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Being “disrespectful” to police in your own home, even if you’re cooperating, is now grounds for arrest?

The Cambridge Review Committee, which investigated last July’s arrest of Harvard University scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. by Officer James Crowley has issued it's report PDF. The strenuously even-handed independent review panel concludes that being “disrespectful” to police in your own home, even if you’re cooperating with an inquiry, is now grounds for arrest.

Adam Serwer writes:

An independent review panel put together by the Cambridge police to examine the incident last year in which Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. was arrested at his own home for disorderly conduct by Sgt. James Crowley is complete:

The situation at Gates' home quickly escalated when it shouldn't have, according to the review put together by a 12-member panel assembled in September. No one on the panel had direct ties to the Cambridge Police Department.

The report suggests that Crowley could have more clearly explained what he was doing and why he was doing it, especially after being shown Gates' license and university ID. For his part, Gates could have used a more respectful tone to address the officer.

This seems strenuously even-handed. Being "disrespectful" to police in your own home, even if you're cooperating with an inquiry, is now grounds for arrest?

More on the topic from Dan Kennedy here, "In Cambridge, a dubious balancing act"

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Comments

I didn't think Gates really cooperated with the police on this one. And wasn't Gates outside his home screaming where other people could hear him?

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I didn't think Gates really cooperated with the police on this one.

Even Sgt James Crowley says Gates cooperated at the time. As he left Gates home, Crowley said to Gates, "Thank you for accommodating my earlier request" referring to providing ID, and then promptly put him under arrest for disorderly conduct on Gates own front porch. I assume Gates was being direct and honest - that he meant what he said - but even if Gates was being disingenuous, it only points to him arresting Gates as a punitive measure for not being MORE cooperative.

And wasn't Gates outside his home screaming where other people could hear him?

He was insisting Crowley provide him name and badge number, (which Crowley claims he provided and which Gates claims he did not.) Even if Gates raised his voice out of frustration and anger that Crowley would not provide an answer, its hard to argue that his conduct was disorderly. A person's conduct has to be disturbing to other people, not just the police officer at the scene. The DA agreed. The DA dropped the charges and called them "unfortunate." There was no basis to prosecute Gates on that charge. If there is no basis to prosecute, then the police should re-examine the basis to arrest. In fact they did. The Cambridge Review Committee looked at arrest records where persons were arrested for disorderly conduct and no other charge to see if it were a frequent practice that should be reviewed and revised.

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Crowley asked Gates to step out onto the porch when he arrived. Gates stated "No, I will not". (according to Crowley). That does not seem like cooperation to me. But that may be why you put the word "disrepectful" in quotes? You must think "not cooperating" is being "disrespectful". I can see how one may misintrepret the two.

As for being arrested, Gates was arrested outside his home not inside. Your headline "in your own home" didn't seem to sum up the circumstances exactly how they may have been laid out.

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I guess Cambridge is really like old Russia, no freedom of speech, even in your own home. Shouldn't the burden of deescalating the argument be on the "professional", the police officers we pay? I still don't understand why the second Gates showed his ID the cop didn't leave.

I guess I should watch what I type, the cops might arrest me in my home for being disrespectful to them here.

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Have you lived in Russia? Highly doubt it.
Have you looked at the report and both sides of the story? Definitely not.
Causing a scene, that could have been wrapped up in seconds, if one party got his ego down a bit, has nothing to do with free speech. It has to do with a spoiled entitled man who refuses to grow up.

There are thousands of people who are being pulled over, frisked, questioned, etc. every day. And thousands of those incidents end quickly and cleanly.

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Aren't you missing a fox news special or something?

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The narcissistic little shit jumped ugly with the cop, pulled the race card, switched over to I'M FAMOUS AND YOU'RE A NOBODY! And then he got run by the cop. i.e., treated like anybody else would under the similar circumstances, who behaved in a similar way.

And inflated his marketability and likely increased his lecture fees by 200-300 per cent. Yeah, I really feel terrible for him. And I'll be waiting for the press release about any related profit being donated to the Area 4 Youth Center in Central Square.

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Arrogant narcissists still have 4th amendment rights, and cops still have to be trained to deal with them professionally and KNOW AND OBEY THE LAWS THEMSELVES.

I'm sure your local library has that nasty little cop impeding document known as the Constitution and Bill of Rights just in case you would like to read up.

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If Crowley were guilty of breaking any law, then he should be prosecuted. Of course, he didn't and he won't be prosecuted; not will Gates and Company sue him... likely they wouldn't be successful. Courts have ruled that police have some latitiude when responding to what police think maybe a crime in progress. Prof. Gates shouldn't have been arrested; however, he should have been more co-operative and less insulting... which is how effective community policing works.

If Gates were arrested for "contempt of cop"; Crowley is being accused of the greater crime of "ignorance of a celebrity" by the PBS crowd. And of course the 12 members of the review panel are also, for reasons unknown, engaged in a deceit; nor apparently do the jurists on the review panel understand the Constitution.

And while I'm fulminating here... could someone explain why whoever wrote this posting put "disrespectful" in quotes.... what are they signaling? And why can't they just plainly say what they mean. (I guess the answer to my question is that good journalism isn't required by the First Amendment.)

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Class is a factor in this one. Few black men in my neighborhood would dare, unless high as a kite, to throw the type of hissy fit that Gates did.

Skip Gates did a huge disservice to the people he purports to represent: disenfranchised black men. His arrogance only serves to exacerbate the racism of the bad cops on the beat who know what they can get away with when they need to vent their work frustrations.

I've watched repeatedly as street savvy black guys - not Harvard profs with second homes on the Vineyard - who are as tough as nails and talking 'hood trash become models of etiquette when confronted by police. "Nigga and muthafucka" become "yes, sir. no sir". It is not a pleasant sight but the reality is that disenfranchised people (innocent or not/at home or not) who deal with police can't afford to throw a temper tantrum during these encounters. For them, it is frequently and truly a matter of life and death and hysterics is more likely to result in a few broken ribs than a beer with the President and enhanced "street cred" among the afternoon tea crowd.

Skip Gates should be ashamed of himself. A person of his "stature" should be contributing in a positive way to discussions of race AND class, not throwing gasoline on the fire. "The true measure of a man is not how he behaves in moments of comfort and convenience but how he stands at times of controversy and challenges."

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Sgt. Crowley said he would not apologize for his actions. He was backed up by the Cambridge Police Superior Officers Association, who released a statement saying his actions had been consistent with police training, policies and applicable legal standards.

The charges were dropped five days after the arrest, on July 21, 2009, by the Middlesex County district attorney's office, upon the recommendation of the city of Cambridge and the Cambridge Police Department. Hmmm.

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Oh, so kissing ass on somebody there to bully you with authoritay they have no right to claim is the rightful position for all men of color to assume? Reread what you wrote if that ain't what you meant, cause that's how it sounds.

What next? Are you going to tell me that no woman should ever say no to her date or she is endangering women everywhere? What's your advice for Catholic altar boys under proposition, pray tell?

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Let's put it this way: would anybody care if this kind of thing happened to Joe Smith from Old Colony or Joe Johnson from Franklin Field? That is, a misunderstanding turns into an arrest for disorderly conduct when both cop and innocent civilian start exchanging heated words? Not that it's right- by any stretch of the imagination- but how does it help blue collar guys to advise them to mouth off to police? Is Joe Schmoe likely to get ACLU representation and a beer summit with the President for his trouble, or just a criminal record? Forgive me if I don't volunteer to be the next test case for our (technically) constitutional right to insult cops.

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Expect policemen to use their authority according to law, not abusing it.

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...is a Lou Reed song, not a State mandate for the behavior of citizens when confronted by the police.

"The Fourth Amendment: Void where Prohibited by Cop opinion."

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Having encountered him in a work environment a couple of times over the years, I can assure you, he is one of those "don't you know who I am" types. So now he goes on to fame and fortune with his TV show and his rising speakers fees. Jim Crowley, on the other hand, only has his salary, his pension, and the thought of one day maybe getting shot in the face.

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I'll add what others have added. Being obnoxious and self righteous is no grounds for arrest, a fact the Cambridge PD and the district attorney's office implicitly recognized when they refused to press charges. Being verbally abusive to a cop is absolutely your right as long as you're complying with his lawful orders. As soon as Crowley determined that Gates was the homeowner and that no crime had been committed he had absolutely no legal right to be on Gate's property anymore. All he could legally do was leave. As a police officer he is also legally REQUIRED to provide Gates with his name and badge number when asked. Crowley claims that he did so but given the other discrepancies in his account we should probably take Gates word for it barring any evidence to the contrary. Crowley instead stayed in Gates house and escalated the confrontation. The report is a sham in that it tries to pretend that Gates was in the wrong here. As a matter of personal courtesy he may have been. As a matter of law he was not. This incident is 100% the result of Officer Crowley's irresponsible and unprofessional conduct.

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If the arrest was not valid, why wasn't Crowley charged with a false arrest or disciplined? That goes both ways.

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You do not have to give your name and badge number until after you are done investigating the crime. It is up to the police to decide when that time is.

Imagine if there actually was someone in the house and that person came down and shot both Gates and Crowley while both were arguing about names and badge numbers?

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Imagine if someone were outside the house and ran up and shot Crowley and Gates. Imagine if the martians came down and vaporized them both with ray guns. Bottom line is, even Crowley admits that at the point he became concerned about Gates behavior he believed there was no crime and that Gates was the homeowner. Case closed. Crowley had no business being there anymore.

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This is not even a close call. Crowley went to Gates home to investigate a breaking and entering (or burglary or armed burglary. You never know what you will encounter.) Crowley went alone. He had a reasonable amount of fear.

The manner Crowley used to establish whether Gates was the homeowner (as he claimed) or a (hobbled 60 year old) burglar really pushed Gates buttons. Still no crime, just a ham-handed cop and a sensitive citizen well within his rights to be annoyed and to suspect racism was at play (He is likely wrong about that.)

Crowley stiffened at the suggestion of racism and was not going to be undone by it. He decided to arrest Gates even before Gates stepped out on his front porch for yelling insulting things at him. Yelling insulting things at an officer who had no probable cause for breaking and entering or any other crime is not a crime. Gates was in his own home where a person has rights protected by the fourth amendment that they do not have in any other place on earth.

The City of Cambridge and the Cambridge Police Department both requested that the DA drop the charges of disorderly conduct.

The review committee did a study of the use of the charge of disorderly conduct in Cambridge to see if it were a de facto method of making arrests when arrests were not appropriate.

Gates could and should have kept a civil tongue but he is not required by law to do so. And the use of law to arrest him for not doing so is an abuse of the law.

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Martains have never landed on earth. Cops and homeowners have been assaulted by burglars. Many times homeowners will arrive home at the same time the burglar is still in the house. This had nothing to do with Gates being the owner of the house, it had to do with the fact that Crowley had no idea whether or not someone else was in the house.

Even the panelists point out that Gates (and other people) need to realize that cops have a job to do before they can start doing secondary importance tasks like giving out names and badge numbers. Some blame was placed on Gates here because he did not realize that. In fact, Gates even said he would not do anything differently if it happened again.

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Gates could and should have kept a civil tongue but he is not required by law to do so. And the use of law to arrest him for not doing so is an abuse of the law.

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