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You are here: MacNN Forums > Community > MacNN Lounge > Political/War Lounge > Professor Gates vs. Sgt. Crowley

View Poll Results: What do you thinks this situation was about?
Poll Options:
Cop straight up racial profiling 5 votes (10.42%)
Cop with an attitude about being questioned 21 votes (43.75%)
Professor with an attitude about being questioned 23 votes (47.92%)
Professor straight up playing the race card 27 votes (56.25%)
A "He Said/She Said" situation 12 votes (25.00%)
Race perhaps a component but not the dominant factor 10 votes (20.83%)
Multiple Choice Poll. Voters: 48. You may not vote on this poll
Professor Gates vs. Sgt. Crowley (Page 7)
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lpkmckenna
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Aug 19, 2009, 02:37 AM
 
Jeez, can it get any more absurd: a New Mexico cop tazers a 14 year old girl in the back of the head because she was running away from him. Thanks right, a grown man shot a little girl in the back on purpose. F'n coward should be fired and jailed. How can anybody justify this?

C'mon badge-lickers. Explain to me how a Police Chief is justified in shooting a girl in the head for running away?
     
stumblinmike
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Aug 19, 2009, 06:36 AM
 
Sadly, just because he can. The Police CHIEF no less. He passed a psych exam HOW? My bet is he will be cleared of all wrongdoing. However, if Karma has any merit....
     
Oisín
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Aug 19, 2009, 08:26 AM
 
Woah. So much for ‘no-harm’ weapon. Ouch.
     
OAW  (op)
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Aug 19, 2009, 11:48 AM
 
Originally Posted by stupendousman View Post
I explained that I did misread what Whalen said. I didn't see a small detail. I explained how that wasn't actually even relevant though as to whether or not the "old lady" on the scene had seen and a "witness" longer than Whalen. That's something that you tried to "demolish", but simply failed miserably. No matter how you try to duck, weave and dodge, there was someone on the scene who police could have, and should have talked to if they wanted to know what happened from the get go. No amount of links have been able to dispute that.
Dude. In your post above you tried to claim that I didn't provide any links showing that Ms. Whalen only missed seconds of what the old lady saw. I showed you where I did in fact do that. It's blatantly obvious when she says out of her own mouth ....

A. The old lady saw the guys trying to break in the door.
B. Ms. Whalen didn't notice the guys trying to break in the door at first.
C. Then Ms. Whalen saw the guys trying to break in the door herself.
D. They both saw them actually get inside the house.
E. Ms. Whalen went closer and saw the suitcases on the porch.

But you don't address that part. You go back to some old point of contention several pages ago. Whatever. At best you can say that the old lady saw the same event a little bit longer. And it's shoulda, woulda, coulda when it comes to the police talking to the old lady at the scene. I agree. They probably should have done that. But again, there's no evidence of that. The police report said Sgt. Crowley talked to Ms. Whalen. Period. Dot. End of sentence.


Originally Posted by stupendousman View Post
Here's where the comedy and irony comes in.... YOU ARE SPECULATING about what the "Old Lady" saw. You have no idea what she saw, unless you have a link to an interview of her. You are IMAGINING what you THINK she saw entirely based on what you've heard Whalen saw. Available evidence only provides us with the fact that she was viewing what was going on before Whalen knew there was a problem.
No. We have the 911 call where Ms. Whalen initially told the dispatcher what the old lady pointed out to her contemporaneously. Then after that Ms. Whalen goes on to indicate what she saw herself ... which was the same thing.

Originally Posted by stupendousman View Post
I can speak, because the evidence shows that the old lady saw more. If you watch longer, you see more. You can't see the same amount of something as another person if you start watching it after they do. It's logically impossible, but that's the type of argument you forward time and time again, ad nasuem.
And now you reveal the level of foolishness you will stoop to in order to make a point.

Scenario 1

Person A sees the guy walk up to the door.
Person A sees the guy try to open the door.
Person A sees the guy break into the door.
Person A sees the guy go inside the house.

Person B sees the guy break into the door.
Person B sees the guy go inside the house.

Now on the planet we all live on Person A saw "more" than Person B in this scenario. However, on the planet you live on we have this ....

Scenario 2

Person A sees the guy try to open the door.
Person A sees the guy break into the door.
Person A sees the guy go inside the house.

Person B sees the guy try to open the door.
Person B sees the guy break into the door.
Person B sees the guy go inside the house.

But you say Person A saw "more" than Person B simply because she saw the guy try to open the door prior to Person B for a few seconds longer. Never mind that they both report the exact same thing. The guy was trying to open the door. A few seconds longer of seeing the same event is what you try to hang your hat on.

Originally Posted by stupendousman View Post
Not my argument. My argument was simply that the "old lady" was watching longer, therefore would have been a primary witness who needed to be questioned. The first person at the scene of a potential crime, who is the first witness is always someone the police talks to.
Oh now it's not your argument? Funny how it seems to have been your argument for quite some time now. But whatever ... let's go with that. The available evidence only indicates that the old lady and Ms. Whalen saw the guys on the porch and break in the house. The old lady saw the guys on the porch a bit longer than Ms. Whalen. Ok fine. But nothing in the 911 call transcript indicates that the old lady accompanied Ms. Whalen when she went closer and observed the suitcases on the porch. So do you still want to claim that the old lady saw "more"?

And nowhere does the 911 call indicate that the old lady was there before Ms. Whalen. It just indicates that the old lady noticed the situation before Ms. Whalen. Furthermore, quite obviously the police don't always talk to the "first witness". As indicated by the police report which only mentions the 911 caller Ms. Whalen. Surely you weren't born this dense. So I must commend you on the level of practice you must engage in to achieve such a high level of obtuseness.

Originally Posted by stupendousman View Post
There is no evidence that THEY DID NOT either, since all we have is the police report and it's just a general summary of what happened based on examination of the evidence and talking to the witnesses. Not being present in a police report does not make something not happen. This was already explained by spokesman for the Cambridge Police.
Again. The police report is to document what did happen. It's not there to document what did not happen. We already covered this. Weren't you paying attention? Furthermore, need I remind you the burden of proof is on proving the positive? Since there is this little thing about never being able to prove the negative.

Originally Posted by stupendousman View Post
We know that the person they said made the description claims she did not make the description as described, after being harassed and ridiculed as a racist. You make the ASSUMPTION that it was all a fabrication despite there being no real motive for doing so. I make the assumption that since there were other witnesses on the scene, and in fact someone who watched what was going on longer, it's highly likely that someone was interviewed and they got the attribution wrong. Your theory requires assumptions based on an assumed conspiracy. Mine makes assumptions based on a possible reasonable explanation given the facts. This is the sort of argument your point of debate rests on, and it's a pretty shaky one.
No. We know she didn't say that ... not because she "changed her tune" after being harassed and ridiculed as a racist as you imply ... but because the 911 call transcript proves it. We also have her saying that the only conversation she had with Sgt. Crowley at the scene was to identify herself as the 911 caller and him saying to wait right there as he immediately went to the door to investigate. And we also know that only 5 - 6 minutes lapsed between the time the 911 call was placed to the the time that Prof. Gates was arrested. And during the overwhelming majority of that time Sgt. Crowley was inside the house with Prof. Gates. So when exactly did Sgt. Crowley have the opportunity to interview the "other witnesses" and then "misattribute" their statements to Ms. Whalen? Considering the extremely short timeline that is?

No ... these aren't "assumptions based on an assumed conspiracy". This is simple logic and common sense. Areas in which you are sorely lacking.

Originally Posted by stupendousman View Post
In order for your theory to be true, the cops who were all witnesses, even the minority ones would have to be liars. You have NO EVIDENCE that the police officers in question have EVER lied, no less lied about official business. You are basing your belief on a bigoted stereotype.
Lied about what? When did I ever say that the other officers at the scene lied about anything? The only thing I said was that it appears that Sgt. Crowley may have falsified certain aspects of his police report. Now go ahead and produce a single statement in this thread of mine where I've said that any of the other officers lied about this situation.

Of course, you can't. So perhaps you could do us all a favor and debate me based on what I actually said and not this BS that you are talking about?

Originally Posted by stupendousman View Post
On the other hand, we know that Gates lied about being "racially profiled" and purposely distorted what happened. We don't just think that maybe if a set of weird conspiracy theories are true, or our bigoted assumptions based on stereotypes end up proving true that Gates didn't tell the truth - we know from the evidence that what Gates said was not true.
Oh really? Well I'm not going to repeat what I said earlier when I asked you a series of questions about "You know Prof. Gates lied when he said blah blah blah how exactly?" I'll let your response to those speak for itself. Instead, let me come at this from a different angle. You contend that Prof. Gates purposely distorted what happened. You cite the statements from the other police, including the minority officers, as proof of this. Ok fine. What I'm saying is that everybody involved is looking at the situation from their point of view. Everybody isn't privvy to everything that happened. In any event, you can see what Sgt. Lashley (the black officer at the scene) had to say about it here. The key takeaways are ...

1. Sgt. Lashley didn't think racism was involved.

2. Sgt. Lashley heard conversation in the house. Then he says it got louder all of a sudden. He says he heard Prof. Gates say something to the effect of "This is how a black man in America is treated. And I'm being placed under arrest in my own home because a white woman called the police." Probably got louder because by then Prof. Gates had stepped out on the porch ... per Sgt. Crowley's request.

3. Sgt. Lashley then says that he had no qualms with Sgt. Crowley arresting Prof. Gates. But he also said that had he arrived at the scene first, it probably would have been different.

So basically we have the black officer saying that he didn't believe racism was involved and that the white officer was within his rights to arrest Prof. Gates, but that he would have handled the situation differently. He's said nothing one way or the other about the other issues at play here. He said nothing about how Sgt. Crowley behaved when he first encountered Prof. Gates or regarding his refusal to provide his name and badge number when requested .... as is required by law. Nothing about how Prof. Gates had shown Sgt. Crowley his Harvard ID and his drivers license. Etc. Why? Because he arrived after the fact and was outside the entire time. So again, nothing he said refutes or even disputes Prof. Gates' version of events of what happened inside the house.

Last but not least .... you are 0 for 2 on this so I'll try it "one mo gin" and see if you duck it one final time.

Originally Posted by OAW
So let's say for the sake of argument that Prof. Gates was yelling at Sgt. Crowley on the porch. You still can't escape this simple fact. Prof. Gates had repeatedly asked Sgt. Crowley for his identification. And he never got it as was required by state law. So since you want to be such a stickler for the letter of the law .... fine. Two can play that game.

Prof. Gates was no more in violation of the law than was Sgt. Crowley.
OAW
( Last edited by OAW; Aug 19, 2009 at 11:55 AM. )
     
andi*pandi
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Aug 19, 2009, 11:51 AM
 
The horse's burial is scheduled at noon. Donations may be made to the Boston City Police Widows Fund in lieu of flowers or hay.
     
turtle777
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Aug 19, 2009, 11:51 AM
 
Originally Posted by andi*pandi View Post
The horse's burial is scheduled at noon. Donations may be made to the Boston City Police Widows Fund in lieu of flowers or hay.


-t
     
Dakar V
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Aug 19, 2009, 11:53 AM
 
Can we change the saying to tazing a dead horse?
     
OAW  (op)
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Aug 19, 2009, 01:05 PM
 
Originally Posted by ebuddy View Post
No problem.

Gates: My mother hated white people.
Q: All her life?
Gates: I didn't know until -- in 1959 we were watching Mike Wallace's documentary called "The Hate that Hate Produced." It was about the Nation of Islam and I couldn't believe -- I mean, Malcolm X was talking about the white man was the devil and standing up in white people's faces and telling them off. It was great.
::::::::: sigh :::::::::::::

First of all, a link would have been good form. Leads one to question why you chose to omit it. But don't worry about it. I found the 1994 interview that you are referring to. And how Sean Hannity of Fox News repeatedly distorted his characterization of a childhood experience in order to try to paint him as some sort of anti-white radical. True to form I might add.

In any event, the question I posed was "And just what is this "history of racism" on the part of Prof. Gates?" And your response was to post something that his mother felt? So his mother had a problem with white people so that means he does to? Oh wow! You really don't want to go there because if we were to apply that standard then there would be a whole lot of people who are "racist" simply because of the sensibilities of their parents who were raised in a different era.

Or perhaps you are jumping on the "It was great." part in reference to Malcolm X? Well how about we review the entire statement ... just for grins?

Originally Posted by Prof. Gates
LAMB: At one point you had a line in there, something to the effect, "My mother despised white people."

GATES: My mother hated white people.

LAMB: All her life?

GATES: Probably. I didn't know until -- in 1959 we were watching Mike Wallace's documentary called "The Hate that Hate Produced." It was about the Nation of Islam and I couldn't believe -- I mean, Malcolm X was talking about the white man was the devil and standing up in white people's faces and telling them off. It was great. I mean, it's what black people did behind closed doors, but they would never do it in -- I mean, they were too vulnerable to do it, say, where they worked, at the paper mill or downtown, as we would call it. And here was a guy who had the nerve to do that, and I think if I had been a character in a cartoon, my eyes would have gone Doing! -- like this. I couldn't believe it. As I sat cowering in a corner of our living room, I glanced over at Mama and her face was radiant. I mean, this smile -- beatific smile started to transform her face. And she said quite quietly, "Amen." And then she said, "All right now," and she sat up and she said, "Yes."

And she loved Malcolm X and she loved what the Muslims were doing. And I couldn't believe it. It was like -- as I write, it was like watching the Wicked Witch of the West emerge out of the transforming features of Dorothy. This person I had thought of as this pioneer of the civil rights movement really had a hard time with white people. And the more I got to know her -- and, you know, these weren't easy anecdotes for her to repeat, but the older I got, she became more willing to share painful experiences of white racism -- the way that she was treated when she was a girl and a servant in the house of wealthy white people just a block down the hill from where we lived. My brother and I eventually went back and bought that house for her, and that's how we found out that she had been so horribly treated by these people. She never trusted white people. She didn't like white people. She didn't want to live with white people.

But she wanted us to go to integrated schools. She wanted us to live in an integrated economy. She wanted us even to live in integrated neighborhoods. She wanted us to be able to get the best that American society offered. She wanted us to be articulate, to speak white English, as we would call it, as well as black vernacular English. You know, she wanted us to know how to dress, how to talk, how to act, how to behave. She wanted us to go to private schools, to the Ivy League. I mean, she wanted us to be as successful as it was humanly possible to be in American society. But she always wanted us to remember, first and last, that we were black and that you could never trust white people. And so when I brought my fiancee home, who happened to be a white American, I thought World War III was about to break out between me and my mother, not to mention between my mother and my fiancee.
This was 1959. During the height of Jim Crow. Discrimination and segregation against blacks was rampant. Black women like Prof. Gates' mother often worked in the houses of wealthy whites as maids and nannies ... wiping sh*t off the butts of children who were taught by their parents and society at large to despise them. Black men working as pullman porters and janitors being degraded daily by white children referring to them as "boy". Etc. Etc. There were lots of black people during that era who were not fans of white people. And for good reason. So there were a lot of blacks who admired Malcolm X for his courage to speak boldly and fearlessly against white oppression. In an era when "bucking up" to a white man or even looking a white woman in the eye could get you lynched ... balls cut off and stuffed in your mouth ... whole body set on fire ... witnessed and celebrated by entire communities of white men, women, and children as "picnics" .... to do such a thing as Malcolm X did was unprecedented. To take the "black people are the cursed descendants of Ham" theology that had been in place for centuries and used to justify slavery and segregation ... to upend it and throw it back at them with a "The white man is the devil." theology was indeed unbelievable.

African-Americans are overwhelmingly christian. So while many admired Malcolm X for his courage and his "black nationalist" rhetoric most rejected the theology he espoused in the earlier part of his career. IMO, were he a christian Malcolm X may very well have eclipsed Martin Luther King Jr. as the pre-eminent civil rights leader of that era. But I digress. The point is that while Prof. Gates said "It was great." regarding what he was seeing Malcolm X do on TV as a nine year old boy ... it's clear by the context that he is talking about Malcolm's "nerve to do that". He says that he was "cowering in a corner" while looking at it ... so obviously he didn't like everything about what he was seeing. And he goes on to describe his mother's reaction to the program. The entire point of that part of the interview was to describe his mother's views. What she felt and why she felt that way. About how over time she shared more of her experiences and he got to know where she was coming from ... because her feelings towards white people seemed so at odds with her being a "civil rights pioneer". About how he thought it was going to be WWIII when he told her that he was getting engaged to a white woman.

To translate that into a "history of racism" on the part of Prof. Gates is complete, and utter BS. Feel free to try again.

OAW
( Last edited by OAW; Aug 19, 2009 at 01:15 PM. )
     
andi*pandi
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Aug 19, 2009, 02:37 PM
 
It was a lovely ceremony. The band played "Horse With No Name."
     
stupendousman
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Aug 19, 2009, 10:39 PM
 
I grow tired of pointing out the fallacies in your arguments. It really isn't worth my time, given the fact that they are there for all but you to see. I'll just take the first argument you make, point out how oblivious to reason you are, and maybe shorten the process and save you some embarassment.

Originally Posted by OAW View Post
Dude. In your post above you tried to claim that I didn't provide any links showing that Ms. Whalen only missed seconds of what the old lady saw. I showed you where I did in fact do that. It's blatantly obvious when she says out of her own mouth ....

A. The old lady saw the guys trying to break in the door.
Where did you post a llink that claim that she first viewed Mr. Gates and his driver when they were in the process of breaking in, essentially at the very same time Whalen saw them? Please provide a quote, because all the evidence I've seen only states that as Gates was "breaking in" she alerted Whalen of what was going on. That could mean almost instantaneously (your ASSUMPTION) or she could have been watching for several minutes. For all you (or the cops) know/knew she had seen everything that happened from the time Gates pulled up to his house from the airport, which would make interviewing her much more desirable than Ms. Whalen who was the second person on the scene to see what was happening.

You are SPECULATING about what you know the "old lady" saw. We KNOW she saw more because logically, she couldn't have seen less or exactly the same if she's the one pointing out the break in to Whalen. What you DO NOT KNOW is how much more she saw. Your argument fails on several levels.

But you don't address that part. You go back to some old point of contention several pages ago. Whatever. At best you can say that the old lady saw the same event a little bit longer. And it's shoulda, woulda, coulda when it comes to the police talking to the old lady at the scene.
It's not unreasonable to expect the cops to talk to the person who was on the scene longest, and saw more. It's not "woulda, coulda, shoulda", it's standard operating procedure. I don't have to speculate that the police question the person who first saw what went on, because that's typically what they alway do.

So, right there we have you illogically and artificially limiting the amount of potential testimony the "old lady" could have given and ignore the fact that the police do generally talk to the first person on the scene. This is the sort of thing you have to do in order to make the huge speculative leap to argue that the police had to have lied about talking TO ANYONE about who it was they saw "breakin in" when there are other more reasonable, and likely explanations given that there's really no motive for them to do so.

You can continue to ramble on with your conspiracy theories and links providing us with the sources of some of the stereotypes you rely on, but I don't think anyone is going to see your excuse making as anything other than the beaten horse that it is.
     
Laminar
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Aug 20, 2009, 09:13 AM
 
Originally Posted by stupendousman View Post
I grow tired of pointing out the fallacies in your arguments. It really isn't worth my time, given the fact that they are there for all but you to see.
Which is saying something; considering all of the **** you post here your time's more worthless than Michael Cera is awkward.
     
stupendousman
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Aug 20, 2009, 11:57 AM
 
Originally Posted by Laminar View Post
Which is saying something; considering all of the **** you post here your time's more worthless than Michael Cera is awkward.
While I may have been unkind, I provided actual content supporting my claim regarding this debate.

You just made a personal attack.

I don't mind being criticized, but at least make the effort to make a point regarding the topic at hand. You've really added nothing to the conversation.
     
Laminar
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Aug 20, 2009, 12:09 PM
 
Originally Posted by stupendousman View Post
While I may have been unkind, I provided actual content supporting my claim regarding this debate.

You just made a personal attack.

I don't mind being criticized, but at least make the effort to make a point regarding the topic at hand. You've really added nothing to the conversation.
Adding zero to a good discussion is better than adding minus.
     
Snow-i
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Aug 20, 2009, 12:51 PM
 
Originally Posted by Laminar View Post
Adding zero to a good discussion is better than adding minus.
Whoah there Einstein, don't hurt yourself.


While stupendous might feel strongly about this issue, which shows in his posts, he still tries (and succeeds many times) to make valid points based on their merit. Stupendous, keep it up, I enjoy reading the discussion and seeing both sides (which have valid points on each).
     
ort888
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Aug 20, 2009, 01:06 PM
 
I enjoy this thread as well, but for different reasons.

My sig is 1 pixel too big.
     
Laminar
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Aug 20, 2009, 01:38 PM
 
Originally Posted by Snow-i View Post
Whoah there Einstein, don't hurt yourself.


While stupendous might feel strongly about this issue, which shows in his posts, he still tries (and succeeds many times) to make valid points based on their merit. Stupendous, keep it up, I enjoy reading the discussion and seeing both sides (which have valid points on each).
I don't mind when people feel strongly about issues. But some people here take it to a whole new level - their respective party's views on EVERY issue are ALWAYS correct, and they'll twist and shape any evidence they can find to support their preconceived views. They don't start out by looking at all of the evidence and deriving from it a logical conclusion, they start out by thinking, "My view is correct, now what evidence can I find to support this, and what evidence do I have to ignore to continue believing what I do?"

It's everything that's wrong with this sub-forum.
     
vmarks
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Aug 20, 2009, 01:44 PM
 
Originally Posted by andi*pandi View Post
The horse's burial is scheduled at noon. Donations may be made to the Boston City Police Widows Fund in lieu of flowers or hay.
Indeed.

The moment for this thread to draw to a close has been reached. Thank you for participating in this discussion of both a specific incident, and race and its role in America. I expect we'll have similar discussions at some future time, in some future thread.

Until then? Adieú.
If this post is in the Lounge forum, it is likely to be my own opinion, and not representative of the position of MacNN.com.
     
 
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