You know, Cambridge cops had a reputation for being grade-a douchebag jerkwads when I was a teenager in Belmont... and we were all white kids. I can totally believe that Gates was on the right side of this one.
I'm also willing to believe that he bitched out the cop, and I DEFINTIELY believe that cops don't like that sort of thing. But it's all such a farce. For starters, Gates is a pretty famous professor, as these things go, so didn't the cop have the brain cells to rub together to figure out that it might become this kind of a shit-storm if he didn't let it go?
and i'm sure he flipped. :) can you imagine yourself coming home, not being able to open your front door, and having to exert physical effort to do so? (it doesn't help he's older and probably not in great shape.)
The Cambridge police force has never been anything but polite, neighborly, and fair in my 10 or so years of experience living in or around here. There actually is a pretty good police presence in cambridge, which would probably piss off various brats who are generally being dipshits :P
I think Obama is being a bit out of line. A single cop made a poor decision, which might (likely) have been influenced by race, but at the same time the police officers account of the events makes it seem a little more understandable. If it werent for the irony of the story, there wouldnt really be a story here.
I dunno... when the cops in Belmont gave us shit we generally deserved it (being loud in large groups, having the audacity to drive cars, etc) but the times I got rousted in / near Harvard Square, it was pretty uncalled for. I was never with more than two or three others, and we never drank or smoked or anything like that. (And I mean never. I didn't start drinking until I was 22, and as far as I know, two of those three other friends still don't.) I always got the impression from the Cambridge cops that they wanted us to KNOW that they had power, and we didn't.
Now, the cops in Allston... that's a different story. They were probably just as tired of my jackass undergrad neighbors falling drunkenly off rooftops and needing ambulances as I was. ;)
Steven and I were watching the Obama talk, and as soon as he said that he thought the Cambridge police acted stupidly, Steven groaned and said, "This is going to be in all the papers tomorrow."
I think that the cop was way out of line, but I don't think it's necessarily race-related. The cop could just be an asshole who likes to abuse power, didn't like this guy yelling and asking for his badge number. Or he could be a racist asshole. The fact that he won't even apologize, even to say, "I'm sorry that things escalated and that we couldn't resolve the situation in a peaceful manner," makes me think he's probably a jerk.
OTOH, I don't think Gates helped things by yelling and getting mad. If I were in his situation, I would have shown the cop my ID and been polite throughout. But I'll bet the cop would have treated me a lot differently than he treated Gates.
I've been following this. I hate cops anyway and tend to assume they're all assholes, so this story really doesn't surprise me. I think there's a good chance it's race related.
oh, I am *always* wary of offending them, since my horrible experience (in boston) a few years ago with the cop who lied and then charged me with a criminal charge (i mean, it was minor, but it was criminal, not just a traffic ticket) even though I was as nice and polite as I could be, and I had to spend a thousand dollars to hire a lawyer to go to court. And that was the time I realized that COPS ARE ASSHOLES and I LOVE LAWYERS. :)
You know, I have a boss here who was handcuffed in his own home in NYC and driven around town for several hours while the cops were collecting other criminals. His crime was that a while ago he cut through a park closed for the night on his bicycle and supposedly gave "wrong" information to the cop who stopped him. The crime was not a really aggravated one as many Russians get their names mutilated by the non-Russians writing them down. The address was correct anyways. The guy is a professor at NYU, member of just about anything one can be a member of, and the charge was dismissed by the judge. He did spent a day in handcuffs, while collecting fleas with the NYC more conventional criminals - and nobody gives a fuck because he is sorta white. Any professor can get on cops' bad side but I don't like the idea that it is necessarily racist if a Black dude gets to see what kinda nice and understanding people cops are.
cops ARE pigs, but it's also about expectations. i think Gates expected the cops to be racist the second they approached him. whether their actions were motivated by racism or regular pigheadedness is imho irrelevant, as their job is to keep feelings to themselves and act civilly.
Yeah, and you'd expect Obama concentrating on something more important, and news outlets dealing with more newsworthy items, right? I have a feeling that they are just wasting my time with this non-story.
i really tried to stay away from the story for the same reason: it is a non-story ;) media outlets are just trying to stir some controversy on the racial subject. Goes along the lines of Sotomayor nomination (i.e. the whole discussion of the New Haven reverse discrimination case).
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I'm also willing to believe that he bitched out the cop, and I DEFINTIELY believe that cops don't like that sort of thing. But it's all such a farce. For starters, Gates is a pretty famous professor, as these things go, so didn't the cop have the brain cells to rub together to figure out that it might become this kind of a shit-storm if he didn't let it go?
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I think Obama is being a bit out of line. A single cop made a poor decision, which might (likely) have been influenced by race, but at the same time the police officers account of the events makes it seem a little more understandable. If it werent for the irony of the story, there wouldnt really be a story here.
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Now, the cops in Allston... that's a different story. They were probably just as tired of my jackass undergrad neighbors falling drunkenly off rooftops and needing ambulances as I was. ;)
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I think that the cop was way out of line, but I don't think it's necessarily race-related. The cop could just be an asshole who likes to abuse power, didn't like this guy yelling and asking for his badge number. Or he could be a racist asshole. The fact that he won't even apologize, even to say, "I'm sorry that things escalated and that we couldn't resolve the situation in a peaceful manner," makes me think he's probably a jerk.
OTOH, I don't think Gates helped things by yelling and getting mad. If I were in his situation, I would have shown the cop my ID and been polite throughout. But I'll bet the cop would have treated me a lot differently than he treated Gates.
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i'm sure it was race-related for Gates and for the person who reported him to the cops, at the very least.
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cops ARE pigs, but it's also about expectations. i think Gates expected the cops to be racist the second they approached him. whether their actions were motivated by racism or regular pigheadedness is imho irrelevant, as their job is to keep feelings to themselves and act civilly.
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media outlets are just trying to stir some controversy on the racial subject. Goes along the lines of Sotomayor nomination (i.e. the whole discussion of the New Haven reverse discrimination case).
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