Crowley vs. Gates

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That was priceless, Ragusa.

It seems their "puishment" will be a beer party with the prez at the WH. I'm sooooo jealous.

 

There is a point when it becomes obvious that someone is up to no good or is a criminal. That is the point when the suspect is put in handcuffs. Until a police officer is ready to make an arrest he should act with courtesy towards citizen. Policework is also a lot about customer service and keeping up a friendly appearance so citizen feel they can trust the cops. Making useless arrests such as this certainly won't help it.

What Gates did was obviously stupid and excessive but arresting him was even more so. Bunch of useless paperwork and government money wasted because some cop thought his "street cred" could not take a couple of angry insults from a cranky old man.

 

Where is that point? When, during a domestic disturbance, the husband/wife/jilted lover pulls a gun out from under a seat cushion in the couch and levels it at the cop? I think it's too late at that point. If the point were obvious we wouldn't have so many police deaths.

Also, you seem to be confusing a very important issue here -- the action wasn't by just 'some cop' it was supported by all the cops present (including one minority) and so appears to be a department wide response. Usually a cop responds in a way he or she was trained to do -- when X happens, you do Y. Gates got the same treatment as anyone else (probably more gentle than someone in the projects would have).

 

A police officer makes that judment call at the time, obviously. It does not mean that the call is allways right or beyond criticism. While I do not doubt the officer acted within the law, I will question the necessity of the arrest. Not anywhere in the report does the police officer say that he felt threatned by Gates, nor does it stand anywhere that he percieved Gates to be a threat to anyone else. Therefore there was no real reason to arrest the man.

I don't doubt the police officer has the support of his co-workers. Unless they do something to bring disgrace to their proffession or something downright criminal, that support will allways be there. They'll allways defend their own.

 

There are many occasions to arrest someone even though they are not a threat to anyone. A police officer does not need to feel threatened to make an arrest.

 

I'm sorry, Morgoroth, but I have to disagree with you about everything. First off, there is no point where the difference between criminal and innocent civillian is evident, unless you yourself actually witness them committing a crime. Police arrest people either because they witnessed the crime themselves, or they have significant evidence pointing at the person.

Secondly, police work is not about customer service, it's about enforcing the law. That's all it's about, with keeping the police safe as a secondary effect of that objective.

Arresting Gates was only stupid and excessive if he did not break the law. It looks to me like Gates did, in fact, break the law in the heat of the moment. He was arrested for it, as he should have been. If you have evidence to the contrary, please present it.

Lastly, so long as the individual broke the law, and that law calls for an arrest (as opposed to a traffic citation or something), arresting the criminal is never* objectionable. It may not be strictly 'necessary' (in a case like this, I leave it up to the officers' discression, which has been exercised), but it is never* objectionable. It is only objectionable if a crime has in fact not been committed.

*I'm assuming we're talking about mature and stable adults here. There are rare cases where a crime has been committed, but the criminal is not a threat to anyone and in such a condition him/herself that an immediate arrest would be substantially harmful, such as a severe medical condition or a serious psychological illness. Gates didn't have either.

 

Well we'll have to disagree here then. That's something an officer told me about his job though. I agree that enforcing the law is obviously the main objective, keeping the police safe is important but only in circumstances when there is a serious threat. I believe saying that there was a threat in this case is laughable. However it's important that people maintain confidence in the police and that they trust the police. That makes courtious, respectable and kind behaviour from police important. If the police are rude, violent, careless or inconsidering they make a bad impression on the people and the people stop trusting them.

True enough. There are also cases when an arrest is utterly pointless, such as this. If this makes it to the courts they will decide wether or not the disturbance set by Gates was in this case a sufficent reason for arrest. In my opinion it was not. If it was then I sure hope you people start calling the police every time you hear your neighbours arguing for "causing a disturbance" because obviously the police have nothing better to do than dissolve arguments.

EDIT: The only reason why I brought up the threats was because you kept talking about police killings like Gates would have been a danger and needed to be delt with because he was dangerous to the officers and the public. I probably misinteprented what you were saying then I suppose.

 

If ever an 'issue' was blown way the **** out of proportion and given far more attention than it deserved, this is it. It'd be one thing if folks used this as a way to start discussions about broader issues of race, but...

And I thought MJ got too much attention. Sheesh.

 

What Gates had was the Constitution. Too bad its parchment barriers are so easliy pierced.

 

That we will then do:

I have not responded to your point about me having gotten the law wrong. Your assertion that it was 'or', not 'and' is implausible to me as such a reading defies the way in which in my experience laws are written, no matter whether they are in English or German. To read the law as 'or' implies it is unusually broad, raising constitutional concerns, at least in my German law infested mind. Now I did what any sensible lawyer does in such an instance and I looked what a knowledgeable law professor has to say on the matter. Adam Winkler, Professor at UCLA School of Law says this:

What is left is another, much more interesting question, namely on the question of arrest as punishment as a measure of police discretion:

In my country it was decided that they ought not to have that power. Punishment is to be dealt out by courts, the judicial branch, not the executive branch.

 

The police have weapons, you (probably) don't. I'd say it's your job to put them at ease as much as possible.

 

Only if you accept living in a police state.

 

And we can put the blame for this 100% on Obama (at least I don't think we can blame Bush ). If he had just kept his mouth shut instead of trying to create "a teachable moment" this would have stayed a local event and blown over quickly. Anyone care to wager how much Gates is going to make on the speaking circuit now? I just hope Crowley also has the ability to make a couple of bucks off of it.

 

As Obama himself conceded. Obama, however, wasn't trying to create a teachable moment, but answering a press conference question off-the-cuff. His attempt to create a "teachable moment" is simply his attempt to salvage the situation after the media took his answer and ran with it.

 

I think this is where we disagree the most. I believe every police officer should always consider the situation dangerous until they know otherwise (and an irate man raging at your back is far from a known safety, regardless of who that man is). To do otherwise puts the police in needless danger.

Why do you say it was utterly pointless here?

My entire point in bringing up those killings is that most of them happen when police don't think there's a threat. A police officer on guard, with backup, is usually a pretty safe individual, unless they're raiding an illegal gun ring or something (then you get SWAT and ATF). A police officer who thinks he's safe, who thinks this nice young 16-year-old girl couldn't possibly pose a threat to him, who thinks a pissed off man who just came out of his kitchen couldn't possibly be dangerous just because he's a professor at a major university, is very easy to kill. I bring up these things because the police have to assume every situation is dangerous. If you wait until it's been proven dangerous, you're too late.

Ragusa, I'm not reading anything 'into' the law, I'm just reading the law. The word 'or' is written in there. Now, whether or not that makes it unconstitutional is another concern, but one for higher courts, not a police officer.

So, looking again at the written law, we can see that:

Which, by proper selection of conditional phrases, can be reduced to:

Which I believe Gates was guilty of. He, at the very least, caused public alarm, and seems to have engaged in threatening, tumultuous behavior.

The problem is, he's not being arrested for insulting a police officer, but for making a public disturbance.

So you're saying the man should have just kept his mouth shut in the first place(by which I mean admit to not being familiar with the details of the case when the first question was asked)? Ok, I can go with that.

 

Hindsight is great Morgoroth. In retrospect, there was no danger from Gates. In retrospect, there was no reason for the police to question him. In retrospect, there was no reason for the 911 call.

But without the benefit of hindsight a police officer must enter every situation with the knowledge that things are not always as they appear and a mistake on the officer's part could be fatal. The police officer's actions are quite reasonably based on this knowledge. Gates was not a threat -- but the person in the house could have been.

 

Well, for the most part, I believe this will probably blow over, as all parties seemed to have positive responses at the Beer Summit yesterday. Even though I believe Obama was exercising some damage control after calling the cops stupid and probably wouldn't have made the invite otherwise, I believe some good did come out of the talks.

Did anyone notice if Crowley used the orange slice in his Blue Moon?

 

Because if police officers arrested people everytime they had a tantrum on their yard, they'd be doing nothing else and REAL crime would run amok. The guy had a tantrum at a police officer, nothing more. He was not violent nor was he a major disturbance (no more than any other cranky old man).

All I'm saying is that you can act with courtesy while at the same time acting with proper care, they are not allways mutually exclusive.

 

An orange slice? There goes all my respect for the guy....

 

Yep, thats the thing with Blue Moon, it is usually served with a slice or wedge of orange. I have tried it, tastes better then a Bud, but still pretty weak compared to a nice stout. It's a trendy thing is all...