Gates arrest: its not about racism, its about a lack of the use of judgment

I intentionally waited to see how the situation between Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates and the Cambridge police department shook out before commenting on it, when mid of last week, Barack Obama decided to wade in head first without looking. During a speech last week on Health Care reform, our ‘esteemed’ Dict….er, President called out the Cambridge police department saying they were “ignorant” in their actions…

It’s not often that you will find me taking the side of Liberals and our President on an issue, but this time I have to say that I agree with what Obama had to say on this issue and, even more so, how exactly he said it.

For too long now, police departments nationwide (particularly here in Southern Florida) have ‘shot first and asked questions’ later. I understand that those who undertake the difficult job of becoming a police officer deal with things on a daily basis that you and I couldn’t possibly dream of, but it is becoming more and more apparent that those who take up these difficult jobs, lack any common sense themselves, and are perpetually doomed to failure in situations when the use of their better judgment is required.

It doesn’t take a genius to see that Gates, a black man, in no way fits the stereotype that one would associate with someone who is burglarizing a home-particularly in Cambridge, MA. For one, the man was wearing some pretty expensive clothing at the time of his arrest; for two, he was obviously educated and well spoken. These 2 facts alone should have tipped the officer off enough to at least allow the man to prove who he claimed he said he was at the time-that is, the owner of the home he was being accused of 'breaking in' to.

This in turn leads me to the claims by both men which resulted in the eventual arrest of Mr. Gates. For Sergeant James Crowley, the arresting officer, he claims that Mr. Gates was belligerent and aggressive, leading to his making the arrest for disorderly conduct, a charge which has since been dropped. For Mr. Gates’ part, he claims the officer was being rude and aggressive himself, insinuating things with his general tone and demeanor which he found insulting and in turn, obviously felt obligated to defend himself vociferously.

Personally, I am torn on this issue.

Firstly, I hate that this has become an issue of “racism”-a false term in my opinion, and a discussion that I will maybe get into at another time.

On the flip side, I am happy that this is raising some serious questions about how our police officers conduct themselves in situations where their lack of judgment, especially when facing obvious evidence to the contrary, puts them into embarrassing situations with potentially drastic consequences-for both the arresting officer and the accused. As someone who has, unfortunately, been on the ‘wrong side of the law’, it has been obvious to me for some time that most (not all) police officers fail to use any judgment whatsoever in every situation they find themselves in. This behavior is what creates the feelings of distrust and abuse on the part of communities as a whole, relative to their policing agencies, whose job it is to maintain law and order and whose further duties it is to serve and protect the public. Sergeant Crowley showed such poor judgment in his actions that he has again made it all too easy for a large portion of the American public to look down upon our nation’s law enforcement agencies as nothing more than bullies looking for an outlet for their inability to deal with their own personal issues.

Unfortunately, Mr. Gates immediately took the ‘racist’ side of this argument, making it all too easy for many people to look past the obvious mistakes by Sergeant Crowley, thereby giving Crowley some community wide support because such arguments are as socially polarizing as the abortion debate. This in turn takes away from what I see as the real issue: that of the lack of the use of judgment are the part of our “LEO’s”.