(NAME-MCE) Top Scholar Arrested, Claims Racism

[Bill Howe]

 Top Scholar Arrested, Claims Racism

By MELISSA TRUJILLO

,

AP

posted: 1 HOUR 5 MINUTES AGO

comments: 1191<http://news.aol.com/article/henry-louis-gates-arrested/579590#Comments>

filed under: National News <http://news.aol.com/nation>

With HP wireless printers, you could have printed this from any room in the
house. Live wirelessly. Print wirelessly.

PRINT<http://pr.atwola.com/promoclk/100014629x1207153240x1200375227/aol?redir=http://news.aol.com/article/henry-louis-gates-arrested/579590>
|E-MAILMORE

Text SizeAA <javascript:void(0)>A <javascript:void(0)>

BOSTON (July 20) – Police responding to a call about "two black males"
breaking into a home near Harvard University ended up arresting the man who
lives there — Henry Louis Gates Jr., the nation's pre-eminent black scholar.

Gates had forced his way through the front door because it was jammed, his
lawyer said. Colleagues call the arrest last Thursday afternoon a clear case
of racial profiling.

Skip over this content<http://news.aol.com/article/henry-louis-gates-arrested/579590#axs204>

[image: Henry Louis Gates Jr. in 2006]

Steven Senne, AP

Henry Louis Gates Jr., here in 2006, is the director of Harvard University's
W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research and
served for 15 years as chairman of what is now the Department of African and
African American Research.

Cambridge police say they responded to the well-maintained two-story home
after a woman reported seeing "two black males with backpacks on the porch,"
with one "wedging his shoulder into the door as if he was trying to force
entry."

By the time police arrived, Gates was already inside. Police say he refused
to come outside to speak with an officer, who told him he was investigating
a report of a break-in.

"Why, because I'm a black man in America?" Gates said, according to a police
report written by Sgt. James Crowley. The Cambridge police refused to
comment on the arrest Monday.

Gates — the director of Harvard's W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and
African American Research — initially refused to show the officer his
identification, but then gave him a Harvard University ID card, according to
police.

"Gates continued to yell at me, accusing me of racial bias and continued to
tell me that I had not heard the last of him," the officer wrote.

Gates said he turned over his driver's license and Harvard ID — both with
his photos — and repeatedly asked for the name and badge number of the
officer, who refused. He said he then followed the officer as he left his
house onto his front porch, where he was handcuffed in front of other
officers, Gates said in a statement released by his attorney, fellow Harvard
scholar Charles Ogletree, on a Web site Gates oversees, TheRoot.com

He was arrested on a disorderly conduct charge after police said he
"exhibited loud and tumultuous behavior." He was released later that day on
his own recognizance. An arraignment was scheduled for Aug. 26.

Gates, 58, also refused to speak publicly Monday, referring calls to
Ogletree.

"He was shocked to find himself being questioned and shocked that the
conversation continued after he showed his identification," Ogletree said.

Ogletree declined to say whether he believed the incident was racially
motivated, saying "I think the incident speaks for itself."

Some of Gates' African-American colleagues say the arrest is part of a
pattern of racial profiling in Cambridge.

Allen Counter, who has taught neuroscience at Harvard for 25 years, said he
was stopped on campus by two Harvard police officers in 2004 after being
mistaken for a robbery suspect. They threatened to arrest him when he could
not produce identification.

"We do not believe that this arrest would have happened if professor Gates
was white," Counter said. "It really has been very unsettling for
African-Americans throughout Harvard and throughout Cambridge that this
happened."

The Rev. Al Sharpton is vowing to attend Gates' arraignment.

"This arrest is indicative of at best police abuse of power or at worst the
highest example of racial profiling I have seen," Sharpton said. "I have
heard of driving while black and even shopping while black but now even
going to your own home while black is a new low in police community
affairs."

Ogletree said Gates had returned from a trip to China on Thursday with a
driver, when he found his front door jammed. He went through the back door
into the home — which he leases from Harvard — shut off an alarm and worked
with the driver to get the door open. The driver left, and Gates was on the
phone with the property's management company when police first arrived.

Ogletree also disputed the claim that Gates, who was wearing slacks and a
polo shirt and carrying a cane, was yelling at the officer.

"He has an infection that has impacted his breathing since he came back from
China, so he's been in a very delicate physical state," Ogletree said.

Lawrence D. Bobo, the W.E.B Du Bois Professor of the Social Sciences at
Harvard, said he met with Gates at the police station and described his
colleague as feeling humiliated and "emotionally devastated."

"It's just deeply disappointing but also a pointed reminder that there are
serious problems that we have to wrestle with," he said.

Bobo said he hoped Cambridge police would drop the charges and called on the
department to use the incident to review training and screening procedures
it has in place.

The Middlesex district attorney's office said it could not do so until after
Gates' arraignment. The woman who reported the apparent break-in did not
return a message Monday.

Gates joined the Harvard faculty in 1991 and holds one of 20 prestigious
"university professors" positions at the school. He also was host of
"African American Lives," a PBS show about the family histories of prominent
U.S. blacks, and was named by Time magazine as one of the 25 most
influential Americans in 1997.

"I was obviously very concerned when I learned on Thursday about the
incident," Harvard president Drew Gilpin Faust said in a statement. "He and
I spoke directly and I have asked him to keep me apprised."







Bill Howe
Asian Pacific American Coalition of CT http://apaact.com/
Personal Website http://www.billhowe.org
Multicultural Dimensions http://www.multiculturaldimensions.org
Travel Blog http://billhowe.org/BillBlog/
Multicultural Education Blog http://billhowe.org/MCE/
> Organizing a July 2010 Tour to China & Hong Kong