SNAFU in Massachusetts

Now that the media sharks have got hold of the 'story' of Henry Louis Gates arrest by Cambridge police, it's hard to sort out the facts. The headlines blare 'Racial Profiling' and claim racial bias is still present in America. As if that was news to anyone. President Obama calling the actions of the police stupid doesn't really help the clarity of the situation.

From what I can gather, here's what seems to have happened. Gates, arriving home with a friend, found he'd misplaced his keys. He decided to break into his own house. A neighbor spots this break-in and, like you'd hope a neighbor would, calls the police. They arrive and ask Gates for identification.

Now up to this point, there's nothing unusual here, even the fact the neighbor didn't recognize Gates. It was night after all, and few among us know all of our neighbors that well these days. The police did what they should. You don't respond to a break-in call and then accept the word of whoever you meet at the house that, 'it's alright, I live here'. You ask for proof.

After this point, though, it starts going horribly wrong. Gates, though likely embarrassed at having the police at his door, should simply have shown his ID. If he had done that, with no commentary, the police would have filled in a couple of forms and that would be that.

But, for some reason known only to Professor Gates, but perhaps because police officers don't always have the best public relations skills, he refused to comply with the police request and claimed the responding officer was being racist - that he was being racially profiled. That he was being asked for his ID in his own home only because he was a black man.

It's not an easy thing to calmly accept being called a racist, especially if you don't think you are, and it seems the officer didn't take this well. At this point I gather (the facts are hazy) he threatened to arrest Gates if he didn't calm down and comply. The published reports don't say how much of this went on and for how long, but at some point Gates relented and showed the officers his ID.

Here again, things could have ended, if not happily, at least acceptably. The police could have said something like, 'Thank you, Mr. Gates. Sorry for the inconvenience - just checking to be sure everything was OK. Good Evening', and beaten a hasty retreat. But, no, for whatever reason, possibly because Gates was loud and insistent that he was a racist - we'll never know for sure, the officer decided Gates' behavior was sufficiently wrong to require his arrest.

Oh Boy, Big Mistake! Haven't the police learned anything in the last 30 years about race relations and the media? Not in Cambridge, Mass., it seems.

What we have here, in reality, are two men with bruised egos rankled by what they perceive as false and unfair accusations. One of them a distinguished scholar who happens to be a black man, and the other a dedicated defender of the public safety who happened to take the wrong call at the wrong time. Both good men, both naturally angry at being accused of something they didn't do. Sadly, neither were generous or humble enough to admit their mistakes.

Functionally, the President was right, the police were 'stupid', in that the public will always hold the police to a higher standard than an individual. Even though it was a human being who made the decisions here, he's seen as part of an organization that should know better, should be immune to human emotions. Gates, as a fallible individual, gets the benefit of our doubts.

So the police dropped the charges.

But, of course, it's now too late. The media have taken over. The President has weighed in. Lawsuits will ensue.

SNAFU, baby!