Comments on: Arresting Power

By: jpool

jpool — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 02:56:32 +0000

Sorry, I read it as a more general statement about the incident. Before the tapes were released I read the description of Whalen’s behavior pretty much the way Tim did. It’s nice to find that she, like Tim in his mugging anecdote, was in fact being conscientious about what she told the police, and was simply being careful and cautious rather than assuming that she knew what was going on.

By: nord

nord — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 02:42:49 +0000

pool – i was responding to Tim’s comment that “the person who made the call probably wouldn???? have called for two white men doing the same, and probably would have known who a white man on the street was anyway.”

As for the other comment, I’d rather trust the first 3 letters of the Cambridge phone book to have civic power than the entire harvard faculty, or something like that.

By: jpool

jpool — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 16:55:39 +0000

I read the evidence of the tapes very differently from Nord does. First their variance from the officer’s report makes the whole thing even more suspect. Second, they completely change the interpretation of the information that the police had going into the situation. The caller, Lucia Whalen, both makes clear that she’s not sure if it’s a break in or if the men live there, and she doesn’t volunteer their race. It’s the 911 caller who gives her two options, black or hispanic, and she says she didn’t see one and the other might have been hispanic. Rather than removing race from the equation this to me puts it all on the Cambridge PD. It’s been fascinating to learn the many sides of Officer Crowley and his prior involvement in sensitivity training, but it’s still difficult to impossible to imagine him railroading a white homeowner in this way.

Nord I’m glad that we don’t live in a thoroughly corrupt society and one where the rich man’s son as untouchable is more noir trope than lived reality, but the takeaway for me from your comparison with India, is that professors, even prominent media appearing ones, still don’t have a lot of civic power.

By: nord

nord — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 00:51:44 +0000

Well, listening to the 911 call, I’d have to disagree whether this was “about race” http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2009/07/27/911_tape_reveals_caller_did_not_bring_up_race_of_gates.html

My real takeaway is how much is positive about America – in India, a police officer who behaved this way to someone as connected as Gates, regardless of the caste of either party, would have significant reason to fear for his job or worse. According to the police reports, Gates tried the “you-don’t-know-who-you’re-dealing-with” line, and we’re still sitting around discussing the event from different view points.

Policing is tough – it is either too many inapproriate arrests (Gates?) or not enough appropriate ones … I still remember my first (and so far only) urban shooting incident – getting off in west philly in the late hours in the late 1990s – two gentlemen shooting at each other from a fair distance – lots of sound and fury, but both parties were running in opposite directions. I walked quickly to the nearest Dunkin Doughnuts (not a joke – 52nd & Market) and breathlessly report what just happened to the two cops there. They looked at me and asked three questions – was any one shot? Were they shooting at you? What do you want me to do about it? No No and I don’t know. At least for non-politically connected residents outside of Philadelphia county, CCW are an option.

But props for the Sanchez reference – bad cops do more damage for good cops than can be counted. If this country ever begins to tolerate widespread petty corruption of public officials (excluding major cities and New Jersey), it will be a very bad day for everyone, law abding and not…