While I will be the first to demand the police officers treat citizens with respect and dignity, I also believe the feelings must be mutual. With that being said, in America, when dealing with a police officer a couple things are known to be true.
1. never refuse to show a police your identification (especially if you are in a house that just had the cops called for burglary in progress)
2. never threaten a cop with words like "you dont know who you messing with" while continuously hurling charges of racism towards him as he is actually leaving your house and ending the matter"
This could have been ended fairly quickly and did not need to go down the way it did. However, I notice in most articles the writers are leaving out key components of this story. For one, witnesses that were outside the home (totalling from some accounts 7 - 10) actually made statements that back up the police in regards to how gates was acting when arrested! This is the most important piece of the story, yet to those like myself, who have read the police report, find the evidence against gates to be pretty clear cut.
He was in a home that the neighbor had reported a break-in. She claimed she saw two black males on the porch trying to break down the door. Then upon police arriving on the scene Gates refused to show his ID and became irate and began hurling insults towards the officer.
Gates could have ended this issue quickly if only he had done one single thing.
As soon as the cop asked for his ID, simply stated "Hello officer, I am Professor gates, this is my home, please allow me to get my ID and prove to you I am not entering my home illegally."
The officer would have checked his ID and moved on. But when you refuse to show your ID and the get irate and unruly, and start making phone calls telling the cop "you don't know who you messing with" and "you haven't heard the last of me" etc... you can expect to be treated a little different than the respectful law abiding citizen who addressed the officer with courteous reply and an immediate identification process.
Instead, gates was confrontational and wanted a racist even to promote his new documentary which he has quickly began promoting via the news reports. This professor should be ashamed of not only his behavior but the example he has set for those other black men who may find themselves in similar position. They too will become unruly, show no respect and most likely end up in jail... never once thinking it is their OWN BEHAVIOR that is putting them in jail.
Calling Gates “a friend,’’ and acknowledging he didn’t “know all the facts,’’ Obama said during a nationally televised press conference otherwise devoted to healthcare that he didn’t know whether race played a role in the arrest of Gates, who is black and a noted authority on race relations, by a white Cambridge police officer investigating a burglary report.
I am also amazed that Obama has claimed the cops were stupid for arresting hom. Gates and Obama are friends, this is a known fact that Obama has not denied and has stated himself. So it is no doubt that immediately, the black friend of the pres is right and the white officer is wrong.
“I think it’s fair to say, number one, any of us would be pretty angry; number two, that the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home;
he wasn't arrested for being in his home, he was arrested after continuing to follow the officer outside and berating him with accusations of racism even as he was leaving the scene! Including threatening the officer as he picked up his phone and made call to unknown persons claiming "you haven't heard the last from me." etc... this is not behavior of a professor, this is behavior with a confrontational, irrational racist black man looking for any reason to create confrontation to serve his purpose... selling his book/documentary.
Obama and gates should be ashamed of this racist behavior. Fact is, if any white man was caught in an upscale neighborhood pushing his way in a home and when asked for ID refused, he would be questioned and possibly arrested too!
Making this issue a race issue is exactly what these gates types need to promote their "blacks are victims" agenda, as i said, the professor is already making money off the event and will no doubt land an Obama interview in his upcoming documentary which I am almost ashamed to mention but feel it is my duty to point out those who profit from racism in America while trying to pretend they are not racist and simply use "black studies" as a way to promote "blacks are victims" mentality.
Gates is racist. period, and he is a loser here.
Labels: Barack_Obama, Cops, Henry_Louis_Gates_Jr, Racism