Excellent points, too!
Gates owes Crowley an apology for his horrific name calling when the man was AT HIS HOME trying to stop what he was called to STOP-a possible burglary or WORSE. Crowley didn't know what to expect, only gates knew what was going on, he was home after difficulty getting in.
Instead of THANKING the officer since breakins were happening in the area lately, he ATTACKED the officer with mean WORDS.
And continued it for awhile...trying to stir up the crowd when crowley invited him outside. (He was acting dirty enough INSIDE that the tape indicates crowley asked that the extra cars continue to come, anticipating that gates was on some racist rampage)
Gates needs to be spanked.
my sentiments exactly!
“First amendment rights have always stopped at yelling “fire” in a crowded theatre, and they stop at fomenting a race riot.”
This wasn’t Harlem, or East L.A. It was Cambridge, where the intellectual elite have deigned to live. Not likely to have a race riot amongst that crowd of eggheads.
The professor showed a typical egghead response—his offended intellect demanded respect and subservience from the vastly undereducated and inferior police officer, and so he was spewing hostility, albeit while balancing himself on a cane. I’m sure it was a bit comical, and not the least threatening to two much larger and well armed police officers. I’m sure also that this was not the first time that the police officer had been talked down to by the local intelligencia, and he quite understandably had had enough.
It’s not illegal to insult a police officer. But most of the time it will get you arrested, even if typically the charge is later dropped as it was here. It may not be a legal arrest, but that’s what’s going to happen in the real world, if not something even worse.