Posted on 07/20/2009 3:50:39 PM PDT by arbooz
BOSTON — Henry Louis Gates Jr., the nation's pre-eminent black scholar, is accusing Cambridge police of racism after he was arrested while trying to force open the locked front door of his home near Harvard University.
Cambridge police were called to the home Thursday afternoon after a woman reported seeing a man "wedging his shoulder into the front door as to pry the door open," according to a police report.
An officer ordered the man to identify himself, and Gates refused, according to the report. Gates began calling the officer a racist and said repeatedly, "This is what happens to black men in America."
Officers said they tried to calm down the 58-year-old academic, who responded, "You don't know who you're messing with," according to the police report.
(Excerpt) Read more at comcast.net ...
A reasonable request to an unreasonable and hyopersensitive individual. The cops may have assisted him in opening the door if he was respectful, ya think?
I once had the cops called on me when I was climbing into a second floor window of my own house. I thanked them for checking me out.
But, I’m white. What do I know?
Yeah - a black racist who thinks he gets special privileges and is above the law.
So... he’s OK with the police just letting somebody break his door in while they watch?
Just another punk.
Of course if his house actually had been in the process of being burglarized, he’d be happy to let the cops assume it was nothing out of the ordinary and go on their merry way.
Moron! A reasonable man would be grateful that someone would call the police and that the police would show up to protect his property.
Moron! A reasonable man would be grateful that someone would call the police and that the police would show up to protect his property.
If I were his neighbor, I’d definitely let it go next time!
he needs to listen to a police scanner every once in a while
who responded, “You don’t know who you’re messing with,”
Idiot, that was all they were asking you. I do wish your house gets robbed and next time the officers are not “racist” and just ignore someone breaking in. But alas they will do their duty.
Actually, if I were this guy’s neighbor I’d probably help keep a lookout for the cops coming so the crooks could get away witht the loot as well as all this guy’s guns ~ you just know he’s got’em.
One of the premier black identity hucksters masquerading as a “scholar”.
I don’t feel like reading this fool’s bio, I certainly would like to know where in his academic work he hit upon the notion that police responding to a report of a break in are racists for asking a person prying open a front door to ID themselves.
And if it wasn’t Gates trying to force his way into the home, and the police scurried away when the “racist” bomb was thrown, would he have been happy then? Or would he still call them racists for not protecting his home?
Hey now, let's not let truth, fact, and reality intrude in a lefty fantasy!!
“Just another punk.”
Exactly. I was once hired as a consultant to set up the business end of a carpet company. The owner, “Sonny” was a Sioux Indian. He would go out, get drunk, get in fights, whatever and always cry that he was being persecuted “because he was an Indian”. I told him he was the same kind of punk who gives Indians (and any race baiting, poor me minority) a bad name.
Boy, are Blacks in trouble. This is the same loser who testified before Congress on education, spicing up his erudition and impressing all the race flunkies on the committee by quoting Shakespeare, "My luv is like a red red rose."
Robert Burns is still spinning.
THAT'S RACIST!
Right, why didn’t he tell them it was his house?
For the most part, the cops would have done the same to any white man...and in the other times they wouldn’t, one could almost see why that would be the case.
Another one educated beyond his abilities and indoctrinated with PC crap.
“Hi, I’m Henry Gates. I’m a professor at Harvard. This is my house. My door’s stuck.”
See? That wasn’t so hard, was it?
pre-eminent: adj.
- Superior to or notable above all others; outstanding ...
Sonya Sotomayor: pre-eminent Hispanic ...
Walter Williams: Conservative columnist and economist...
Clarence Thomas: ... "pubic hair on a coke can"...
Linda Chavez: ... " an anti-affirmative action activist. ..."
Race baiting piece of crap, from the looks of him.
Nope, if they let someone break in, he will be the first to sue the police for not doing their job and allege racism, etc., blah, blah, blah. These people are not American nor do they have the slightest clue what an orderly society is about. The fact that he is a distinguished professor at Harvard speaks volumes.
yeah, listen to the scanner then do the math
See? That wasn’t so hard, was it?
A wise Latina would have known what to do.
He should run for congress and become a member of the CBC. Egotistical moron.
This article is a bit inaccurate/incomplete (based on the police report, which was linked in another thread on this topic). By the time the police responded, Gates was already in the house. He became enraged when the police arrived. The police asked him for ID, he initially refused (instead asking the police officer for his ID), but then gave the police his ID. The cop started to leave, Gates continued to yell & scream. The cop told Gates that if he wanted to continue the conversation, he could come outside. Gates did so, and the cop arrested him for being loud & disruptive in public.
Basically, Gates acted like an idiot by yelling and screaming that the cops were racists. BUT, the cop also acted like an idiot by arresting him for nothing more than screaming. I don’t care what he was screaming about, I don’t think a police officer has any business arresting someone simply because they’re yelling at the police officer - free speech demands at least that much.
If the man is a scholar and was talking like that, he should have been given a breathalyzer down at the station for suspected public intoxication. "Because, your honor, he was calling us racist while he was slamming his shoulder into the doorway".
See? That wasn’t so hard, was it?
The problem is, Gates did give the cop his ID, and told him all of those things. He was NOT arrested for breaking into the house (he was inside the house by the time the cops arrived). He WAS arrested for yelling & screaming at the cop. Yes, he's an idiot, but I have a major problem with the police arresting someone simply for yelling at them, regardless of how wrongheaded the yelling is.
“the nation’s pre-eminent black scholar”
Of what? Who says? I know some pretty smart black folks.
At least they don’t forget their keys.
Hey Gates, nobody cares if you are a black man.
Of course this man overeacted but I also think these black intellectuals look for scenarios like this to go back to campus and opine about. They are the worst of snobs, arrogant and abusive. I can just envision the encounter. All he had to say, was that it was his house, and I am sure the police would have left. Someone trying to pound in a front door be they white or black looks suspicious and the neighbor was probably nervous. Instead he decided to act crazy, a red flag for the police involved. Most of these black professors have no expertise in anything but revisionist black history and activism and the universities cater to them. It is shameful, and insidious.
It does when they perform criminal acts or do really stupid things like this.
;^)
Sad when people who complain about “negative sterotypes” fulfill them to the nth degree. What were the cops supposed to do, just let any black male pry his way into any house?
Thomas Sowell
You're absolutely wrong. He's a black racist who gets special privileges and is above the law.
Ever heard of affirmative action? Guaranteed if he had had to compete on a level playing groud re his education he'd probably be working at a job more his intellectual level. Like, trash collection.
How does someone get that title? Being a pre-eminent black scholar, that would be fairly noncontroversial, but being the one and only guy at the top seems like a difficult feat to pull off. Is there some sort of competition? Do they duke it out for ten rounds in the library and come up with a winner?
Smug arrogant SOB.
I inadvertently set off an alarm at a newly acquired home and welcomed the quick response from the local gendarmes.
Of course, I don’t travel the face of the Earth assuming everyone knows me.
I think he might have some kinda 0bama complex.
Heh. Funny & true story that happened to me a few years ago. I was picking something up at the dry cleaners. I had just parked and gotten out of my car when a police car swoops into the lot and screeches to a stop. Two cops get out. “Ma’am, could you come over here, please? We need to talk to you.”
Turns out that a young man and a young woman had just robbed a convenience store six blocks away. The description of the female suspect - late 20s, Hispanic, 5’5”, 120 pounds, long dark hair - just happened to fit me to a T.
After I showed the officers my ID and told them who I was, they realized I couldn’t be the suspect. They apologized for bothering me and went on their way.
Was it a little annoying being stopped like that? Yes. But did I recognize that the officers were doing what they were supposed to be doing? Yes. And did I try to make a federal case out of it and look to score a big payday? Of course not.
That liberal Harvard professor needs to stop thinking he’s above the law and stop looking at everything through the lens of race and victimhood.
Thanks for posting the report. What was ironic was when they were taking Gates away and asked if he’d like them to get his keys and lock his door, he told them the door wouldn’t lock because of a previous break-in.
You just can’t make this stuff up.
Good story. But once somebody gets into the habit of asking “Do you know who I am?” when things don’t go his way, it may be too late to figure things like that out.
You must be talking about 0bama!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
