UPDATE: The Professor Gates vs. Sgt. Crowley Affair

I got it wrong - apparently , according to an AP account of the incident, Sgt. Crowley did not yell "Police, freeze."  Apparently, they first spied each other through the window. But, I stand by my original premise: both of these guys were at fault.  Gates should not have lost control and started abusing Crowley for doing his job. But, Crowley is supposedly the trained professional here, he should have at least given Gates his name and badge number, let the abuse roll off his back and walked away.  Cops get abuse all the time, including being called racist.  Crowley could have de-escalated this.  I'm not excusing Gates here; but Crowley didn't need to arrest Gates either.

Also, see the comment below from a black San Diego Police Officer.

Folks, as a former specialist trainer for the New York City Police Department on managing emotionally disturbed and upset members of the public, and as a diversity expert, I get to weigh in on the Professor Gates vs. Sgt. Crowley affair.

First, although I haven’t seen the actual police report, here’s what I think happened here. It’s all too familiar; in an honest moment, most cops will tell you so.   Crowley responds to a burglary-in-progress call, and looks through the door and sees who he believes to be the burglars in the home.  He uses his commanding police voice to demand: “Police, freeze,” or “Police: stop what you’re doing and put your hands in the air.”  Gates, I’m sure, is surprised and has a “WTF?” moment.  He then probably says something to the effect of “this is my home! I live here!”  Crowley is trained not to accept that on face value (perps lie all the time) and demands to see ID, again using the stentorian, commanding police tone (cops are real good at that voice; it’s very intimidating and usually results in compliance).

Gates, no longer surprised but now very angry with what he perceives to be a white cop’s invasion of his home, becomes incensed and irrationally fueled by all of the times he, his friends and innocent black men across the country have been stopped by police and questioned for driving while black or being black in the wrong place and time.  So he gets very upset, shows Crowley his Harvard ID and adds in some nasty epithets about Crowley being a racist cop, demanding that he tell him his name and provide his badge number, etc.

This stuff happens all the time when white cops stop minority suspects while a crime is being committed, even when the suspect is caught with the loot in his hands! Even the guiltiest of perps will call a cop a racist during the arrest – the perp has nothing to lose by doing so.  Heck, even obviously guilty black suspects will call black arresting officers traitors and uncle Toms!

I’m sure Crowley felt disrespected, tried to walk out of the house (to protect themselves, cops are trained not to stay in confined spaces with a very upset person) without answering Gates’ questions, probably with the intention of answering them on the porch, and assuming Gates would calm down once out of doors. But Gates didn’t calm down. He followed Crowley onto the porch continuing to hurl insults and accusations that the cop was a racist.  I’m sure Gates was in “high dudgeon,” on a roll, and was determined to run this white “racist” cop out of his home with his tail between his legs.

Then, I’m thinking Crowley saw the crowd outside watching the spectacle, got all macho and decided that he couldn't allow the disrespect of one of Cambridge’s finest to go on in public. So, he arrested Gates for disorderly conduct.  Charges are dropped the next day because they really wouldn’t stick, not because Crowley or Gates did anything wrong. The arrest was purely a means of bringing a messy situation to a close as fast as possible.  If you know a cop, they’ll tell you that this whole incident played out very typically and is pretty common.

So, what I’m saying is…they’re both at fault. It’s understandable how Gates - one of the world’s leading experts on the black man’s experience and knowing in his bones the sordid history of innocent black men being repeatedly harassed by police - could just completely lose it and become irrationally abusive of Crowley.   Unfortunately, Gates’ better judgment about the officer’s intentions of preventing a crime went out the window the moment the cop started yelling at him to freeze.  I think Gates was simply not able to help himself: he’d been railing about injustice against blacks by police all of his life; he interpreted this invasion of his home by a white cop as one more example.

On the other hand, Crowley, who is an expert trainer on how police should NOT racially profile, could have handled the situation much better once Gates became abusive. Police are trained to allow innocent people to vent on them, as long as it doesn’t get physical; I’ve found that 25 year veterans tend to let that kind of verbal abuse roll off them like water.  They walk slowly away without retaliating or saying anything; it all blows over quickly.   I’m guessing that Crowley felt very disrespected and wanted to get away from a screaming Gates as fast as he could once he’d seen the ID; that’s understandable too.  But, if he didn’t apologize for the intrusion, mix-up, whatever – then he should have; police training specifically calls for an apology – mostly to diffuse the situation.  And it’s been proven again and again that a sincere police apology on the spot will usually de-escalate a potentially explosive situation pretty fast.  It seems to me Crowley didn’t try to de-escalate this; instead, once they got onto the porch, he escalated it by making the arrest.  But again, he probably just wanted to get the whole thing over with, understandable.

So, who is the professional here?  Crowley: he’s trained and an expert in dealing with this “racially loaded” stuff.  So, I put a little bit more onus on him for this mess.  Then again, Gates shouldn’t have lost his cool and abused Crowley, it was unnecessary. I guess what I’m saying is, it took two to tango into this pile of poop and smear it all over the place.  It’s going to take both of them to clean it up.  I won’t hold my breath.

Comments

[Dee Sanford]

This is an interesting analysis of the situation, and probably very close to the truth. So many professional Black men I know have been confronted by the police and even made to lie in the street with their hands behind their back. I recall a terrible story my son told of his college days as a limousine driver. He had driven some prominent men from San Diego to Los Angeles and they all ended up laying face down in the street. It was a profound and disturbing story because I knew my son and these upstanding men, yet they received no respect at the hands of the police. Of course they were released and allowed to go on their way, but that experience is very degrading and you don’t get over it.

I remember years ago at a park in LA when the police came up to a young black man who had to freeze while they, without permission, demanded to be allowed to pat him down. I was disgusted. Regarding Professor Gates: to be the target of this kind of disrespect, especially after you have worked hard, kept your nose clean, and are now a professor at Harvard has got to be an ultimate insult. I know he must have been beyond angry. It says that it does not matter what you have accomplished in life, you are no more worthy of respect than a common thug, and can be disrespected right in your own home! The color of your skin still makes you the consummate suspect in any predominantly white neighborhood. There may be extenuating circumstances or an explanation, but this is an experience Black people know all too well. Remember it was not too long ago that the off-duty white police officer from Coronado chased Steve Foley, a young San Diego football player on the freeway to his home over 20 miles away. Then, waving a gun, but not showing his badge, shot the man in his own front yard, destroying his future career as a ball player. I worked for two years with the Coalition for Justice to institute guidelines for regulating the behavior of off duty police officers. The struggle continues!Thanks for your insight. Dee Sanford

[Johnny Russell]

Racial profiling exists, but I don’t see this as a racial issue, heres why:

On the SDPD (editor's note: appears commentator is a black police officer) I've been to countless burglary calls like Sgt Crowley's. Everyone's alarm malfunctions once or twice. It's hard to get excited about them anymore.

(I responded to an alarm at) the Black Contractors Assoc at 6100 Imperial, the building was locked and there was a brother behind the front counter on the phone. The alarm was going off yet he was very annoyed a cop was there, he snapped at me and he didn't want to show ID either.

I know I wasn't liked very much as a public servant. No matter what color, people just don't like cops period. But I was not trying to win votes. Imagine a world with no black cops; there'd probably still be lynchings. A black cop trying to make a difference in the community is hard; they get hammered on both sides, black and white.

There’s been countless times that I was disrespected. In the white communities I had my "nigger moment" frequently. In the black community the disrespect came too.

At MLK Park near the tennis courts I told a citizen that he can't run with his dogs loose through the park he opened a public water fountain so his dogs can lick water from the spigot. The brother told me his dogs were thirsty and they needed a drink. The next week he did it again, again and again. When he forced my hand and I gave him a written warning, (not a ticket) he told me to have shitty day. Not race, but the disrespect, things that people say, things that are sometimes hard to dismiss. It’s the things that hurts our feelings that forces the letter of the law rather than the spirit. Were my feelings hurt? Sure. But I had been called every name but a child of God for so long I was immune to it. I knew the man wasn't a crook; he just did not like the uniform. Experienced cops know who the crooks are.

Being aware of this is very important if cops are to win/keep public confidence. As cops we should see police through the eyes of non-police citizens. A vigilant but low key approach by Sergeant Crowley would have made all the difference in the world.

Cops need to take the time to know the people that they serve in their area of responsibility. On or off duty, go to community functions and get in their face. Mingle with everyone, whether they like you or not. The police report says Gates refused to show ID when asked, but I think there were enough plaques and pictures on the wall, the cop could tell he lived there without ID. I prided myself in knowing who the bad guys were. I also pride myself in knowing who the decent people are too.

I think both Gates and Crowley could benefit from a class in Interpersonal skills, it’s how we get along with people from all backgrounds. After 20 years, it’s what helped me reach 31.

Johnny Russell, Author FIRST BLOOD
www.johnnyrussell.net