Thursday, July 23, 2009

Stupid cop!

[Warning: political discussion ahead]

A Boston police officer gets a call regarding a possible break-in of a residential home in progress. The officer approaches the house alone and figures out quickly that the person inside was the homeowner, who locked himself out and then forced his way into his own home. The police officer is then reassured - but still wants to see the identification of the homeowner to conclude the investigation. The homeowner (who is black) accuses the white police officer of being a racist. Rather than just hand over his identification, the homeowner acts like a horse's ass right up until the point he gets arrested for disorderly conduct. The homeowner - as it turns out - is a famous Harvard professor. And when asked about this incident in last night's press conference, the president of the United States said that he didn't know the details of what happened, but that the police "acted stupidly."

Here is the police report. Decide for yourself.

12 comments:

  1. Big conversation in Greenville today---those who watch MSNBC get the wrong facts---- those who check out the arrest report on the internet get the true facts. I, for one am sick of blacks yelling "racist" every time they get in trouble with the law, but that's what we get and they will never make major strides until they look at the facts.....and that goes for our lame President, too.

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  2. Amen and Amen. I so agree with the first comment. Very well put!!

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  3. Yes. Check out the arrest report on the internets for the unmitigated truth. Officers of the law never give false information in arrest reports.

    Understand, I am not accusing this particular officer of falsifying a police report. I am accusing the first commenter of overlooking the extensive historical record of officers falsifying such reports. It is naive in the extreme to point to such a report as the final word on the truth.

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  4. Sounds to me the police officer was doing his job as he was trained. It does seem strange that the supposed homeowner would act the way he did instead of simply handing over ID. Just do it & get it over with! So, now, he got sent to jail. My opinion is that it wasn't the cop who was 'stupid'. And, by the way, why was the President even involved with this??? He's got bigger issues to deal with. Do your job, Mr. President, and let the police do theirs.

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  5. Audiotape is on the way and will settle all this ...

    On a bigger point, Ferd ... I think this incident is the first battle won on the war against political correctness. A bunch of white cops demanded that the black president apologize, and the black president gave in (yes, I know he didn't apologize, but he's not capable of apologizing for anything ... but he did give in).

    Understand, I am not saying this is a race issue. This was a law enforcement issue until the professor tried to use race as a weapon. This tactic has worked in the past, but not this time.

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  6. What an onlooker says about this incident says loads more about the onlooker than it does about the incident. Almost no one in the larger sphere who is commenting on this was there to witness what actually occurred, but lots of people are expressing lots of opinions on race and who was right and who was wrong. So what exactly are those commenting actually commenting upon? They are going to their respective camps (righties are going to their rightist news sources, and lefties are going to their leftist news sources), and they are having their existing perspectives emboldened by others who already agree with them and the way they see race. And what is the basis of opinion for those in the media who are feeding the masses? Their own already existing ideas about race. The basis can't be the actual facts of this event, because as of now, we don't really know them. Victims of racism are going to believe what Gates says. Those uncomfortable with claims of racism are going to believe what the officer says.

    What we will mostly end up with when all this is "settled" is a bunch of reductionist analyses that are going to boil down the complex dynamic between this white cop and this black man to fit into overly rigid and simplistic perspectives on race. What will be lost in all the shouting and grandstanding will be leveler heads that understand how complex and difficult these issues are, and how rarely the actors in events such as these fit into neat categories of right and wrong.

    As a white man from small-town America, my instincts are to listen as openly as I possibly can to minorities in situations such as these, because I am not a minority, and I have not had a minority experience. After having read a report like "We Charge Genocide" (get your hands on it if you can find it), I realize how deeply ingrained is racism in our society, and how often those in power have looked the other way when faced with it. I don't blame the black man for being overly sensitive to potential racism. This country must still be awfully frustrating to live in for minorities.

    I have very little desire, then, to sit around and write about what the blacks do or don't need to do to gain legitimacy in our society. Because to do so would be to flap my gums about something I know nothing about.

    Jason, you can't be so naive as to think that an audiotape is going to settle any of this.

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  7. Who is Jason?

    ... I don't think anything will be settled by this. I said this could be the first battle won in the war against political correctness.

    You are right in saying that some on the left and right will never change their thought process. But there are a bunch of uninformed people in the middle who are only now waking up to what is going on in their county. If you only watch CBS News, you are likely to side with the black professor. But if the audiotape comes out, and if (as I strongly suspect) you hear an egotistical black Harvard professor using race as a weapon, then minds will change. And others might just determine that our president lacks good judgment as well.

    Regardless, an historic thing happened today. A bunch of white guys demanded an apology from a prominent black guy over a race issue. And for all intents and purposes, they got it. Tell me the last time that happened.

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  8. @ Darke Joural:

    First, "Jason" is Jason Aslinger, who I believe is behind most things on this weblog.

    Second, if I didn't know better, I would think you were being ironic in your response. However, I know you're not. And therefore, you have just illustrated how to write a reductionist analysis that fits into an overly rigid and simplistic perspective on race.

    Congratulations!

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  9. I think people should think about what Fred is saying before jumping to conclusions.

    In every society truth has a different meaning, in America truth is usually shaped by our agenda, in this case left or right. Depending on what we want the truth to be we manipulate it so that it suits the purpose we choose, many times by omitting information.

    In Scandinavia for instance, truth is cut and dry, no opinions, no emotions, just a recall of what happened.

    Chinese philosophy says that truth is individual, and that an absolute truth does not exist. Even when presented with the same material, we all interpret it differently, therefore making it impossible to declare what is truth.

    Now to me this whole bit about making a colored person apologize to a white guy is silly, the reason we have problems with race is that we even discus it. Everyone assumes that the president took the side of the professor because he too is colored. President Obama was a student at Harvard, and probably knew the professor personally, is it unimaginable that he took the professor's side because he knew him on a personal level and thought it out of character for him to act that way?

    Race is like hight, weight, gender, etc... It shouldn't be such a big issue when people whine about it... If I got a speeding ticket from a police officer who is shorter and portlier than I am, I would not make the news carrying on about how he gave me a ticket because hates people who are taller and thinner than he is... Race should be the same way, a non-factor, but by making an issue, it leads people to think that race makes us different, when it doesn't we are people all the same whether black, white, yellow or tan. People that can't accept that on either side of the fence need to reevaluate themselves.

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  10. Good lord ... Scandinavia ?!?! And it's Ferd ... not Fred.

    Race is not the story here. But it sure does get shoved down my throat, and that's the point.

    The main story here is political correctness. Race is just a weapon used within political correctness. Political correctness has gotten so out of control in this country that any minority (or white democratic politician) can scream racism every time they get themselves in political or legal trouble. Most of the time, the non-minority is too afraid of being called a bigot or racist to do anything about it - and consequently that non-minority person backs down.

    You can say what you want about the incident in Cambridge - but nobody has accused Sergeant Crowley of "racial profiling." Not only did he teach the class on racial profiling, but he has been backed up by the black and hispanic officers who were on the scene.

    The issue here is the prominent black man who acted like an ass, and then screamed racism when he got in over his head.

    The difference in this incident is that the cries of racism haven't worked - and amusingly, they blew up all over the president too.

    I am totally against racism, which is why I am laughing at the outcome of this thing. The black professor made judgments about the white police officer without knowing him (and without knowing, for example, that he was the expert in racial profiling). It was the black guy who prejudged. And it was an uninformed president who wasn't backing up a black guy, but his wealthy and distinguished professor friend. Obama took the professor's word for it, and now they're both paying.

    The black professor thought he could gain the upper hand by counting on political correctness and a lame assertion of racism. He used race. And for once, somebody stood up to it. I am cheering today for the erosion of political correctness.

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  11. My apologizes on the typo, probably due to auto-correct, and reading too fast...

    I am perplexed by your, should I say, surprise, at the use of Scandinavian thinking... I know people from the Scandinavian nations and that is a truthful assertion of the general point of view of what is truth.

    I see the direction you are coming from now, with your clarification, as it first you made it seem that using race is the correct thing to do, when that should be the last factor used by anyone in anything.

    But in all I think the entire issue is being blown out of proportion. People seem to being using it as gallows to hang the president, yeah, he made a mistake assuming that his friend was of better character than he is, but if he is willing to admit that he was wrong about the professor, then it shouldn't be continually held above him. Is forgiveness not practiced anymore?

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  12. From now on our pathetic excuse for a President should be introduced as the "most racist man in America." He immediately places emphasis on race when the issue is Gates' being a beligerant moron. What a moron! Thank you Mr. President for once again proving that America is full of mindless ingrates who aren't fit to breed, as proven so greatly by your election to office.

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