Famed black scholar arrested for breaking into his own home
Published: July 20, 2009
Updated 8 months ago
An acclaimed black US scholar accused a police officer in Cambridge, Massachusetts of racism for investigating reports of a break-in as he entered his own house, after which he was arrested, police records showed Monday.
Henry Louis Gates, 58, considered a preeminent professor of African American studies at the prestigious Harvard University was charged with disorderly conduct, citing his “loud and tumultuous behavior.”
According to the police report from July 16, Gates was seen by a woman to be attempting entry to a house. The woman alerted the police, and they arrived — with no one realizing it was Gates’ own home.
Gates, who declined to identify himself to police, repeatedly told officers who arrived at the scene: “This is what happens to black men in America.”
After the professor, according to the police report, kept on “yelling” at the officer and loudly protesting the situation to passersby, he was arrested.
Gates, who in 1997 was declared to be one of the 25 most influential people of United States, also repeatedly told the officer that he had “no idea who (he) was ‘messing’ with.”
He was released from police custody later that day and is expected to be arraigned in court on August 26.
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Looking into my crystal ball, I see a “disorderly conduct” charge being dropped asap, and a lawsuit turned into a quick settlement, while the idiot cop, most likely a former unemployed, average grades teenager turned military “hero”, is allowed to roam free to harass other citizens in their own yards, their own homes.
Just like they do in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Farang, thank you for getting it! I’d be panicky and outraged if i was arrested for entering my own home too! No one expects that kind of police invasion. Jhoffa_ the racist is blaming the victim again as usual.
The “victim” is acting like a serial dumbshit and refusing to even ID himself to the cops who responded to protect his property!
He’s lucky he’s black, cause they would have tazered me for acting like that.
An update:
“Gates – the director of Harvard’s W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research – initially refused to show the officer his identification, but then gave him a Harvard University ID card, according to police.”
So, like I figured, the police have now admitted that the report that he refused to give identification was a lie.
He identified himself, and was arrested anyway. I guess the charge must be “Coming Home While Black.”
Sounds to me like one of his white neighbors doesn’t like him so much.
Then that’s a crime..
False report.
Somebody is getting raped or robbed while you tie up the po-po to mess with your neighbor?
They won’t like that at all.
cooperate with the police? not if you are this guy! if you are this guy, you dont have to cooperate even when you are a burgulary suspect.
if i get mouthy with the police and refuse to cooperate, it’s handcuffs time. ask me how i know.
would somebody let this moron know that is how it works here in the USA. even for us white folks.
maybe he can get al sharpton down there. its not like he has a job to go to or anything like that. jesse jackson is also available. he has had no visible means of support for 20+ years.
Have to agree with this. If you’re not ready to cooperate with the cops, especially in a situation like this, you’re just begging for harsher treatment from them. Doesn’t matter what race, gender, or nationality you are.
“A man’s gotta be smaller than the excuse he hides behind.”
oooooo, the cop that arrested the Black ancestry man from PBS is in deep shit lol
You guys do know this dude has done family trees on every black star today, don’t you?
jhoffax–the ‘x’ is actually a swastika!
Henry Gates is spirited, but he’s not stupid. Personally, it sounds like the cops are doing their “resisting arrest” bs to excuse their bullying. Of course, Raw’s racist morons believe the cops, despite all the many false arrests and police beatings in the US.
This would be out of character for Gates, but not the cops.
Gosh, is this yet another Very Important Person who gets to feel even MORE important by belittling the little guy?
If this account is faithful to fact, he likely needed only to have produced identification, plus a copy of any telephone bill lying around his kitchen.
C’mon, this is america. You have the right to break into your own house.
Prof Gates was probably not real happy about having to break into his house. Along comes a cop to try to arrest him, treating him like a burglar, because some “good samaritan” called in about a black man breaking into a house.
I’d be pissed and yell, too.
What did an author say once…”you can’t go home again” ?
I guess NOT IF YOU’RE BLACK. Yo, you black? Well, stay outta your house, guy.
Americans have DE-EVOLVED not evolved. With so many “stupids” in America, we don’t need enemies!
If there is one thing you can count on it is cops lying on arrest reports and in court. Anyone half-sentient knows that is a daily occurrence.
look fools - the man was inside his house by the time the harvard rent-a-cop had arrived. the prof showed his photo i.d. and harvard card from inside his house. what the rent-a-cop really did was exercise the current trend in ‘law enforcement’, forcing you to accept their power over your civil liberties - brown, black, red, white or blue.
Do I trust the cop’s statements about what happened? NOT for a a single heartbeat. They say this exact same kind of thing time and time again when there is video evidence that they are lying through their teeth. It happens every freaking day. And the experiences I’ve had with cops tell me that they would rather lie than tell the truth regardless of the situation. In fact, I think that ANYONE who gives the cops the benefit of the doubt is begging for a disappointment. Cops lie like rugs.
Put it another way: How would YOU feel about not only having to break in your own door, but then being accused by some flatfoot cop of trying to rob your own house, and then being arrested even after proving that there is NO reason for the cops to even stay in your house once you have proved that it IS your house? Once he showed this idiot cop his ID the cop had NO business taking it a single step further. He should have said “Thank you, sir, that’s all I need to know” and gotten his bacon smelling ass out of the house. He had NO business pursuing anything else. If there is anything this man can do to give him some of what he dished out, I hope he does it. Freaking cops get away with literal murder, if we can make it uncomfortable for them in return, then I think we should. Society needs to be protected from these scum.
I don’t trust cops, I don’t trust DAs, and I never will. They are all in it for the power trip and the money, nothing else. And it’s been my own personal experience that has brought about this situation, not some artificial prejudice. Like I said many times before, it’s the 99% that are the problem.
According to this report he failed to identify himself and therefore never showed ID?
Read it again. He DID show his ID. At that point, it should have been over, but the dirt bag cop kept questioning him. He should have just told the cop to get the hell out, and the GD cop should have left. Instead, now there are charges filed against a man for being in his own home.
Read it again.
The Washington Post reports this differently. They report the officer followed Gates in side his home and where the officer was shown his driver’s license.
The heart of this story whether Gates identified himself at some point. If he did then the officers should have withdrawn as there was no crime being committed.
The Raw Story says he did not and was arrested without identifying himself. This would be fine by me. It doesn’t matter who you are if you break into a car or house in front of a cop, you’d better be prepared to show said object belongs to you. Race is not the issue here if he failed to show them an ID.
Other than that it is not illegal to yell at a cop on your own property as far as I know. It is not public property so disorderly conduct should not apply unless it effects the neighbors.
If you read further down, according to his friend, he showed the cops his ID and they still harassed him.
This is the MO for Cambridge and Boston area police to harass black men. My pal went to Harvard Med school. He’s black and the cops pulled a gun on him for no reason. He has never been the same.
In case you didn’t know they always say the black guy fits some vague description of a black. They are still using this lame tactic even 20 years later. Disgusting. Looks like they messed with the right one this time.
I hope he sues the pants off of these guys.
Oh, in that case I stand corrected and do apologize.
I know the cops racially profile and discriminate. That being said don’t think us white folks don’t deal with their bullshit too. Once years ago five police stopped me and pulled shotguns and pistols on me after taking my drivers license and refused to tell me why. I sat in my car, panicking with my hands above my shoulder blades until one cop I knew arrived at the scene. He asked who “Sue+(myLastName) is and I said “my wife.” He said “oh,” then told all the other police and they left but had already written me five tickets for driving violations! - The cop I knew wrote ‘Warning’ on them all and said the car was reported stolen. It was reported stolen 2 years before this happened. My first name is John and all they could see on their computers was Sue and Jo.. (MyLastName) If they weren’t so friggin stupid they would have assumed Jo was the first two letters of my name, John.
All you folks dumping on Mr. Gates: If he were a white man, this would never have happened.
A white neighbor of mine had to vouch for my black neighbor cooking breakfast in his own kitchen. Someone called the police because they had seen a ’suspicious’ person entering a house. The cops showed up and tried to arrest him and wouldn’t let the matter drop until a white neighbor vouched for him. That just doesn’t happen to white people. It’s understandable if Mr. Gates got a little hot under the collar.
Here in St Louis, the Legendary Hall of Famer Ozzie Smith was voted by a local city council not to be allowed to purchase a house in a certain West County exclusive Subdivision(Chesterfield Missouri) because he was black.
Ozzie Smith!!!??? Like the nicest man on the face of the earth. Racists cause this country so many problems. And rather than suing or taking action Ozzie simply moved to another neighborhood.
Cop should be hung upside down by his itsy-bitsy nuts.
and then tasered repeatedly
I can’t believe this story is even being debated: when a cop asks you to identify yourself, you identify yourself. IT’S THE LAW. Nobody is above the law. In my entire life I’ve never known anybody who had Gates’ problem with his own front door. An apartment door or a hotel door, okay, but a house door? Probably the cop never had either. It’s rare. So if Gates refused to identify himself and became abusive and threatening, the cop was right to arrest him. Don’t make a federal case out of a no-brainer.
You make a topical judgment. rikitikitavii, you obviously haven’t experienced what it feels like to be assumed a criminal due to your skin color.
Gates front door was broken due to a previous attempted breakin(of which the cop was unaware), according to the police report.
Federal case? It should be. The cop, upon realizing the error of the good samaritan and himself, they both should have respectfully apologized profusely to prof Gates, the homeowner, and left. Instead, by his own words in the police report, he chose to continue to engage Prof Gates. I’d have been really pissed and told that cop to get the f#@k out my my F$#^ing house.
Think about it, rikitikitavii, If you saw a white man in a suit pushing on the jammed front door of his house, you wouldn’t even think to call the police.
I just read an AP report that the Rev. Al Sharpton is going to get involved. As if this farce isn’t big enough already. You can always count on Al to show up and run his mouth.
If I saw a couple of men - no matter WHAT color they were - looking like they were trying to break into a house, I’d phone the cops too. It’s called a neighborhood watch.
He’s suffering from Cynthia McKinney Syndrome: being offended at not being recognized and asked to show identification like every other human being on earth.
—————-
“Think about it, rikitikitavii, If you saw a white man in a suit pushing on the jammed front door of his house, you wouldn’t even think to call the police”
Think about it?? I have no idea what planet you live on, but it isn’t this one. I most certainly would call the police IF I DIDN’T KNOW IT WAS HIS HOUSE AND HE BELLIGERENTLY REFUSED TO IDENTIFY HIMSELF, as were the conditions in this case.
All the professor needed to do was explain himself, but no, because he’s African American, he’s immune from being questioned even when engaged in a indisputably questionable activity.
Had it been some thug breaking into the professor’s house and he WASN’T questioned, your panties would be all bunched up about how black people can’t get police protection.
You see, you conveniently leave out the critical details just so the chip on your shoulder gets disturbed. You wallow in it. You WANT to preserve your reality bubble, just like a zipperhead right winger. You SEEK to feed your bigotry. That’s a sure sign of mental illness.
It is simply rational for police to question ANYONE breaking into a home. PERIOD. Further, it is rational to then proceed based on how that individual responds.
Those saying this wouldn’t happen to a “white man” are blinded by the bigotry that they project on everyone else. Next you’ll be telling me that OJ Simpson didn’t slice his white wife’s neck from ear to ear.
Why does Prof Gates need to explain himself to some nosy bitch walking down the street, who obviously doesn’t even live in the neighborhood, or some dumbass cop who upon realizing the bitch made a stupid white-ass mistake, didn’t have the good sense to apologize and leave?
If you read the police report, you can see that Prof Gates identified himself by saying that he lived there. Not good enough for ya? Why not. Because he’s black ad at that moment was a suspect, right?
trippin, with all due respect, it’s you who live in the bubble.
The guy was *in his own house* when the police came to ask him to prove *it was his house* ! WTF ? How often does *that* happen ?
All because some white woman saw suspicious ‘black man’ activity in the yard, because the guys door was jammed after he came home sick and tired from a trip to China ?
“Gates, who declined to identify himself to police,”
Declined for how long ? 8 angry seconds ? Because :
initially refused to show the officer his identification, but then gave him a Harvard University ID card, according to police.
Gates said he turned over his driver’s license and Harvard ID – both with his photos – and repeatedly asked for the name and badge number of the officer, who refused. He said he then followed the officer as he left his house onto his front porch, where he was handcuffed in front of other officers, Gates said in a statement released by his attorney, fellow Harvard scholar Charles Ogletree, on a Web site Gates oversees, TheRoot.com
“He was shocked to find himself being questioned and shocked that the conversation continued after he showed his identification,” Ogletree said.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/20/henry-louis-gates-jr-arre_n_241407.html
All this because of some anonymous report by a nosy woman.
I bet Professor Gates has the name and badge number of the idiot cop *NOW*.
Expect President Obama to be arrested for breaking in the White House soon. Look it’s very hard for some racist to except many blacks now have a great life style. I blame it on the Slave Masters for teaching slaves to read. Look if the Master had kept the slave dumb, nothing would have changed. Now we see the results of that one act. Bush is a drunk and druggie and his Father had to pay for his College Degree. Barack Obama earned his education and is using it to show the World, America does have smart Leaders. Now Kobe Bryant and LaBron James better be careful because they might get arrested for being rich while black. That’s a new crime that Senator Sessions will get the Bill passed.
To protect and serve. Why didn’t the cops just do the polite thing, help him get into his own house?
Oh, that’s right, the middle aged professor looked and talked just like a typical burglar.
No, he was *in* his own house when the cops arrived. Doors closed and locked.
He had just returned home from the airport after a trip to China, was tired and ill, and didn’t expect cops to come to his door demanding that he prove he was not a burglar.
And after he *did*, the cops still didn’t like his “attitude”.
All because of the report of a white woman who was obviously *not* a resident on that block.
OH PLEASE!
Anyone who read the police report knows Gates was being an asshole to the cop. Nothing more.
The title of this article is incendiary. The exact same thing would have happened to me if I had behaved the same way in my town, and I’m white and live in an upper-middle-class town.
I had my car broken into in front of my house back in May. It shocked me and all my neighbors because we live in a VERY safe neighborhood. When the cop arrived to take my report, he asked for my name, phone number and license. I was polite with him and he was polite with me.
Gates honestly was using reverse discrimination, acting like the cop was picking on him for being black.
Sir, stop shouting.
Sir…
No need for that language, Sir.
(Tom, he called me an asshole cop… get the cuffs…)
OK Sir, why don’t you come outside and we’ll discuss th….
(Tommy, what did he say about incendiary articles …)
He’s reaching for something ! Grab him !
OK Sir, stop resist…. (reverse discrimination ? shut this pasty white Mamas boy putz up Tom)
Dammit, get his arms. Are the cuffs on ? OK, get him off the floor.
Ma’am, step back ma’am. Ma’am, tell the children to stop crying and step back, I’m warning you…
.
.
.
OK Tom, lets haul this bastard downtown and see if he has priors.
Damn racist KKK mofo.
Remember, he took a swing at me, OK ? And he had a knife…
Some guys just can’t handle two black guys with badges, huh Tommy ?
That is beyond disgusting. It’s not funny if you meant it that way, and if you didn’t it’s even more vile.
Sickening.