Getting together with Gates and Crowley must not look like such a great idea today.  Picture the staff meeting listing possible topics of conversation...and those to avoid.  

Add alcohol, you say?  Terrific.

Photo ops?  Interviews after?

1. Whalen never mentioned the men were black.  In fact she didn't know the race, as can be heard on the 911 call.
   
2. Whalen claims she never had the discussion with Crowley that Crowley puts in his report.  This despite Crowley saying that the woman he talks to claims to have made the 911 call.
   
3. The supposed witness on the street doesn't tell the copy that one of the men left in a towncar?  Seems like an odd omission -- did the witness go inside for a while?  Did Crowley actually speak to someone on the street?
   
4. The report says the men had backpacks.  Yet in all of the audio we've heard the men have suitcases.  Men with suitcases sound a lot less interesting than black men with backpacks.

The confusion comes from the fact that Whalen was walking by the house and an elderly neighbor of Gates stopped her to tell her that something odd was going on at the house in question.

In a way Whalen was just helping an old lady cross the street, in a manner of speaking. The old lady, obviously had the description of two black men, etc.

Ha! I believe I had something to do with that! (none / 0) (#208)
by sarcastic unnamed one on Tue Jul 28, 2009 at 09:13:53 AM PST

 

Although last week I learned that Italian isn't white either, so who knows.

My point was...that there's not just a big box full of "white" people. That [to many people] there's white and then there's white. And it has a lot to do with ethnicity, privilege, etc. That some people assess other people as "white" but not "white like us."

Take your North End residents for example. (My dad spent some years there as a child. He's Italian-Irish, both his parents were right off the boat.)

And I'll go further in that that is the reality of most if not all ethnicity/races in America.

For example Cubans, Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, Haitians are all Hispanic but for many(most of them?) the others are not "Hispanic like us."

This was a "contempt of cop" arrest and should be condemned as such. But the argument that it was racially based seems weak -- certainly too weak to make it a usefully "teachable" moment. The African American officer who later arrived on the scene has said that he would have arrested Gates for the same behavior he witnessed -- stressing that a determing factor in the arrest was the fact that a crowd was beginning to form (rightly or wrongly, cops are especially likely to react poorly to having their authority questioned when a situation appears to be escalating and attracting wide attention). The same officer has also said that he thinks Gates would not have reacted as he did if the responding officer had been African American. Which, frankly, implies that possibly Gates too, or even solely, was reacting from preconceived notions and prejudice.

1. How accurate would any of us be if we had to write up the "facts" of a stressful incident (or a number of incidents that day) after the fact.  Would we get it all "correct?"  I doubt it.

2. Try it sometime.  Create an "incident" at home or at work and then ask everyone to write up their version of it later.  See how much the accounts disagree.  Especially if you ask everyone to say who said what and when.  We all "fill in the blanks" when communicating more than we think.  Could Sgt Crowley "truly" think this or that was said.  Of course.

3. Sure cops are trained at this.  It doesn't mean they aren't human or that they don't make mistakes.  I'm amazed how often I have completely different recollections of the same conversation or experience with friends and family members, often the same day.  I recall many times when I have dug myself a deep hole when I am positive I am right.  We all see the world from our point of view.  And these are in non-confrontational relationships.

4. Do I think cops makes stuff up or embellish sometimes.  Maybe lots of times.  Sure.  No doubt about it.

5. Any organization always presents the "facts" as they want them to be to make themselves look good.  Look no farther than the "projection" made by our beloved Congress as they rationalize their latest pet programs they want to pass.  Anybody think those are accurate?  Anybody doubt they make projections which they know are false so they can get what they want through the legislative process?   We're talking big bucks and big impact here.   Is this OK?

1.  Big Tent the lawyer after looking at the oculus link to the 3 page statement by the police says "not particularly interesting."  Perhaps there is a chronological statement by Gates that refutes in detail the police statement and is more interesting to Big Tent?

2.  A lot of people question whether the Whalen woman was on the street to talk to the officer.  Both officers (both!) in the report indicate speaking to her.  

Crowley knew the truth/or suspected as much before he made his move!

Whether there were suitcases or backpacks I don't think is important in this day and time where bags can be quite general purpose and carried or toted many ways.  i.e. the backpack with the built in handle and wheels for example.

What I think I can  be positive about is that Crowley had found out/ divined/ ascertained/ deduced/ concluded, whatever, correctly that there had been two black males involved before the brave cop approached the door of the house "without a gun drawn, without SWAT having arrived."