“You’re under arrest.”

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“But it's my house.”
“You're under arrest anyway.”

America's newest crime: being in a house while black.

BOSTON (July 20) – Police responding to a call about “two black males” breaking into a home near Harvard University ended up arresting the man who lives there — Henry Louis Gates Jr., the nation's pre-eminent black scholar.
Gates had forced his way through the front door because it was jammed, his lawyer said. Colleagues call the arrest last Thursday afternoon a clear case of racial profiling.

You've gone out for the evening and forgotten your keys, or maybe the door is stuck, so what do you do?

It's your house, right? So if you have no other choice, you break the door in, or break a (preferably cheap) window and let yourself in.

Then, if you're a black man living in Boston, be prepared to deal with the police, and be careful how you talk to them.

Skip Gates broke into his own house, and when the police showed up he took umbrage, reasoning that he was being targeted for his race. If you're the cop, and you have any sense, what do you say? How about, “Sorry to bother you, sir, but we had to check out the break-in report. I'm glad you were able to get in.”

What do these cops do? They arrest him for disorderly conduct.

Gates — the director of Harvard's W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research — initially refused to show the officer his identification, but then gave him a Harvard University ID card, according to police.
“Gates continued to yell at me, accusing me of racial bias and continued to tell me that I had not heard the last of him,” the officer wrote.
He was arrested on a disorderly conduct charge after police said he “exhibited loud and tumultuous behavior.” He was released later that day on his own recognizance. An arraignment was scheduled for Aug. 26. Police refused to comment on the arrest Monday.

The next time you find yourself wondering if there is still a need for the NAACP after 100 years, remember this story.

64 thoughts on ““You’re under arrest.””

  1. The police received a call and they responded, if there was any “profiling” then it was done by whoever made the call.  Once there if Mr. Gates truly was ranting and carrying on with the police, exhibiting “loud and tumultuous behavior”, then of course he was arrested just as any chucklehead in a trailer park who decides to scream at cops from his front porch would be.  And judging from the fact that Mr. Gates chose to provide his Harvard ID card instead of an actual ID card this sounds less like “being in a house while black” and more like “dealing with the cops while being a pompous ass.”

  2. It looks like the cop escalated this when Gates showed him his Harvard ID instead of a license.

    As we can see even here, anti-intelleckyoolism is rampant in America, and here was this black man claiming to be a perfesser at Harvard.  Perhaps this cop figured he’d show that Ivy Leaguer a thing or two.

  3. It seems to me that both Mr. Gates and the cop share some responsibility. The report quoted above states that Mr. Gates initially refused to identify himself, which would undoubtedly be a reason for concern by the police officer. However, once Mr. Gates provided the requested information, the police officers probably could have shown more restraint and dropped the matter.

    Of course, none of us were there. We don’t know the exact situation, or the extent of the behavior from either side.

  4. As more information comes out, it appears that Prof. Gates in fact did present his drivers license, and it was the police officer who refused to identify himself.

    So, Mr. Cashman, who is the self-important dick in this story?

  6. From what has been reported so far, this statement seems to be a more likely account.


    [Professor Gates]. . . was headed from Logan airport to his home [in] Cambridge . . . Professor Gates was driven to his home by a driver for a local car company. Professor Gates attempted to enter his front door, but the door was damaged. Professor Gates then entered his rear door with his key, turned off his alarm, and again attempted to open the front door. With the help of his driver they were able to force the front door open, and then the driver carried Professor Gates’ luggage into his home.

    Professor Gates immediately called the Harvard Real Estate office to report the damage to his door and requested that it be repaired immediately. As he was talking to the Harvard Real Estate office on his portable phone in his house, he observed a uniformed officer on his front porch. When Professor Gates opened the door, the officer immediately asked him to step outside. Professor Gates remained inside his home and asked the officer why he was there. The officer indicated that he was responding to a 911 call about a breaking and entering in progress at this address. Professor Gates informed the officer that he lived there and was a faculty member at Harvard University.

    The officer then asked Professor Gates whether he could prove that he lived there and taught at Harvard. Professor Gates said that he could, and turned to walk into his kitchen, where he had left his wallet. The officer followed him. Professor Gates handed both his Harvard University identification and his valid Massachusetts driver’s license to the officer. Both include Professor Gates’ photograph, and the license includes his address.

    Professor Gates then asked the police officer if he would give him his name and his badge number. He made this request several times. The officer did not produce any identification nor did he respond to Professor Gates’ request for this information. After an additional request by Professor Gates for the officer’s name and badge number, the officer then turned and left the kitchen of Professor Gates’ home without ever acknowledging who he was or if there were charges against Professor Gates. As Professor Gates followed the officer to his own front door, he was astonished to see several police officers gathered on his front porch. Professor Gates asked the officer’s colleagues for his name and badge number. As Professor Gates stepped onto his front porch, the officer who had been inside and who had examined his identification, said to him, “Thank you for accommodating my earlier request,” and then placed Professor Gates under arrest. He was handcuffed on his own front porch.

    Regardless of which version is closer to the truth, the police officer’s or the Professor’s; or even if both versions are basically true, the point is neither account justifies an arrest.  

    Looking at this in the best possible light for the police officer and taking only the officer’s report as fact, the officer looks like an officious asshole.  The facts are probably much more damning toward the officer than his own report lets on, however.

    The absolute best we can say about officer Quick.Draw is that he made an extremely bad mistake. The worst, and far more likely, inference we can draw is that he abused his position and assaulted Prof. Gates in order to satiate an authoritarian fixation. If the latter, the guy is an enemy of democracy. The proper thing to do is to suspend him, give him an opportunity at retraining so he understands how to protect the public rather than abuse citizens. If he can be rehabilitated, then he can wear a badge again. Until then, however, he is not safe to be on the street.  

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