And WHO is Louis Gates, anyway?

[paperview]

You did not read My post very well. When he was ordered out of the house, he did not comply right away. That puts him in a bad light to begin with. Even after the verification of who he was, he, you, Me or anyone is not allowed to verbally abuse a cop. It simply is against the law. From all indications, this Gates moron was verbally assaulting a LEO. It is the exact same thing as screaming and yelling profanities at a Judge. He has the right to put you in jail if you do so.

Lets make one thing clear here. I am all for freedom, but you simply cannot do anything you wish. Not in this country or any other country.

Gates is a moron and was hiding behind his race to condone bad behavior.

I have no sympathy for the man what-so-ever. In fact, I hope gets a hefty fine for his behavior.

You are wrong, the State of MA says you are wrong.

In several cases, the courts in Massachusetts have considered whether a person is guilty of disorderly conduct for verbally abusing a police officer. In Commonwealth v. Lopiano, a 2004 decision, an appeals court held it was not disorderly conduct for a person who angrily yelled at an officer that his civil rights were being violated. In Commonwealth v. Mallahan, a decision rendered last year, an appeals court held that a person who launched into an angry, profanity-laced tirade against a police officer in front of spectators could not be convicted of disorderly conduct.
So Massachusetts law clearly provides that Gates did not commit disorderly conduct."

That just says that they have to let you go because you cannot be convicted. Won't prevent you from spending the night in jail, will it?

Am I reading this right? You are condoning false arrest?

Arresting people with the knowledge they can't convict you is OK with you?

 

[Againsheila]

What lawful order? To shut up? On my own porch? That's what he was arrested for. Now you show me where ordering someone to be quite, on their own front porch, who is not under arrest, is a lawful order.

It is not a lawful order. Gates had no obligation to follow it.

Thats right. You can be legally told to be quite, even on your own porch. The facts show that when ordered to come outside the home and produce ID Gates did not and had to actually be threatened a few times before he did.
During the verification process, if you get mouthy, even if you do live there, you can be arrested for disorderly conduct.

Until the LEO has concluded his investigation, he can give any order that keeps him safe and you inline. Overstep that and you will be arrested.

He could also have been arrested for obstruction of a legal investigation and interfering with the duties of a LEO.

The investigation was over. Gates had already been verified as the resident. At the point Gates was arrested there was no question to the officers safety and no reason to keep gates "in line" at his own house. Gates was not committing a crime by yelling from his own front porch. The relevant MA cases have already been posted and yelling at a cop is not a crime. No one placed a hand on Crowley, no one interfered with his investigation. Gates complied and ALSO complained. No violation. No one moved to impede Crowley's investigation. Gates identified himself and produced ID. Crowley was leaving. The investigation was over.

I get so fucking sick of this constant bullshit about "the officers safety". We are supposed to give over all this authority for "the officers safety". How about my fucking safety? Do I have these special powers to use force against random people that might want to harm me? Do you think racism is as big a problem as cop haters? Is a black man just as liable tyo be in danger for being black as a cop is for being a cop?

A cop carries multiple weapons, has radio for back up, a bullet proof vest and the incidents of cops injured or killed on the job is FAR, FAR below other occupations and indeed, life in general. So this bullshit about cops being scared fucking shitless at every call they go to doesn't wash with me. Try that crapola on someone who has swallowed that line of propoganda hook line and sinker.

You think that they are just suppose to leave a man that is so angry, so out of control that he can't stop himself from yelling at the cops? What's to stop him from getting a gun and start shooting? Someone that out of control should NEVER be left alone.

 

[Againsheila]

Funny I had long hair and a full beard, I never had any problem with the cops. Why? Because on the very rare occassions I ran into them I complied with instructions and the incident was over in a couple of minutes 15 at most. And that includes a situation almsot identical with Gate's.

Cops aren't required to put up with verbal abuse from halfwitted racist loons even if they are Havard professors. And you thinking they ought to is just retarded. By the way the way this incident went down Gate's could have been busted for any number of reason. His initial refusal to present ID for instance could have gotten him Busted strictly by the book for hindering an investigation.

My brother in law's brother had long hair. Everytime he crossed the boarder from Canada to come down here, he was strip searched. We don't him to cut the hair and shave the beard and it wouldn't happen. Guess what? Yep, he cut the hair and shaved the beard and he STILL ended up getting strip searched when he crossed the boarder and this was more than 30 years ago.

Maybe it wasn't the long hair and beard????

 

[Anguille]

You think that they are just suppose to leave a man that is so angry, so out of control that he can't stop himself from yelling at the cops? What's to stop him from getting a gun and start shooting? Someone that out of control should NEVER be left alone.

Then I guess we need to call 911 on a few USMB posters.

Did Gates show a gun? Did he make any move to indicate the officer was in jeopardy? The officer's own report gives not give any statement or even indication by the cop that he felt himself or Gates to be in physical danger. He even called the dispatcher to tell him to tell the other cops no rush.
Crowley knew it was his behavior and his presence in Gates' home that was making Gates angry. He should have left when his job was done rather than stick around to try tp provoke Gates.

It's not against the law to call a cop a racist in MA. Crowley knew that. He's supposedly an expert on racial issues.

Gates was being cooperative when he came outside when the officer asked to to. Bad move on Gates part. That was the sting.

 

[Shogun]

Regarding the OP... if anyone is interested in reading beyond the talking heads and scrolling tickers..

[ame=http://www.amazon.com/Colored-People-Henry-Louis-Gates/dp/067973919X]Amazon.com: Colored People: A Memoir (9780679739197): Henry Louis Gates Jr.: Books[/ame]

 

[Anguille]

Regarding the OP... if anyone is interested in reading beyond the talking heads and scrolling tickers..

Amazon.com: Colored People: A Memoir (9780679739197): Henry Louis Gates Jr.: Books

From Library Journal
The man touted as America's most celebrated black scholar reminisces to his daughters about his boyhood in the polluted, dying Allegheny Mountains' papermill town of Piedmont, West Virginia. Laying out the social and emotional topography of a world shifting from segregation to integration and from colored to Negro to black, Gates evokes a bygone time and place as he moves from his birth in 1949 to 1969, when he goes off to Yale University after a year at West Virginia's Potomac State College. His pensive and sometimes wistful narrative brims with the mysteries and pangs and lifelong aches of growing up, from his encounters with sexuality, to the discovery of intellectual exhilaration as he is marked to excel in school, to his suffering a crippling injury to one of his legs and struggling frightfully for his father's respect. There is much to recommend this book as a story of boyhood, family, segregation, the pre-Civil Rights era, and the era when Civil Rights filtered down from television to local reality. Highly recommended.
--Thomas J. Davis, SUNY at Buffalo
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

 

[Barb]

Not being there I have no idea who the a_hole was? Both? But I thought these pieces interesting in retrospect.


Gotcha! Henry Gates, Jr. arrested by the victim of a tarnished myth | Midwest Voices

Henry Louis Gates: DéjÃ* Vu All Over Again - Stanley Fish Blog - NYTimes.com

Dave Lindorff: Living in a Police State

From your third link, the point:

"[...] Very little of the mainstream reporting I’ve seen on this event makes the crucial point that it is not illegal to tell a police officer that he is a jerk, or that he has done something wrong, or that you are going to file charges against him. And yet too many commentators, journalists and ordinary people seem to accept that if a citizen “mouths off” to a cop, or criticizes a cop, or threatens legal action against a cop, it’s okay for that cop to cuff the person and charge him with “disorderly conduct.” Worse yet, if a cop makes such a bogus arrest, and the person gets upset, he’s liable to get an added charge of “resisting arrest” or worse.

We have, as a nation, sunk to the level of a police state, when we grant our police the unfettered power to arrest honest, law-abiding citizens for simply stating their minds. And it’s no consolation that someone like Gates can count on having such charges tossed out. It’s the arrest, the cuffing, and the humiliating ride in the back of a cop squad car to be booked and held until bailed out that is the outrage.

I’m sure police take a lot of verbal abuse on the job, but given their inherent power—armed and with a license to arrest, to handcuff, and even to shoot and kill—they must be told by their superiors that they have no right to arrest people for simply expressing their views, even about those officers.

Insulting an officer of the law is not a crime. Telling an officer he or she is breaking the law is not a crime. Demanding that an officer identify him or herself is not a crime. And saying you are going to file a complaint against the officer is not a crime.[...]"

 

[Shogun]

Regarding the OP... if anyone is interested in reading beyond the talking heads and scrolling tickers..

Amazon.com: Colored People: A Memoir (9780679739197): Henry Louis Gates Jr.: Books

From Library Journal
The man touted as America's most celebrated black scholar reminisces to his daughters about his boyhood in the polluted, dying Allegheny Mountains' papermill town of Piedmont, West Virginia. Laying out the social and emotional topography of a world shifting from segregation to integration and from colored to Negro to black, Gates evokes a bygone time and place as he moves from his birth in 1949 to 1969, when he goes off to Yale University after a year at West Virginia's Potomac State College. His pensive and sometimes wistful narrative brims with the mysteries and pangs and lifelong aches of growing up, from his encounters with sexuality, to the discovery of intellectual exhilaration as he is marked to excel in school, to his suffering a crippling injury to one of his legs and struggling frightfully for his father's respect. There is much to recommend this book as a story of boyhood, family, segregation, the pre-Civil Rights era, and the era when Civil Rights filtered down from television to local reality. Highly recommended.
--Thomas J. Davis, SUNY at Buffalo
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

It's a good read if you are into memoirs and bios and such. Worth checking out given the media attention he's been given. Maybe you can go get a copy signed for me!

 

[Darkwind]

You are wrong, the State of MA says you are wrong.

That just says that they have to let you go because you cannot be convicted. Won't prevent you from spending the night in jail, will it?

Am I reading this right? You are condoning false arrest?

Arresting people with the knowledge they can't convict you is OK with you?

you are not reading Me right. Try again.

 

[paperview]

That just says that they have to let you go because you cannot be convicted. Won't prevent you from spending the night in jail, will it?

Am I reading this right? You are condoning false arrest?

Arresting people with the knowledge they can't convict you is OK with you?

you are not reading Me right. Try again.

Then please explain it to Me.

What your post suggests is you do not have a problem with a police officer unlawfully arresting and detaining you, even if they believe no convictable crime has been committed.

 

[Darkwind]

Am I reading this right? You are condoning false arrest?

Arresting people with the knowledge they can't convict you is OK with you?

you are not reading Me right. Try again.

Then please explain it to Me.

What your post suggests is you do not have a problem with a police officer unlawfully arresting and detaining you, even if they believe no convictable crime has been committed.

I did not say it was unlawful for a LEO to arrest someone for disorderly conduct. The State of MA has ruled that they won't be convicted of it. Do you get the difference yet?

What they are saying is that we simply won't bother with it. A Police officer still has the right to protect his/herself even if the DA will not press for a conviction.

 

[Darkwind]

Plus all of this is nothing more then a deflection from the topic.

Mr. Gates was clearly in the wrong and should have been arrested for failing to comply with an investigation.

 

[Barb]

Plus all of this is nothing more then a deflection from the topic.

Mr. Gates was clearly in the wrong and should have been arrested for failing to comply with an investigation.

Gates did comply, and it wasn't an "investigation," you tard. It was a response, and as soon as Gates showed his ID the officer should have apologized for troubling him and been on his way.

 

[Sweet Willy]

you are not reading Me right. Try again.

Then please explain it to Me.

What your post suggests is you do not have a problem with a police officer unlawfully arresting and detaining you, even if they believe no convictable crime has been committed.

I did not say it was unlawful for a LEO to arrest someone for disorderly conduct. The State of MA has ruled that they won't be convicted of it. Do you get the difference yet?

What they are saying is that we simply won't bother with it. A Police officer still has the right to protect his/herself even if the DA will not press for a conviction.

Protect himself? Are you now claiming that Gates was a threat to Crowley? I don't see that anywhere in the report or subsequent interviews with Crowley. Are you making that up?


But you do seem to believe that making an arrest for the sake of making an arrest is OK. Yelling at a cop isn't a crime, can't be prosecuted in MA. Looks like an unlawful arrest.

 

[Shogun]

Plus all of this is nothing more then a deflection from the topic.

Mr. Gates was clearly in the wrong and should have been arrested for failing to comply with an investigation.

Gates did comply, and it wasn't an "investigation," you tard. It was a response, and as soon as Gates showed his ID the officer should have apologized for troubling him and been on his way.

I tell you what.. the next time you get pulled over and the cop hands you back your license feel free to tell him about his MAMMAS registration and see what happens to you.

 

[Barb]

Plus all of this is nothing more then a deflection from the topic.

Mr. Gates was clearly in the wrong and should have been arrested for failing to comply with an investigation.

Gates did comply, and it wasn't an "investigation," you tard. It was a response, and as soon as Gates showed his ID the officer should have apologized for troubling him and been on his way.

I tell you what.. the next time you get pulled over and the cop hands you back your license feel free to tell him about his MAMMAS registration and see what happens to you.

I'm blond, blue eyed, and used to be young. The police have always been very nice to me. Until I get stopped with my family. Its the oddest thing. All of a sudden the same stop for a dead headlight that took 3 minutes a year past, (and again just a few months ago, alone in the car) takes a second cruiser, flashlights everywhere, and my fifteen-year-old asked for ID. The whole time her father is telling me to settle down, that its standard practice, I'm snarling back that, "like hell it is." And no, I didn't tell them about their momma, I took the ticket with the bill for my replaced headlight to the court and complained.

 

[paperview]

you are not reading Me right. Try again.

Then please explain it to Me.

What your post suggests is you do not have a problem with a police officer unlawfully arresting and detaining you, even if they believe no convictable crime has been committed.

I did not say it was unlawful for a LEO to arrest someone for disorderly conduct. The State of MA has ruled that they won't be convicted of it. Do you get the difference yet?

What they are saying is that we simply won't bother with it. A Police officer still has the right to protect his/herself even if the DA will not press for a conviction.

What was he protecting himself from?

An old man with a cane and a bronchial infection?

Where was the Officer or anyone else for that matter, in danger in any way?

Protecting himself. lol.

 

[Shogun]

And, had Gates complained to the courts instead of, say, telling the cop that he'd talk with HISMAMMA outside and causing a general ruckus.....

 

[Sweet Willy]

And, had Gates complained to the courts instead of, say, telling the cop that he'd talk with HISMAMMA outside and causing a general ruckus.....

So you're calling playground rules to justify an arrest? Maybe Crowley could have given Gates a wedgy and called it even.

 

[Shogun]

And, had Gates complained to the courts instead of, say, telling the cop that he'd talk with HISMAMMA outside and causing a general ruckus.....

So you're calling playground rules to justify an arrest? Maybe Crowley could have given Gates a wedgy and called it even.

like I said.. berate a cop yourself and see what happens to you. feel free.