By Andy Murcia
It was painful watching the story unfold out of Cambridge, MA, last week — the one about Prof. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. of Harvard University and his confrontation with Cambridge Police Sgt. James Crowley.
And it quickly became excruciating when President Barack Obama decided to get into the thick of it with his ugly accusations about racial profiling.
It all began when one of Prof. Gates’ neighbors spotted two men trying to pry a door open at his house in the early morning hours. She called 911. The police responded to the possible burglary in progress and found the two men in the house. One of them was the professor, who immediately started yelling at the police, claiming that he was in his own house and that the officer’s attempt to question him was nothing more than racial profiling.
The officer claims he gave the professor several chances to stop raising hell, but he refused. The cop said he even displayed his handcuffs to the professor, suggesting he might be jailed if he kept it up. But once again the professor refused. The cop and another witness state that the professor walked after the officer and continued to make accusations of racism. Finally, the cop placed him under arrest on a charge of disorderly conduct and cuffed him.
Once the story broke, Pres. Obama, who says he’s a friend of the professor, was asked about the incident at his press conference last week. Though Obama conceded he didn’t know all the facts of the case, he still said it seemed to him the police acted “stupidly,” and suggested it was all a matter of racial profiling.
Yes, folks, our President, Barack Obama, a former law professor, made this finding — even though he did not have the facts of the case and was not a witness to any of it.
Along the way, the President said a few other things that make it clear he sides with the black professor over the white cop. For instance, he said Sgt. Crowley “pulled” Prof. Gates from his house. I just wonder how many of those seasoned reporters – and experienced officers nationwide — will pick up on that word “pulled”? The reports I’ve heard say the professor walked out of his house, following after the cop, while still refusing to stop his disorderly and nasty comments. That’s when he was arrested.
When I was a cop, “b.s. beefers,” the term we used for those folks who would make a false report against a hard-working cop, liked to use words like “he pulled me out of my car” or he “snatched me out of my bed,” etc., etc. So you know my antenna went up when I heard the President use that familiar word “pulled” when referring to a police officer’s actions.
But then, I should remember that before he became president, Obama was a black man walking the streets of Chicago, perhaps feeling in some ways that he was a racial target for the cops there. Perhaps his bad choice of word usage reveals what law professors teach us about the Latin term, res gestae, meaning a “spontaneous exclamation,” one that is extemporaneous — and usually reflects one’s true character.
If so, all I can say to Barack Obama is this: In the end, as our President, you had better get this economy fixed ASAP, stop these wars like you promised, and stop spending so much of my great-grand kids money — or you will be going back to Chicago forthwith.
My retirement account does not care what color you are, just fix it, man! And lastly, only real “stupid” guys accuse others of acting “stupidly” when they don’t know all the facts. Stay presidential and leave that “community organizer” gig behind you now.
ALG News contributor Andy Murcia is a former Chicago Police Sergeant, the husband of Ann Jillian, an veteran actress. His column appears regularly at TheColumnists.com.
