He did! He showed the copy his Harvard ID and driver's license and they still arrested him! Perhaps conservatives should recognize that blacks could also be an emerging abusive police state.
From the description, he started yelling racism before he even tried to do anything else. Knowing liberals’ respect for authority, I would not doubt that he became mouthy and didn’t know when to shut up.
However, I have been in situations where a cop threatened to arrest me for “disturbing the peace” for daring to question their motives.
As I understand, the arrest came after Gates followed the officer to his car—on a public street—still raising a fuss. That got him the arrest for disorderly conduct.