53. Common night walkers, common street walkers, both male and female, common railers and brawlers, persons who with offensive and disorderly acts or language accost or annoy persons of the opposite sex, lewd, wanton and lascivious persons in speech or behavior, idle and disorderly persons, disturbers of the peace, keepers of noisy and disorderly houses, and persons guilty of indecent exposure may be punished by imprisonment in a jail or house of correction for not more than six months, or by a fine of not more than two hundred dollars, or by both such fine and imprisonment.

It is blatantly obvious that this does not apply to anyone's conduct in their own home, no matter how much the police may dislike it.

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@Thomas,

Quote:

It is blatantly obvious that this does not apply to anyone's conduct in their own home, no matter how much the police may dislike it

This was not obvious to the arresting officer, nor it seems to all of the other cops at the scene, nor it seems to the supervisor on duty, nor it seems to the DA on duty. The dropping of the charges took several days of negotiation, Gates was not instantly kicked free as was alleged by several a2k members. The NYT piece of Sunday says as much.

I argue that had the charges been as bogus as you claim they were it would not have taken several days to drop the charges. The behaviour of the officials in this case prove that you are wrong.....unless you are smarter than they are.

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@Thomas,

I just had a thought. Was it not the cab driver who brought Professor Gates home that was helping Gates with the swollen door. Was there a cab parked in front of the house? The cab driver apparently has not been interviewed to my knowledge.

Hmmmm. What think you Thomas?

1 Reply

@Sglass,

it was not a cab driver, it was gate's personal driver whom is supplied by Harvard. Neither Gates nor Harvard care to draw attention to the fact that Gates is treated like a prince, if not better. It rather gets in the way of Gates victim power play.

1 Reply

@JTT,

How so? There were not 2 people in the house?

1 Reply

@Yankee,

Tonight.. we are all getting together to have a beer and put this whole incident behind us.

You can apologize at that time if you want to Yankee. Wink

1 Reply

@parados,

Once Mr Gates apologizes for his behavior, I expect Sgt Crowley to apologize for not walking away. Cool

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@hawkeye10,

hawkeye10 wrote:

it was not a cab driver, it was gate's personal driver whom is supplied by Harvard. Neither Gates nor Harvard care to draw attention to the fact that Gates is treated like a prince, if not better. It rather gets in the way of Gates victim power play.

This is bullshit. He doesn't have a 'personal driver,' he has a 'car service.' We have that at our Law School too. When professors or others from the school travel on business, we use this service in lieu of having them take cabs to the airport (and them reimbursing them for it). Directly billing saves our business group a lot of time and paperwork, so it works out to be a great deal for the University.

Don't talk about stuff you really don't know anything about, as if you do. Mkay?

Cycloptichorn

3 Replies

@Brandon9000,

Quote:

I agree, but it's really about a proper placing of the bad behavior threshold. When you get to the point of refusing reasonable requests which the police make so that they can proceed with their investigations, and bellowing insults, it seems to me to be over the threshold. If that's not within the definition of disorderly conduct, it should be. I don't want the police to have unreasonable discretionary authority, but I don't want their job to be so difficult that only a nut would do it.

Surely, as a Conservative, you can agree that a Man's home is his Castle. The cop was not invited in, and if Gates has free speech rights anywhere, it's in his own home!

True, he acted like an ass; but it isn't illegal to act like an ass. He wasn't causing a public disturbance, he wasn't doing anything except giving a cop a hard time. When cops start arresting those who give them a hard time, it is an abuse of authority and should not be tolerated.

Cycloptichorn

3 Replies

@Cycloptichorn,

I love this Cyclo

Ann Coulter and Michelle Maklin have accused political columnist Lynn Sweet of being in collusion with the White House to ask the President the pertinent question viz a viz Professor Gates unforunate experience with the Cambrige Police.

Sorry girls, Sweet beat you to the punch.

Question, how many Cambridge policemen does it take to screw in a light bulb, or maybe Crowley needs a new pair of glasses.

1 Reply

@Sglass,

Seriously? Why would the WH do that, it did nothing but get them in trouble.

That's about the dumbest **** I've ever heard - thanks for bringing it to my attention!

Cycloptichorn

1 Reply

@Cycloptichorn,

Anytime my fellow West Texan.

Seaglass

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@Cycloptichorn,

Quote:

This is bullshit. He doesn't have a 'personal driver,' he has a 'car service.' We have that at our Law School too

I believe that when Gates made some noise awhile back about not being completely happy at harvard (AKA he might move on) that one of the many ways that Harvard sweatened the deal was to upgrade his car service to a "personal" driver and car.

I can't document at the moment.

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Who Blew It? President Obama, Professor Gates or Sgt. Crowley

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