Hopefully, the President's latest comments will put an end to the uproar over the arrest of Professor Henry Gates, a 58 year old black man, in his home. The reason for the officer arresting the professor is that, when responding to a possible breaking and entering call, Professor Gates, tired and ill from a recent overseas trip, was less then nice to the officer and insulted him. The officer decided Gates was disturbing the peace and arrested him. In a nutshell, this all happened because two men were having a really bad day and took their frustrations out on each other.
Some have been crying racism but has been ignoring the bigger question. Since when is it illegal for a man, white or black, to insult a police officer from his own home? If a police officer wants to come into my home or me to step out of my home for questioning, I am perfectly within my rights to ask him for his search or arrest warrant first. Of course, it didn't help when President Obama opened his mouth because, as the President admitted, he doesn't know all the facts and shouldn't have stepped in.
We probably won't ever know what really happened aside from an over reaction by both parties and even this blog entry may be proven pre-mature one day. My problem centers around the arrest, Even looking at it in its best light, it all sounds fishy. The officer, upon finding Professor Gates in his own home, sees an elderly man with a cane. He has a report of two armed men breaking in. He doesn't know if those men are still in the house and possibly holding a companion of Mr. Gates hostage and Gates is being hostile because he is under duress. Gates, ill and probably suffering jet lag, is being cranky. Fine. It is what happened next that is interesting and I find a problem with, not on race issues, but on constitutional issues.
I find it difficult to believe the police department doesn't have training to deal with cranky older people who don't want the police in their home without permission. One would think that a senior officer would have developed a thick enough skin by time he or she is promoted to sergeant. And I also find it difficult to believe that a police officer doesn't know about the 1st (free speech) and 4th Amendments (search warrants) to the US Constitution that let Professor Gates say whatever he pleased and to keep on saying it (or course all bets were off once Gates stepped outside his door). Once Gates presented ID proving the house was his and then confirming that he was the one who broke into his own home the emergency that would have allowed the officer to enter Gates house without a warrant due to the need for immediate action was pretty much gone, except perhaps for the officer the Professor was not saying all was well under duress. Once that was gone, the officer had no business in the Professor's house and that brings me to the second troubling issue: freedom of speech. Since when is it a crime to raise your voice in your own home to an unwelcome visitor? In my house I thought I was allowed to be as disrespectful to a visitor as much as I wanted (or as my wife will let me when a certain visitor comes over with her dog that forgets to go outside when it needs to go outside for some private time)? I would think a man's home is one place where he could definitely say what is on his mind without fear of peresecution by the government. Yet, according to the Professor, the officer who entered the Professor's home without a warrant to ultimately arrest him for yelling feels that is apparently not the case.
That said, I can also see how the Professor over reacted. I find it hard to believe that an officer who teaches officers about the evils of racial profiling and by all accounts is a good guy was really just looking to put a black man in his place. There was a report of a breaking and entering. The officer came to verify all was well which may have included an additional action beyond verifying the house was Gates's home. That is good police work, though, since things didn't go smoothly, it seems pretty clear the officer didn't do a good job in explaining that to Professor Gates (and here I am assuming that is what happened next as it seems logical). For all we know the officer, looking at an elderly man with a cane, wasn't convinced that Gates was the person whoi broke in and believed the emergency situation requiring swift action by him, including checking out the Professor's house for intruders wasn't gone? Now imagine the officer took Gates' word and there really was someone in the house. The next days headlines would have been something like racist cops don't care enough to really protect black people.
If I broke into my house, I'd hope the cops showed up too (more likely my neighbors wouldn't notice, the problem of the suburbs) and I think it would be fair for me to prove that I was the owner of the house and to prove I wasn't telling the officers all was well under duress. I somehow doubt that the officer, once he verified Professor Gates was the owner of the home and not some confused elderly person who broke into a stranger's home thinking it his own, really thought Professor Gates was a danger. But the officer could have felt it necessary to make sure all was well in Professor Gates house even if Gates didn't want him to. It is too bad for the officer that his own report doesn't show this.
An officer verifying an elderly man was in the right house and was not in danger was not a racial thing; it was a safety thing. I believe that the Professor really should have understood the officer was just doing his job, even if the Professor was tired and just wanted to go to sleep and didn't understand why the sergeant wouldn't go away. The sergeant really should also have understood that some people just want to be left alone and that is their right in their own home.
But, racism aside, how this could lead to the Professor being arrested in his own home for telling an intruder to leave is what is really baffling. Did the sergeant really forget he was in someone's home without a warrant, making a nonconsensual warrantless entry, and felt he couldn't be disrespected by a citizen no matter the cirmcumstances? I don't think being cursed at is one of those offenses so grevious that a warrantless entry for arrest is justified, but it has been many moons since I took Con Law. Did the Professor do something to the officer aside from tell him off or follow the officer outside his home and do something in public that caused the officer to really think an arrest was justified? Again, the facts are not out now and when they are it will probably be a sanitized version of all this.
However, for whatever reason, the sergeant and the Professor didn't exchange their views (making sure all is well v. go away and leave me alone) and then things got so strange that we somehow ended up with a citizen who, just moments earlier, had been minding his own business in his own home being arrested for disturbing the peace. There is sure some stupidity in there somewhere to share.
Some have been crying racism but has been ignoring the bigger question. Since when is it illegal for a man, white or black, to insult a police officer from his own home? If a police officer wants to come into my home or me to step out of my home for questioning, I am perfectly within my rights to ask him for his search or arrest warrant first. Of course, it didn't help when President Obama opened his mouth because, as the President admitted, he doesn't know all the facts and shouldn't have stepped in.
We probably won't ever know what really happened aside from an over reaction by both parties and even this blog entry may be proven pre-mature one day. My problem centers around the arrest, Even looking at it in its best light, it all sounds fishy. The officer, upon finding Professor Gates in his own home, sees an elderly man with a cane. He has a report of two armed men breaking in. He doesn't know if those men are still in the house and possibly holding a companion of Mr. Gates hostage and Gates is being hostile because he is under duress. Gates, ill and probably suffering jet lag, is being cranky. Fine. It is what happened next that is interesting and I find a problem with, not on race issues, but on constitutional issues.
I find it difficult to believe the police department doesn't have training to deal with cranky older people who don't want the police in their home without permission. One would think that a senior officer would have developed a thick enough skin by time he or she is promoted to sergeant. And I also find it difficult to believe that a police officer doesn't know about the 1st (free speech) and 4th Amendments (search warrants) to the US Constitution that let Professor Gates say whatever he pleased and to keep on saying it (or course all bets were off once Gates stepped outside his door). Once Gates presented ID proving the house was his and then confirming that he was the one who broke into his own home the emergency that would have allowed the officer to enter Gates house without a warrant due to the need for immediate action was pretty much gone, except perhaps for the officer the Professor was not saying all was well under duress. Once that was gone, the officer had no business in the Professor's house and that brings me to the second troubling issue: freedom of speech. Since when is it a crime to raise your voice in your own home to an unwelcome visitor? In my house I thought I was allowed to be as disrespectful to a visitor as much as I wanted (or as my wife will let me when a certain visitor comes over with her dog that forgets to go outside when it needs to go outside for some private time)? I would think a man's home is one place where he could definitely say what is on his mind without fear of peresecution by the government. Yet, according to the Professor, the officer who entered the Professor's home without a warrant to ultimately arrest him for yelling feels that is apparently not the case.
That said, I can also see how the Professor over reacted. I find it hard to believe that an officer who teaches officers about the evils of racial profiling and by all accounts is a good guy was really just looking to put a black man in his place. There was a report of a breaking and entering. The officer came to verify all was well which may have included an additional action beyond verifying the house was Gates's home. That is good police work, though, since things didn't go smoothly, it seems pretty clear the officer didn't do a good job in explaining that to Professor Gates (and here I am assuming that is what happened next as it seems logical). For all we know the officer, looking at an elderly man with a cane, wasn't convinced that Gates was the person whoi broke in and believed the emergency situation requiring swift action by him, including checking out the Professor's house for intruders wasn't gone? Now imagine the officer took Gates' word and there really was someone in the house. The next days headlines would have been something like racist cops don't care enough to really protect black people.
If I broke into my house, I'd hope the cops showed up too (more likely my neighbors wouldn't notice, the problem of the suburbs) and I think it would be fair for me to prove that I was the owner of the house and to prove I wasn't telling the officers all was well under duress. I somehow doubt that the officer, once he verified Professor Gates was the owner of the home and not some confused elderly person who broke into a stranger's home thinking it his own, really thought Professor Gates was a danger. But the officer could have felt it necessary to make sure all was well in Professor Gates house even if Gates didn't want him to. It is too bad for the officer that his own report doesn't show this.
An officer verifying an elderly man was in the right house and was not in danger was not a racial thing; it was a safety thing. I believe that the Professor really should have understood the officer was just doing his job, even if the Professor was tired and just wanted to go to sleep and didn't understand why the sergeant wouldn't go away. The sergeant really should also have understood that some people just want to be left alone and that is their right in their own home.
But, racism aside, how this could lead to the Professor being arrested in his own home for telling an intruder to leave is what is really baffling. Did the sergeant really forget he was in someone's home without a warrant, making a nonconsensual warrantless entry, and felt he couldn't be disrespected by a citizen no matter the cirmcumstances? I don't think being cursed at is one of those offenses so grevious that a warrantless entry for arrest is justified, but it has been many moons since I took Con Law. Did the Professor do something to the officer aside from tell him off or follow the officer outside his home and do something in public that caused the officer to really think an arrest was justified? Again, the facts are not out now and when they are it will probably be a sanitized version of all this.
However, for whatever reason, the sergeant and the Professor didn't exchange their views (making sure all is well v. go away and leave me alone) and then things got so strange that we somehow ended up with a citizen who, just moments earlier, had been minding his own business in his own home being arrested for disturbing the peace. There is sure some stupidity in there somewhere to share.
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