Barack Obama has waded into the race row over the arrest of a black Harvard University professor.
During a prime-time television address, he said police ‘acted stupidly’ when a white officer handcuffed Henry Louis Gates, 58, in his own home after neighbours reported a break-in there.
‘There’s a long history of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately.
‘That’s just a fact,’ said the President, who said he considered Professor Gates a friend.
He added there was ‘already proof’ that the scholar, who walks with a cane, was in his own home after climbing in through a window-because the front door was stuck. Later, defending his comments, the President added: ‘It was a pretty straightforward commentary that you probably don’t need to handcuff a guy, a middle-aged man who uses a cane, who’s in his own home.
Not sorry: Cambridge Police Sgt James Crowley listens to questions from members of the media at his home in Natick, Massachusetts as the row surrounding the arrest of Henry Louis Gates, Jr deepened
‘Cooler heads should have prevailed. That’s my suspicion.’
Police were called when neighbours reported seeing two black men breaking into the house in the Massachusetts town.
The arresting officer, Sergeant Jim Crowley, yesterday insisted he would not apologise, despite the President’s intervention.
‘I’m not a monster or the bigot or racist that he’s portrayed me to be,’ he said. He claimed Professor Gates became angry and abusive when asked for identification.
The sergeant arrested him for disorderly conduct but the charge has since been dropped.
Racism row: Henry Louis Gates Jr. is arrested at his home after he tried to force open the locked front door of his home near Harvard University
In a letter to Mr Obama, he sought an apology. ‘You not only used poor judgement in your choice of words, you indicted all members of the Cambridge police department and public safety officers across the country.’
But Mr Obama stood by his views last night, telling ABC News he was ‘surprised’ by the controversy surrounding his remark.
‘I think it was a pretty straightforward commentary that you probably don’t need to handcuff a guy, a middle-aged man who uses a cane, who’s in his own home
‘I think that I have extraordinary respect for the difficulties of the job that police officers do and my suspicion is that words were exchanged between the police officer and Mr. Gates and that everybody should have just settled down and cooler heads should have prevailed. That’s my suspicion.’
Online polls in Massachusetts show strong support for the white arresting officer and a police union and his department’s chief also came out strongly in his defence.
Cambridge Police Department Commissioner Robert Haas told a news conference: ‘Based on what I have seen and heard from the other officers, he maintained a professional decorum during the course of the entire situation.’
Mr Obama’s comment stunned his policemen, Haas said, adding he is forming a panel to review the arrest.
‘They were very much deflated,’ he said. ‘It deeply hurts the pride of this agency.’
‘He should steer clear of it if he doesn’t know all the facts,’ said Patricia Lynch, 49, a consultant and graduate of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.
‘For any specific case, you have to go only by the facts of that particular case.’
Police were called to Gates’ after a woman reported seeing a man ‘wedging his shoulder into the front door as to pry the door open’.
During the incident, an officer ordered the man to identify himself, and Gates refused, according to the police report.
Gates began calling the Cambridge, Massachusetts, police officer a racist and said repeatedly, ‘This is what happens to black men in America.’
Officers said they tried to calm down the 58-year-old academic, who responded, ‘You don’t know who you’re messing with,’ according to the police report.
Obama acknowledged he did not know all the facts about the arrest but left little doubt he felt Gates had been wronged in the incident, which has created a media furor.
‘I don’t know – not having been there and not seeing all the facts – what role race played in that, but I think it’s fair to say, number one, any of us would be pretty angry.
‘Number two, that the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home.’
While stressing that his own election last November was a testament to progress in race relations, Obama pointed out there was a ‘long history’ in the United States of blacks and Hispanics being singled out disproportionately by police.
‘That’s just a fact,’ he said.
He said Gates’ arrest was a reminder that the race issue ‘still haunts us’. – and that if he ever tried to ‘jimmy the lock’ at the White House: ‘I’d get shot’.
Gates 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.
He 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. Time magazine named him one of the 25 most influential Americans in 1997.
Gates 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 and arraignment was scheduled for Aug. 26.
Many of Gates’ African-American colleagues believe his arrest is part of a pattern of racial profiling in Cambridge, said Allen Counter, who has taught neuroscience at Harvard for 25 years.
Counter has 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.’
Counter said he spoke to Gates, who told him police continued to question him after he showed them his license and Harvard identification.
‘They did not believe him when he said that he was in his own home,’ Counter said.
‘He was totally mistreated in this incident.’
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