Gates showed two forms of ID after his initial statement flash.
I understand that, but he did not comply with the officer who asked him to come outside with him and then (according to reports) became uncooperative or unruly or disruptive when he decided he no longer wished to comply and was "frustrated" (as GAtes' lawyer said).
I think we can all agree, that it is not a good idea, that no matter how frustrated you are, that when dealing with a police officer, you follow all his or her instructions to a T and accomodate them completely in every way.
They ask you to step to the curb, you step to the curb. They ask for ID, you give ID, they ask you to come outside, you come outside, they ask for a phone number to call a r elative, you giver them a phone number. They have a way of doing things and each officer is trained to go through those things as best as they can to resolve the situation...throwing them off their routine in anyway, acting out in anyway, not complying in anyway, is an immediate warning sign to a police officer...any type of non-compliance, while not indicative of a crime, raises the officer's alarm level in his/her head...another type of non-compliance, raises it again, an unheeded warning increases it further, and when you cross the threshold of a particular officer's comfort zone with specifics relating to dealing with an officer, they will arrest you, to prevent any possible further altercation.
you never know, and the safest thing for a cop to do if he keeps feeling that you are tripping him up or avoiding or obstructing, is to arrest you on a very basic charge of some type of disorderly conduct or non-compliance, cuff you, and take you downtown. Better safe than sorry, and i cannot say that i disagree.
The scuttlebutt on the local news is that by the time the Cambridge PD arrived Gates and his friend were already inside the foyer of the house and when the police asked to come in Gates allowed them in.
He showed them his Mass. Driver's License and his Harvard ID. When Gates asked for the officer's info (badge # and name) the officer refused to give it. That's what's out there for local consumption.
I'll watch the 11:00 local news to see any updates.
It appears from what Couric's nightly broadcast intimated that both Gates and the Cambridge Police want an end to the thing. We'll see. I know that neighborhood in Cambridge and it's 99% white. In my opinion (again I want to state in my opinion) the woman who called the Cambridge police to report what she deemed a breaking and entering made a rush to judgment. The man with Gates was his driver from Logan Airport ... and the suitcases were on the porch.
The weather here in New England has been atrociously wet and humid and we've not seen a summer like this in eighty years. I suspect (as mine was this afternoon) Gates's door was swollen shut from humidity and weather.
The only fault I find with Gates is that he appeared to become immediately confrontational in that he said "this is how it is for a black man living in America" to the police (which would not fall on sympathetic ears to a Cambridge white police officer). But then again there's truth in Gates's statement too.
I can tell you from my own experience that being singled out as a minority for negative attention is a very unsettling thing. What that minority may be is irrelevant to how it feels to be singled out when one is minding his own business let alone (Gates) trying to get in his front door.
I'm just saying....
as for the rest of the story, we will see how it plays out.
as for being singled out for being a minority, i am not suggesting that it is not unsettling...but all the more reason that Gates should have been twice as careful, especially consdiering that the police had arrived to protect *HIS* house. He should have understood that, considering his intelligence, and if he went down the "cause i'm black" path, as you said noting Boston history of race relations, that probably did not endear him to the officer, who was just doing his job...
from what i have heard, the officer did not make one single solitary racial statement, and if he did not, then Gates' racial taunts, are totally unacceptable as was his not obeying instructions.
