Denise Lavoie, AP, July 23, 2009
The white police sergeant criticized by President Barack Obama for arresting black scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. in his Massachusetts home is a police academy expert on understanding racial profiling.
Cambridge Sgt. James Crowley has taught a class about racial profiling for five years at the Lowell Police Academy after being hand-picked for the job by former police Commissioner Ronny Watson, who is black, said Academy Director Thomas Fleming.
“I have nothing but the highest respect for him as a police officer. He is very professional and he is a good role model for the young recruits in the police academy,” Fleming told The Associated Press on Thursday.
The course, called “Racial Profiling,” teaches about different cultures that officers could encounter in their community “and how you don’t want to single people out because of their ethnic background or the culture they come from,” Fleming said.
Obama has said the Cambridge officers “acted stupidly” in arresting Gates last week when they responded to his house after a woman reported a suspected break-in.
Crowley, 42, has maintained he did nothing wrong and has refused to apologize, as Gates has demanded.
{snip}
The president said federal officials need to continue working with local law enforcement “to improve policing techniques so that we’re eliminating potential bias.”
{snip}
Original article
(Posted on July 23, 2009)
Comments
If Dr. Gates sues and wins, and racial profiling sensitivity training is part of the settlement, I could imagine that Sgt. Crowley will have to give himself his own sensitivity training.
The underlying assumption is that racial profiling is somehow wrong. What is wrong is assuming that the races are the same, that blacks are just like everyone else. Everyone at Amren knows the score on that.
Crowley was baited by Gates, and was stupid enough to be entrapped. This supposed profiling expert should have known exactly what a professional race baiter would do that situation, but Whites, as usual, are stupid in matters of race.
It is becoming obvious from reading the police report that Lucia Whalen is involved in this matter in an effort to set up the police officer for being racially insensitive. It is very strange that she is on the sidewalk outside the residence right when the officer goes to the door which means she was probably nearby.
Even if she came over right when the officer arrived, very few women armed only with a cellphone would approach a house where burgulary suspectS (she had seen TWO men) might be present. This is Cambridge which has a very high crime rate, mostly White Harvard people raped, robbed and murdered by black predators.
Why was she not afraid? Why was she not in her own home watching instead of right outside Gate’s property?
Gates knows what an officer’s responsibilities are and why the officer was there (he was told). So, why the violent reaction? Most people (of any race) would be grateful the officer came and checked. This has a huge fingerprint of Rahm Immanuel on it. This entire matter is a deliberate setup.
Here we have the President of the United States of America, the most powerful country in the world, commenting on a local matter that has no bearing on his presidential duties, yet he felt compelled to criticize a low ranking police sergeant for carrying out his sworn police duty.
It must have been a slow day at the office…. or worse still. This President is blatantly in favor of a member of his own race and showing his extreme bias. I thought the office of the President of the United States was above such trivialities.
Can one imagine a JFK scene with a role reversal where he interfered with local politics and came to the defense of a White professor who had a similar encounter with a Black police sergeant? Oh my, times have changed and racial politics is beginning to take a front & center seat that will force Whites to hunker down even further to the ground, now that “The President” has spoken on this racially-charged issue.
So he gives classes about racial profiling? Sounds like Crowley follows the PC ideal of a White officer.
Most police officers I know DO racially profile and there is absolutely NOTHING wrong with that! It is called good police work! Profiling is absolutely necessary when finding a criminal. The more I read about Sgt. Crowley and his leftist leanings, I become more concerned about that aspect of him.
http://tinyurl.com/kkeph5
Maybe It Wasn’t the Cop Acting Stupidly, Mr. President
It was about 9 p.m. on a cool October night when the call came out over police radio.
“Report of a break-in, two black males!” the dispatcher said dispassionately.
The address was near 56th and Baltimore Avenue, in Southwest Philadelphia – the 12th District. The district was a violent place - earning the nickname the “Fightin’ 12th” because of the proclivity of some of the locals to assault police officers.
My vehicle assignment that evening was an Emergency Patrol Wagon (EPW) - or more simply a van. Normally Philadelphia police officers work alone, unless they are assigned to an EPW.
My partner that evening was African-American. He was a taciturn veteran. He knew how to do the job and he knew how to teach rookies as I was then.
We arrived on the scene in a few minutes. This was the “east end” of the district – an African-American neighborhood.
As we approached the house we saw, through an open window, two black men, watching television and drinking beer. My partner let me take the lead – his method of mentoring.
I knocked on the door. One of the men answered. I explained we had a call of a burglary.
He looked at me incredulously. Then, with a grin, said that he had trouble opening the door. He opined that was why someone thought he and his friend were breaking in the house.
It all sounded perfectly plausible to me. I said OK. The man closed the door and I started to return to my vehicle.
However, my partner stopped me.
“Did you get any ID from them? “ He asked rhetorically.
Before I answered, he led me back to the door. This time he knocked.
The same person answered.
He asked for identification. This elicited an angry, righteously indignant, response. His companion joined him. The two shouted at my partner and me.
They said we were only doing this because they were black men. We would never ask white men for identification.
My partner took great exception to this. He became angry.
Just as the situation looked like it was going to explode, an elderly woman came down the steps from the second floor. It was obvious she had been sleeping.
“What is going on here?” she said, bewilderedly.
Then she uttered the words that crystallized everything.
“Who are these men officer? What are they doing here?”
As it turned out, the men had broken into the house – the home of this woman and her elderly sister. They were sound asleep completely unaware that they were there.
The bad guys were very clever. When they noticed the police approaching, one quickly turned on the television. The other took two beer cans out of the refrigerator.
My veteran partner suspected this. He knew something was amiss. There was nothing concrete. It was just a hunch - one that was correct.
There are a lot of variables in police work. There are a lot of uncertainties. Things are not formulaic. Judgments need to be made in nanoseconds.
All of this came to mind as I read about the arrest of Professor Henry Louis Gates. He was arrested after police received a call of two black men trying to break into a house in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Actually, it was Gates and his driver forcing open the jammed door of his own house.
When Cambridge Police Sgt. James Crowley arrived, he questioned Gates. Apparently, Gates was offended. He accused Crowley of racism.
Reports are that Gates did show identification to Crowley. However, an argument ensued and Crowley arrested Gates.
I do not know why Crowley arrested Gates for disorderly conduct. I know that disorderly conduct, specifically, “DCM3” – i.e. Disorderly Conduct, Third Degree, Misdemeanor - was occasionally used by Philadelphia police to arrest people who were not cooperating with police commands.
You see, Mr. President, it is quite possible that the white police sergeant, James Crowley, was not “acting stupidly” as you say. It is quite possible that the distinguished, black, Ivy League university professor was the one who was “acting stupidly.”
Perhaps he was in a bad mood because, after traveling half way around the world, he could not open the door of his expensive house in an affluent neighborhood - a neighborhood in which the white police officer cannot afford to live.
Mr. President, if you really want to bridge the racial divide, then you need to recognize that racism is just as much not blaming someone because of their race as it is blaming someone because of their race.
It is time, Mr. President, to stop casting white police officers as Bull Connor.
Michael P. Tremoglie is the author of the critically acclaimed police novel “A Sense of Duty” available at Barnesandnoble.com
Here we have the President of the United States of America, the most powerful country in the world, commenting on a local matter that has no bearing on his presidential duties…
It’s worse than that. The president is an acquaintance of Prof Gates.
Interestingly, Obama left Harvard in 1991, the same year Gates arrived. I wonder how closely their paths intertwined. And Deval Patrick’s as well.
The original instance of profiling as a management tool used by law enforcement comes from the observation made many decades ago now that Florida cops, patrolling the interstate north from Miami on a Monday morning, seeing two young white men driving north from Miami by themselves, in a car bearing New York state plates, and traveling at exactly the speed limit, are probably carrying a bale of marijuana in that car. A bale unloaded that previous weekend from a smuggling mother ship. It all makes sense too, doesn’t it?
What I find interesting is that this Crowley, who was a racial profiling “expert,” gets charged with the very thing that he was supposed to be an “expert” on. We all know why. No doubt he approached “profiling” in his teachings from a liberal point of view, which is the only point of view that’s allowed. So when he came up against the hard edge of reality in the course of his job, all of his expertise was for naught, because it was based on false premises. Another liberal hoisted by his own petard, in other words.
This could be that great seminal event where whites FINALLY see the light about “African Americans.”
Blacks, for their part, will continue to act the way they do and make excuses for other blacks like this fake professor.
And if whites are as bad as blacks say we are, why do they do everything in their power to be aroud us?
I read a story once where they interviewed minority cops, and guess what—their response (off the record) was that racial profiling is just good police work.
If profiling is bad, then perhaps someone can tell me why major police departments have full-time positions for Profilers? I was watching one of these real-life crime shows, and the profiler investigating a crime scene was able to look at the murder scene and determine all sorts of bizarre specifics about the killer. For example, he would have long hair and drive a VW bug—specifically a yellow or orange one. And sure enough, when they caught him, he matched the description.
So why is profiling bad?
The only racial profiling that has occurred in this case is that by those who claim the officers actions were wrong for no other reason then he is White and Gate is black
And what is a “black scholar” anyway? At least he is not being referred as a “scholar” because nobody is that black as to believe that.
If a group blacks rape, sodomize, mutilate, murder, etc a White person, and the blacks rapists, sodomizers, mutilators, murders, etc say that race was not an issue in the rape, sodomizing, mutilation, murder, etc, the police believe the black rapists, sodomizers, mutilators, murders, etc and make a public statement that there is no proof that race was an issue.
Why cannot the police make a similar public statement if the White police officers say that race was not an issue in the arrest the “black” “scholar”. Why are the words of a blacks rapists, sodomizers, mutilators, murders, etc believe without question but a White police offer’s words not?
BTW, Wiki claims that gate is 50% black, but make not claims to what percentage “scholar” he is.
Sure looks like the good Prof. profiled Mr. Crowley as a racist cop. Let’s see if Harvard makes him take sensitivity training.
Fact is, Gates didn’t get arrested for being “in his own house” [which isn’t his anyway; it’s Harvard’s].
He threw a hissy fit; was uncooperative; became confrontational, abusive, and threatening… and tossed in the race card to boot.
He got what he deserved.
Look at that photo. Distinguished scholar indeed! He’s just a big fool.
This case has nothing to do with racial profiling. The officer was simply doing his job and asking a routine question of Gates who got on a high horse with totally arrogant & insulting racial remarks. IMO Gates’ supercilious misbehavior was deserving of an arrest.
It’s always sweet when white liberals get a taste of their own bitter medicine.
— Question Diversity wrote:
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If that happens, then I predict that blacks will no longer be able to stopped, questioned, or arrested. They will have become immune to law enforcement. They will be able to thumb their noses at the police.
Cops will have learned their lesson — don’t mess with blacks! They will just let blacks go, no mattter what the crime. Why should a cop put his own job on the line and risk getting into something like this?
Is disarming the police part of the Obama/Gates/Ignatief/Ayres/Dorn radical agenda? Remember how much Ayres and Dorn hated “the pigs”?
A white cop got profiled because he was a white man and a cop. How is this not racist? If this was a black cop that came upon Gates’ property, this wouldn’t have even been a story. The same blacks who accuse whites of being racists are just as guilty (if not more).
What is a racial profile course?
White cadets will be told that they can overcome their attitudes just like he has by learning to not see or react to unique blackness, which on the whole, is a wonderful thing after all.
What kind of white man would lower himself to teach this to new recruits?
My opinion is that the cop volunteered to teach this subject as a way to shine for his black “superiors” and gain points. His behavior has sellout written all over it and gives the appearance of someone who has been “flipped”. If he wanted to be a cop in 70 percent white Cambridge Mass, he could have had a long career without sucking up to blacks.
Notice how his associate black cops took up for him and supported his side of the argument. Sure they would, because this guy is a kept man, an easy tool blacks can use. Not only has he brainwashed himself, he is now the black man’s boy.
This is the type of guy who would not protest his daughter marrying a black. By doing so he can show his eternal gratitude and his complete capitulation to his black captors.
[“When I heard the details about this cop, like his teaching such drivel, I lost any respect for him. I won’t let such self-congratulatory moral prigs near my business.]
That’s what you have in Civil Service today. If they want to keep their jobs or see any advancement, they have to kiss and play the game.
