Doesn't really clear up a lot, but I did find it pretty telling when Crowley states to "keep the cars coming" apparently because Gates was being so uncooperative.

How do you 'racially profile' when investigating a call of a possible burglary? Does the house 'look black'?

Call taker wasn't very good at his job, imo. Sloppy work there. Agree with garandfan, "does the house look black?"

If the 911 caller did not know the race of the "intruders," and if she didn't speak with Crowley at the scene, then how did Crowley know the two guys were black? There is a big discrepancy between the witness and the police report.

So Crowley is such a pussy that he can't handle a 58 year old handicapped male who is about half his size? Why did he need more cars?

So Crowley is such a pussy that he can't handle a 58 year old handicapped male who is about half his size? Why did he need more cars?

Rob, this is a completely ignorant statement to make. The call was for 2 men breaking and entering, Crowley sees 1 man, but where is the second and what is he like? The reason more cars were necessary is that Crowley had no idea what he was dealing with because Gates was acting so irrationally.

It may have been ignorant, but I know you're not calling me an ignorant person.

The call for more cars came late in the game. By that time, the Harvard police were there. Crowley completely overreacted.

How did he know the two men were black?

Gates Tapes Released (video)
"We hope by obtaining more information about the arrest, the public will have a more informed opinion on the controversy," said Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch,

"So Crowley is such a pussy that he can't handle a 58 year old handicapped male who is about half his size?"

A cane wielded by somebody who knows how to use it can be a deadly weapon. The police officer can't just assume that because a man is standing there with a cane that he is 'handicapped'. The best weapons are those that double as some other 'innocent looking' device.

"The call for more cars came late in the game."

Poor dispatching. If you listen to the tape, 2 different units volunteer that they are headed to that location (52 and 13(?)). The dispatcher only sent Crowley, the other two come up on the air and say they are going to Ware St. 52 arrives and Crowley tells dispatch "keep the other units coming" as he still doesn't know what he's got other than an uncooperative individual. Later Crowley specifically asks for Harvard University police.

"So Crowley is such a pussy that he can't handle a 58 year old handicapped male who is about half his size?"

I was once in a fight with a 'handicapped' individual. I was trying to handcuff him without unduly 'hurting' him. All bets were off when I suddenly felt him trying to pull my service weapon from it's holster. I promptly kneed him as hard as I could, right in the balls. Sue me.

Rob is such a stereotypical lib...I hope he does'nt hurt himself with the sudden kneejerks.

Facts please. There was no fight. Crowley had no trouble getting cuffs on Gates, unless he was lying in his report, like he lied about the 911 caller telling him the two men were black.

unless he was lying in his report, like he lied about the 911 caller telling him the two men were black.

So you're calling Crowley a liar, is that right?

Where do people like Rob come from? Liberalism is a mental disorder.

When two people give conflicting accounts of an incident, only one can be right. That makes the other wrong. If the 911 caller is right, the Crowley is wrong, and he lied in his report.

"So Crowley is such a pussy that he can't handle a 58 year old handicapped male who is about half his size?"

Uh huh. Like that 80 year old decrepit geezer who walked into the D.C. museum a few months ago. The nice security guard politely opened the door for the old man; after all, what threat could some creaky old man pose.

All of a sudden, the old man starts shooting. Kills the guard and shoots others, I think.

But I'm sure tough-guy Rob would stick up for the old killer.

And nobody ever said there was a fight. What was stated was that a 'handicapped' man may not be as 'handicapped' as he appears.

Here's a scenario for you. I have broken into a house. I see the police arriving and knocking at the door. Not wanting to get caught, I see a cane at near the front door, so I pick it up, hunch over and lean on the cane as I open the door for the officer. He asks for ID. As I hand it to him, I drop it out of my trembling hand and onto the floor. As the officer sees my 'handicapped' condition, he bends over to pick it up. Wham! I nail him with the cane and beat him senseless and make my getaway.

You see Rob, an officer can't just assume that what he sees is really true. Criminals 'lie' all the time to try to prevent from being caught.

And an angry man with a cane can be deadly. Once the adreneline is flowing, you'd be surprised at what somebody 'could' do. Not that they will necessarily do anything, but as a police officer you can't take a chance as it could cost you your life or the life of a bystander.

Even though I don't know all the facts, I can say that Obama acted stupidly.

Robbi lives in his safe little alternate lib world where the real world never intrudes. How convient.

In Rob's world, all the crooks wear signs around their necks, or they LOOK LIKE CROOKS (what ever the hell that means).

When two people give conflicting accounts of an incident, only one can be right. That makes the other wrong. If the 911 caller is right, the Crowley is wrong, and he lied in his report.

You're ignoring the fact that the 911 caller met Crowley at the scene and she may have seen Gates or his driver by that time or talked to the other lady who first noticed the incident and discovered they were black. Apart from having a statement from her you don't have a case that Crowley lied.

As for the nonsense about Gates being a pathetic old man, which may well be the case, but he was arrested for disorderly conduct and all that takes is a loud mouth, and if you saw his interviews, you know that Gates certainly has a loud mouth. As for the handcuffs, it's department policy in many cities that everyone who's arrested gets the handcuffs put on. The department heads don't want their officers taking any undue risks.

All Gates had to do was pretend he was a reasonable person and he could have avoided the whole incident.

Since when do private citizens have any obligation to speak courteously to police officers when standing in their own home, Mac?

"Since when do private citizens have any obligation to speak courteously to police officers when standing in their own home, Mac?"

I think my mother called it "common courtesy" and something about "respect is a two-way street."

Of course you could do it your way, and end up like Gates. That would show them, wouldn't it?

hyperbolist

Your comment reminds me of the driver I stopped one day in order to point out that he had evidently forgotten that he left a package on the roof of his car. As I was getting out of my car, the BLACK guy flew out of his, screaming something to the effect of "What was MY FUCKING PROBLEM?".

I pointed out the box. He looked at it, grabbed it and threw it into his car. As he started to get in I said "That's okay, don't BOTHER to THANK ME!" He didn't.

If the 911 caller is right, the Crowley is wrong, and he lied in his report.

1. Crowley didn't write the report; another guy did.

2. The report was not a chronological, blow-by-blow account, but rather summarized the entire situation after the dust had settled. By the time the report was written, the author knew that two black males were involved (police probably need to note ethnicity to compile stats to satisfy libs like you. Put another way, if they hadn't mentioned race, you'd be screaming coverup). The report wasn't asserting that when Crowley arrived he had known that the call involved two black men. Please read more carefully.

Since when do private citizens have any obligation to speak courteously to police officers when standing in their own home, Mac?

Since...uh...forever. Giving a hard time to a police officer in the performance of his duties - regardless of location - is a great way to get arrested. Watch a few episodes of Cops.

Rob,
I walk with a cane. I also boxed and played rugby (and a little bit of lacrosse when I could borrow the cross to play) in my youth and in college. I may be a cripple, but I wager I could kick a bit of ass, moreso with that bamboo stick in my hand. And a trained cop would notice that fact.
Anyway, a cane is not a walker.

The report is chronological. Read it. This happened, then I heard a woman, I turned around, she said "two black men", etc. That is, in fact, a chronology, and regardless of who wrote it, it is official.

Gates cannot act reasonably because he is an asshole. That is, in fact, a fact. He very clearly could have avoided the whole incident by simply giving the officer his ID and stand there smiling.

Where did the "two black men" in the police report come from?

SCSI, you undoubtedly could beat my ass. This isn't the issue.

Michael, where did you buy your opinion? FoxNews?

So my point being that it's not illegal to be discourteous still stands: it's discourteous to be discourteous, but not against the law.

Glad you agree that Crowley did the wrong thing.

#28: Discourtesy becomes an offence (which means against the law) when it gets into "causing disturbance". It becomes an offence when it gets to "disobeying a lawful order" from the police.

Glad you agree that Obama and Gates are your typical race hustlers.

Ouch! Barry ain't going to like this video.

http://hotair.com/archives/2009/07/27/must-see-cambridge-cop-says-she-wont-vote-for-obama-again-after-gatesgate/#comment-2484906

Crowley did say that the dispatcher said "two black men." Which the dispatcher clearly did not. The Cambridge police said that the release of the audio tapes would prove Gates was uncontrollable. Which they clearly did not.

The police are clearly making claims that they keep failing to back up.

They arrested an old disabled man in his home for yelling, which is not against the law.

This was another instance of a cop doing the "I'm going to show you who's boss" routine.

Lame and shameful.

But this time he busted the wrong old disabled black man. LMAO at Crowley. Yes, he's a liar.

As is the routine, we can count on the Repubs to stand by the most vulnerable people in our country . . . the Cambridge Police Dept.

The report is chronological. Read it.

It's chronological, but not in the sense the comrades meant. It describes events in a chronological order, but with the benefit of hindsight, i.e., perfect knowledge, some obtained after the facts described in chronological order, e.g.,

"The Japanese approached Pearl Harbor from the north, having sailed 10 days previously and set a course in the North Pacific where they were unlikely to encounter commercial shipping."

Someone might write that in his report chronologically detailing events at Pearl Harbor, but that includes information he didn't know at the relevant time. The elided phrase throughout would be "who turned out to."

The distinction is subtle, but real, and very relevant. If you retrospectively impute perfect knowledge to the principals in any transaction, they generally look like idiots.

The Cambridge police said that the release of the audio tapes would prove Gates was uncontrollable. Which they clearly did not.

Dickman (I will resist the temptation), the Cambridge police were talking about the tapes of the Crowley-Gates interaction, not the 911 caller-911 dispatcher interaction.

I've been reading the arguments of the "Crowley lied" folks here, and I have to say, your logic reminds me of an old joke (Yeah, when you're old you can say that and actually mean it).

There's a new teller trainee, first day on the job. His trainer hands him a bound stack of one hundred $1.00 bills, tells him to count them to verify.

Very shortly later the trainer sees the trainee toss the stack into his drawer, so he asks him, "You can count one hundred bills that fast?"

Trainee says, "I only got to seventy four, but if it's right that far, it will be right the rest of the way."

You people may have gotten as far as demonstrating that the dispatcher didn't identify the people as two black men, but you're way short of proving Officer Crowley lied. The fact is the arrest report states Lucia Whalen spoke with Crowley when he arrived at the house on Ware St, "She told me that she observed what appeared to be two black males with backpacks on the porch...". Nothing in the arrest report up until that statement makes reference to anyone's race. So the tape released today, and Officer Crowley's report are entirely consistent with each other on this point. Not that that seems to be a hinderance to your story line.

Occam's Beard, prove it. Better, Cambridge Police, prove it. They made the claim. Put up or shut up.

Upset Old Guy, thanks for copying and pasting in spam from one of your emails. But your red herring don't hunt.

Even though I don't have all the facts, I can say that Obama is no more than a despicable race-hustler, just another Al Sharpton with a nicer suit.

Looks like the laptops are recharged and the script is to beat up on Crowley and call him a liar. Sounds kinda like previous Obama attacks to me. This is almost getting boring. Wonder if Crowley's lawyer will go after blog commenters as well as Gates?

How colloquial of you, but that's a mixed metaphor. Do you know what it means to "have the bit in your teeth". If so, it's already too late to warn you about the barb wire.

Go to The Smoking Gun and read the first page of the arrest report. That's where the quote I used came from.

In fact, then go to Boston.com and read the article: Gates caller says she didn't cite race. Lucia Whalen was referencing to her call to the 911 dispatcher. She's upset that the media have made a mistake and made it sound like she reported that information during her 911 call.

Nite now, past my bedtime.

I love how the dems want to accuse the officer of abuse of power - da poe black man and the evil abuser - but the narrative is that a friend of the President's considered himself above the law.

And he got busted.....

End of story. The little guy won instead of the elites with the White House megaphone.

That makes the poseurs on this blog defending Gates absolute tools.

I really don't think liberals know the definition of a lie anymore. They think it is a statement they disagree with... must be that 'relative' truth thingy.

Do you fools honestly think the police force would line up to speak for this guy if he was an embarrassment? The tapes back him up. I don't know what you heard when you were listening to it and I don't care, please don't explain, your verbage causes brain damage.

The little guy in this scenario is the one the President tried to destroy because his arrogant little buddy got his pride sorted for him.

Occam's Beard, prove it. Better, Cambridge Police, prove it. They made the claim. Put up or shut up.

It's obvious. I don't have to prove a thing. You're making the assertion, so you have to prove that they did know, and that that's why they acted as they did, and that you can't do.

Upset Old Guy, thanks for copying and pasting in spam from one of your emails. But your red herring don't hunt.

Seriously Larry, besides the joke, how is old guy's post a red herring? He is merely quoting from the police report.

This incident has nothing to do with race. Any person acting in the same manner as Gates would have the cuffs thrown on them, its ridiculous to suggest otherwise. The cops had a right to be there and there was no reson for Gates not to cooperate.

Why our lefty friends are so upset is Obama's approval rating is at 30% before this incident. He planted the question thinking he can make it relevant to his attempts and it back fired. All Barry proved was he will take the side of a black man against a white cop without all the facts. That is called ignorance. You lefties are not liking the blunders I can tell. You are trying to justify this but you cannot. The best way for this to go away was for Barry to just say he mispoke and apologize and let justice run its course, but his ego is too big to allow that to happen. Bad for dems, great for conservatives. We now see the real racist. ww

Why our lefty friends are so upset is Obama's approval rating is at 30% before this incident.

Thirty percent of what, Willie? Cite something, or acknowledge the fact that you're guilty of making shit up and aren't the sort of person that ought to be taken seriously.

So here's where we're at: Gates is an asshole; didn't break the law (unless you're a fascist pussy who thinks yelling on your front porch is [or even ought to be] illegal); and thus was arrested for no good reason.

The witness says she never gave any indication of the race of the intruders, apart from mentioning that one of them might have been Hispanic.

Anyone who says Crowley acted properly is either stupid or lying.

" but he was arrested for disorderly conduct and all that takes is a loud mouth"

Ah yes. Big Government is bad, until you talk about police officers, the NSA, and the military being able to abduct citizens, torture them, and in this case, have wide open ability to arrest anyone for anything, including a big mouth.

I've never understood how the Right squares their conflicting opinions of the role and rights of government.

Verbally disrespecting someone is not a crime. Having a loud mouth is not a crime. Disorderly conduct that endangers the public safety is a crime. What Gates did not endanger the public safety, and the arrest was a bad idea (read that as "stupid"), the proof of which is the rapidity with which the charges were dropped.

And do you guys really, truly believe Gates used the term "yo mama"? Surely Crowley could have come up with something a bit more believable.

Gates is an insufferably arrogant Ivy League prick. It's more likely that he said "A pox on your house, wretched wag!" than the Martin Lawrence-esque quote that Crowley hatched out of his ass.

But Gates' detractors are correct in saying that Crowley's stupidity in this instance does not make him a racist.

Wow! How the left is justifying Obama's poor, behavior. He acted stupidly. I don't care what race you are this is not appropriate. Why don't you white lefties go out and have an encounter with a cop and start yelling a screaming, interupting and be anything but cooperative. See what happens. All officers will remove you from the scene because you would be causing a scene. The black officers in Gates area are hugely dissapointed in Obama's and Gates behavior. To you lefties, Crowley is the knuckle dragging facist. Nice. I hope you need one of these facists some day to save your butt but refuse to show.

Hyper, my little canadian friend, check Rasmussen. If you need me to, I will post the link but I think your a big enough boy to hanle it.

I don't necessarily care for the polls, but I know you lefties live by them. Your star is falling. OPPS! ww

Those of you who will grant any individual with a gun and a badge the authority to arrest someone because they are being disrespectful have no understanding of the principles of liberty and the right of people to be free from oppression. It is really that simple.

I never called him a fascist, Willie. I said that people who think police are justified in arresting someone for being a loud-mouthed a-hole are fascists. Like you, I guess.

Crowley lost his temper and arrested someone who was talking shit to him. That's not within his authority when a) he made that person come outside, and b) that person was still standing on his own front porch.

And Willie, Rasmussen has him under 50%. The WaPo and NYT have him around 55%. You said he's at 30%. So, are you unable to read numbers or were you just making shit up?

Rob: Willie doesn't give a shit about liberty. He only cares about maintaining Reagan's social status quo, circa 1982. He loves the Constitution when it can be interpreted to support his own socially regressive point of view. And that isn't news to anyone who has read more than a few of his comments.

Oh, and I'm well aware of how little regard you have for polls. Your predictions leading up to the '08 election were nowhere near reasonable (and were mostly shown to be false); and you continued to support GWB even after he was polling on par with late term Jimmy Carter.

I don't live by polls, but they are a fair indicator of national sentiment. People who read and understand polls can claim to have some sense of the national zeitgeist, whereas you're like an EMT trying to determine a crash victim's pulse by reading tea leaves.

Those of you who will grant any individual with a gun and a badge the authority to arrest someone because they are being disrespectful have no understanding of the principles of liberty and the right of people to be free from oppression. It is really that simple.

Yeah, I think you may have taken your sentiments a little too far here Rob. We can have general disagreements about this matter and how the situation was handled, but please save me you don't understand the principles of liberty and oppression crap, OK?

Gates should have calmed down after the first warning and all this would have been avoided. At least now it seems we can put to bed the racial angle. As much as Gates and Obama would like this incident to be a teaching moment on race, it has proven to be nothing of the sort.

They are stupid and are acting stupidly:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090729/ap_on_re_us/us_harvard_scholar_slurs_1