Gates accepts invite for beer with Obama, Crowley

Harvard University Prof. Henry Louis Gates Jr. is working on a PBS documentary about racial profiling. (Senne/AP)

Henry Louis Gates Jr. has accepted an informal invitation to have a beer with his arresting officer Sgt. James Crowley and President Obama.

And, if you ask me, they all could use a few cold ones...

"I am pleased that [Obama] is eager to use my experience as a teaching moment, and if meeting Sgt. Crowley for a beer with the President will further that end, then I would be happy to oblige," the Harvard professor said in a statement posted on the website TheRoot.com, of which he's the editor in chief.

At a daily press briefing yesterday, Obama said Crowley suggested beers at the White House during a telephone conversation that took place soon after the Cambridge Police Department and police unions held a press conference to announce they supported Crowley's actions on the day of the arrest.

Sgt. James Crowley (left) was surrounded by fellow officers offering support at a press conference Friday. (Spencer/Getty Images)

Gates said Obama phoned him on Friday, reportedly after the press briefing, to discuss his July 16 arrest outside his Cambridge, Mass., home after a neighbor reported a possible break-in. The intruder turned out to be Gates trying to open a jammed door, but a (totally unnecessary and stupid, if you ask me) confrontation between him and Crowley ensued, and the cop arrested Gates for disorderly conduct.

Though the charges were later dropped, the bust ignited a fierce debate about racial profiling. Fueling the controversy was Obama's remark that the Cambridge police "acted stupidly" by arresting Gates in his own house after he had produced and ID showing he lived there.

Right: This photo, taken by a neighbor July 16, shows when Henry Louis Gates Jr. was arrested at his home in Cambridge, Mass.

The issue has competed with healthcare reform to dominate the news cycle for the past week. Gates said he apologized to the President for the arrest becoming a distraction from more important matters.

"I told the President that my principal regret was that all of the attention paid to his deeply supportive remarks during his press conference had distracted attention from his health care initiative," Gates wrote.

In the same statement, Gates said he looks forward to studying the history of racial profiling for a PBS documentary.

"If my experience leads to the lessening of the occurrence of racial profiling, then I would find that enormously gratifying," he said. "Because, in the end, this is not about me at all; it is about the creation of a society in which 'equal justice before law' is a lived reality."

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For background and additional information, check out the following post:

Cop to Obama: 'Let's have a beer with Gates' - posted July 24

Sources: TheRoot.com, NY Daily News
Copyright © 2009, Primetime Oracle
All Rights Reserved

Cop to Obama: 'Let's have a beer with Gates'

President Barack Obama made an effort today to contain the controversy he admittedly helped fuel by his comments yesterday on the subject of Prof. Henry Louis Gates' arrest by a Cambridge, Mass., police officer last week. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

And the controversy about the arrest of Harvard Prof. Henry Louis Gates by a Cambridge, Mass., police officer continues.

Gates claims he was arrested by a racist cop. The cop claims Gates was uncooperative and hostile. The police report shows Gates immediately jumped on victim-of-racism-bandwagon, which given what he does for a living wouldn't be surprising. But, then again, the cop gets to write the report.

However, an African-American cop who was present during the arrest said he supports what the arresting officer did "100%."

Yesterday, President Obama said the police "acted stupidly" in arresting Gates in his own house after he had produced an i.d. showing he lived there. However, that's not exactly what happened according to the police report.

During a radio interview yesterday, Sgt. James Crowley explained the circumstances under which he arrested Gates for disorderly conduct, noting that he followed standard police procedure and that he would not apologize for doing his job.

Earlier today, the Cambridge Police Department held a press conference during which heads from several police groups and unions expressed their support for Crowley. One of the chiefs asked Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick and President Obama to apologize for their remarks.

An hour or two after the press conference, Obama made an impromptu appearance at the daily White House briefing to say he had spoken to Crowley and that he still believed both Crowley and Gates overreacted during the incident.

The President, who said the incident could be "a teaching moment" for the nation, also admitted he used an unfortunate choice of words when he said the police "acted stupidly," noting he wished he had "calibrated those words differently."

Like a true Boston man, Sgt. Crowley told Obama he would be happy to go to the White House, sit down with the President and Gates and have a beer.

Below are links to some of the stories on the subject and the actual police report filed by Sgt. Crowley.

Obama regrets choice of words in Prof. Gates' arrest, from The New York Times

Crowley pleased by president’s phone call, from The Boston Globe

The Gates 'teaching moment', from Anderson Cooper (AC360)

Below is a link to the police report of Gates arrest as well as an embedded copy: Gates Police Report



Copyright © 2009, Primetime Oracle
All Rights Reserved