Once he found out Gates' was the person who lived there, there was no longer any suspects because no crime was in progress. I don't think a policeman has a right to check your house once that determination has been made. Not without a warrant anyway. No crime = no suspects = no reason for the police to be there.
He was using his rights when the officer advised him he was in danger of being arrested if he didn’t calm down.
The way I see it, the officer is admitting he (the officer) is fully aware that he is agitating Gates and he should have just left. Why must the citizen back down? I mean the police no longer have a right to be there because no crime is being committed. Why must the citizen back down on his own property? The police are going to have to leave pretty soon anyway- why not just go before you agitate the man to the point where you feel like you needed to arrest him? Why not defuse the situation by removing yourself from it? After all, Gates has a perfect right to be where he is- you (the policeman) do not (keeping in mind the policeman knows by this point that no crime has been committed and he is not needed).
Seems to me Gates had a full portion of his rights and chose to piss them away for whatever reason.
You referred earlier as well to Gates' stored up rights (to paraphrase you). I don't believe your rights are like a battery charge- once you use them up they're gone. You don't just use up your 1st or 2nd Ammendment rights by exercising them. If Gates has the right then he has the right.
It’s hardly unwarranted intrusion when a 911 caller reports what appears to be forced entry into a house.
It is once it's been determined that no burglary is taking place. No reason to be there at that point.
Exactly what rights of Gates do you feel were violated?
1st and 4th ammendments. I think Gates has a right to be secure in his own house from unwarranted intrusion and I think he has a right to speak his mind- even at elevated volume- to a government official, most particularly to one he feels like is intruding unduly on his rights as a citizen. Put in plain speak, the right not to be f---ed with by the government when you haven't done anything wrong in the first place.
That is simply not true. If a police officer responds to the scene of a possible break-in and finds a person in the house that lives there, he/she would be remiss if they didn't also verify that the person who is rightfully in the home is actually the person who was observed breaking in.
If the police had left and Gates was attacked shortly thereafter by an intruder who had already been hiding in the house when the police arrived, we'd never hear the end of it . . . and that professional malcontent Looie Gates would be making a racial issue out of the lack of proper diligence by the white police officers who came to the house.
How did the office not know that someone was behind a door to the right of Gates holding a gun on the two of them. The 911 caller reported two people forcing entry. Gates didn’t respond to the officer’s question about a burglary but rather with a tirade of racist accusations.
Gates had every opportunity to end the confrontation, starting with the moment the officer turned around and walked out of his presence. He didn’t. He chose to continue the encounter. The office respected the rights of Gates when he abandoned the investigation and started to leave.