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Jul. 23rd, 2009 01:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sophiaserpentiaI assume by now most of you have probably heard about the arrest last week of a Harvard professor on his front doorstep for being "disorderly." This incident happened about a five minute walk away from where I work.
While the police were called ostensibly because "two Black men with backpacks" were seen trying to force their way into a house, the arrest happened well after it was established that Professor Gates was not a burglar but the actual resident of the house, and that the other person with him had been an assistant. The police report, filed later, described Gates as being confrontational, yelling at the police over and over that they were racist. The police officer then led him out of his house onto the front porch, where he claims Professor Gates's yelling was disturbing and shocking people so much he had no choice but to arrest him for being disorderly.
Never mind that what was causing the disturbance was the continued and at that point completely unnecessary presence of police on the scene. It wasn't that Professor Gates was being disorderly and *then* the police came along to defuse the situation; he was "disorderly" because he was having a bad day and the police, by not leaving when their job was done, were making it worse. Their continued presence was the sole antagonist. If the police had left after Gates's identity was established, there would have been no more yelling; the tension would have been de-escalated.
So what it boils down to is, Professor Gates was arrested plainly and simply for not being properly cowed and obedient, and for no other reason. The charges against him have been dropped, but, notably, the arresting officer is completely unrepentant.
While the police were called ostensibly because "two Black men with backpacks" were seen trying to force their way into a house, the arrest happened well after it was established that Professor Gates was not a burglar but the actual resident of the house, and that the other person with him had been an assistant. The police report, filed later, described Gates as being confrontational, yelling at the police over and over that they were racist. The police officer then led him out of his house onto the front porch, where he claims Professor Gates's yelling was disturbing and shocking people so much he had no choice but to arrest him for being disorderly.
Never mind that what was causing the disturbance was the continued and at that point completely unnecessary presence of police on the scene. It wasn't that Professor Gates was being disorderly and *then* the police came along to defuse the situation; he was "disorderly" because he was having a bad day and the police, by not leaving when their job was done, were making it worse. Their continued presence was the sole antagonist. If the police had left after Gates's identity was established, there would have been no more yelling; the tension would have been de-escalated.
So what it boils down to is, Professor Gates was arrested plainly and simply for not being properly cowed and obedient, and for no other reason. The charges against him have been dropped, but, notably, the arresting officer is completely unrepentant.
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Date: 2009-07-24 12:07 am (UTC)It is worth keeping in mind who the violent abuser in the scenario is: Prof. Gates.
The police officer did not show up at Gates' house on a power trip looking for someone to bully. He came in good faith to protect the property of the homeowner, that being Prof. Gates, in fact. Prof. Gates replied with violent abuse, and now people who usually defend victims of abusive violence have starting trotting out all the standard abuser-justifying cliches about how the abuser was just having a bad day and it was the victim's fault for provoking him, and so on.
It's worth noting the power relationships here. The average beat cop has zilch. The arrests they make are for the benefit of others. If they arrest someone who is abusing them, all they can do is fill out some papers, and then they have no control over the rest of the process at all, and if there is any vindication, it will be months in the future. The situation of your typical police officer does not include a high degree of control over one's fate. Further, the police are acting for the benefit of the public, and are indeed called 'public servants' (and 'to serve and protect' etc.) Prof. Gates' behavior disturbingly becomes a narrative of a furious aristocrat beating a servant trying to do his job because the servant has the temerity not to have the telepathic ability to know that Prof. Gates is not a criminal, because after all, you can tell someone's not a criminal by just eyeballing them. The officer had the temerity to not engage in profiling, actually trying to find out who they were dealing with rather than just eyeballing Prof. Gates and saying "oh, not a criminal", which is, after all, what all good police officers do when responding to a break-in: don't bother to question people at the scene because they just look all right to you.
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Date: 2009-07-24 03:00 am (UTC)ETA: I'll clarify why I ask this. Officer Crowley arrested Gates because he felt threatened by him. Never mind that the professor walked with a cane and the police officer had a gun and handcuffs. Perhaps, I'll grant, he was being so utterly vicious in the way he was yelling that he *did* seem violent. But I'm inclined to suspect that the same shouting from a white man would not have seemed to him as threatening.