[BRIGADE] PJB: Sgt. Crowley, a Cop in Full
Published: Tue, 07/28/09
Just a quick note to let you know the site will be down for a
while. We had another massive hacker attack and I had to take the
site offline. I expect this to take an enormous amount of time as
nearly every document has malicious code written on them - and
there are over a thousand files that need to be cleaned.
This is the worst attack ever.
As always, for the Cause,
Linda
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Sgt. Crowley, a Cop in Full
by Patrick J. Buchanan
July 28, 2009
Sunday, professor Louis Henry Gates retreated from his threat to
sue Sgt. James Crowley. Friday, President Obama retreated from his
charge that the Cambridge cops "acted stupidly."
As Crowley has not budged an inch -- his arrest of Gates was
correct, and there will be no apology -- there is no doubt who won
this face-off. Game, set, match, Crowley and the Cambridge cops.
It is, indeed, as Obama said Friday, a "teachable moment."
And those most in need of teaching are the professor, the governor
of Massachusetts and President Obama. By charging or suggesting
Gates was a victim of racial profiling, all three were guilty of
having reflexively reverted to racial stereotypes about white cops.
Here is the chronology.
Answering a 911 call about a break-in in progress, Crowley
encountered the professor inside the house. According to Crowley's
report, his request for Gates' I.D. was initially rebuffed, and he
was accused of hassling Gates because he was black. The professor
made a slurring reference to Crowley's "mama."
The professor then raised such a ruckus Crowley arrested and cuffed
him.
Once in the street, Gates bellowed, "This is what happens to a
black man in America." Gates then called Crowley a "rogue cop."
Gov. Deval Patrick declared Gates' arrest "every black man's
nightmare." Obama said the Cambridge cops had "acted stupidly" and
went on to elaborate, on nationwide TV, on the sad history of
racial profiling of blacks and Hispanics by police.
Thus the two most powerful black elected officials in the U.S.,
with no hard knowledge of what happened, came down on the side of a
black professor, their buddy, against a white cop and his
department, implying racial motivation in the arrest of Gates.
Yet there is still not a shred of evidence for their rush to
judgment.
Crowley's partner in the arrest was a black officer who said he
stands "100 percent" behind Crowley and that Gates acted "strange."
Sixteen years ago, Crowley gave CPR to an unconscious Boston
Celtics star, Reggie Lewis, in an attempt to save his life. The
memory of his failure caused Crowley to break down in tears and
haunts him to this day.
Crowley was selected by a black police lieutenant to teach fellow
officers about racial profiling. He has been doing this for five
years.
And watching TV coverage for a week, this writer has yet to hear
one cop anywhere condemn Crowley's handling of the incident.
Outside the fevered imagination of Louis Henry Gates, then, where
is the evidence Crowley engaged in racial profiling?
The victim here is Sgt. Crowley, not professor Gates.
Crowley is the one defamed as a "racist" and "rogue cop." He is the
officer whom Gov. Patrick implied perpetrated "every black man's
nightmare." He is the cop on the Cambridge force who, Obama told
the nation, "acted stupidly."
If anyone has grounds for legal action, it is Crowley. Indeed, upon
what grounds would Gates sue?
That he was wrongly arrested, when Crowley, his black partner, the
Cambridge P.D., the police union and 1,000 cops would gladly come
to Cambridge to testify that Crowley went by the book?
Moreover, no one says Crowley abused Gates in any way. And there
were witnesses in the street to the arrest. And Crowley apparently
had his mike open, and a recording of the incident exists.
But if Obama's racial reflexes served him badly Wednesday night,
his political instincts served him well him on Friday. For he must
have sensed that this confrontation was shaping up as three
powerful black men coming down hard on a white cop with a stellar
record who had only done his conscientious duty.
Obama picked up the phone, called Crowley, regretted his choice of
words about him and the Cambridge P.D., walked into the press room
and told the nation Crowley was a "good guy," he himself had
misspoken, that he and the sergeant had talked about getting
together for a beer.
It was a goodly slice of humble pie the president ate there, but it
was a class act. To ask more would be churlish. As for Patrick and
Gates, they, too, should eat a little crow.
The president's decision to go before the White House press corps
also suggests Obama is acutely aware of the political peril here.
For while his black support is rock solid, his white support is
soft. And Americans will usually side with an Irish cop over a
Harvard don, especially when the professor is pulling rank and the
cop is right.
"This isn't about me," says Gates. Sorry, professor, it is about
you. You have shown the country why William F. Buckley won laughter
all over America when he wittily observed that, rather than be
governed by the Harvard faculty, he would prefer to be governed by
the first 300 names in the Cambridge telephone directory.
SOURCE: http://www.buchanan.org