Fox News reports:
President Obama stopped short of an apology to Sgt. James Crowley on Friday for saying he “acted stupidly” for arresting black Harvard scholar Henry Lewis Gates Jr., but said he should have chosen his words more carefully.
At an impromptu appearance at the daily White House briefing, Obama said he spoke with Crowley over the phone, and said he wanted to share a beer with Crowley and Gates at the White House.
“Because this has been ratcheting up and I helped contribute to ratcheting it up, I want to make clear that in my choice of words I unfortunately gave an impression that I was maligning the Cambridge Police Department or Sgt. Crowley specifically and I could have calibrated those words differently.”
“My sense is you’ve got two good people in a circumstance in which neither of them were able to resolve it the way the wanted to resolve it,” Obama added.
Earlier in the day Friday, the Cambridge and area police unions voiced their support for Crowley and called for an apology from Obama for his statement.
“His remarks were obviously misdirected but made it worse yet by suggesting somehow this case should remind us of a history of racial abuse by law enforcement,” Dennis O’Connor, president of the Cambridge Police Superior Officers Association, said at a news conference.
O’Connor also referred to statements made by Governor Deval Patrick — the state’s first black governor — who called the arrest “every black man’s nightmare.”
“Whatever may be the history, we deeply resent the implications and reject any suggestion that in this case or any other case that they’ve allowed a person’s race to direct their activities. However we hope they will reflect upon their past comments and apologize to the men and women of the Cambridge Police Department,” O’Connor said.
Obama has said he was surprised by the controversy sparked by his comments. White House spokesman Roberts Gibbs said early Friday that the president regrets that the media have gotten all worked up over the controversy and been distracted from other more substantive issues such as health care.
Obama’s remarks sparked outrage among many police officers who say the criticism could make it harder for police to work with people of color and set back the progress of race relations that helped Obama become the nation’s first black president.
Gates was arrested July 16 by Crowley, who was first to respond to the home the renowned black scholar rents from Harvard, after a woman reported seeing two black men trying to force open the front door. Gates said he had to shove the door open because it was jammed.
He was charged with disorderly conduct after police said he yelled at the white officer, accused him of racial bias and refused to calm down after Crowley demanded Gates show him identification to prove he lived in the home. The charge was dropped Tuesday, but Gates has demanded an apology, calling his arrest a case of racial profiling.
Obama was asked about Gates’ arrest at the end of a nationally televised news conference on health care Wednesday night and began his response by saying Gates was a friend and he didn’t have all the facts.
“But I think it’s fair to say, No. 1, any of us would be pretty angry,” Obama said. “No. 2, that the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home. And No. 3 — what I think we know separate and apart from this incident — is that there is a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately, and that’s just a fact.”
(Source: Fox News)
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10 Responses
Obama is a hypocrite, at first during the press conferance he said that he’s not familiar with all the facts and then he sais that they acted “stupidly”, he shouldn’t be critisizing before he as in his words finds out “the facts”. But he’s the Messiah so he can say what he wants and then get away with it. Imagine Bush trying to get away with it.
The reason that blacks are stopped disproportionatly,is that they commit crime
disproportionatly.I think that more white people
should commit crimes so that the proportion will
look better for the president.
I think the President acted ‘Stupidly’ when he ran his mouth.
I wonder when will they stop yelling racism?
What more do they want… Black President, Black Governors. Eventually they will over play the Race card … and when that happens it won’t look good for any minority group.
Wait till they release the recording of Crowley’s call to the station during the altercation. You’ll hear Gates cursing and screaming like a lunatic in the background.
Sgt. Crowley should refuse Obama’s offer to share a beer accordingly: “I am a career law enforcement officer. You will be in your job for another 7 1/2 years at the most. It may one day be my duty to arrest you, in which case I can’t allow your hospitality to taint my professional impartiality.”
America, you have a racist president.
He admits that he does not know the facts of the case but then chooses to judge negatively a decorated police man because he is white.
My dictionary defines that behavior as ‘prejudice’.
If a white president said such prejudice statements in 2009 I am sure the people of America would demand that he resign!
As for Gates, I assume he would prefer the police not to arrest a man breaking into his house if the
burglar is black. Good for the police force to know that for next time: it will save them the bother of responding to a neighbor’s phone call.
Gates might be a Harvard scholar, but he sure is an idiot. He should have thanked the police man for coming to protect his property, instead of shouting abuse at him!
Clearly the president is guilty of reverse racism as are most black community agittators (see Jesse & Al as examples). If I was the officer, I would politely tell the president to go take a flying leap.
Without the teleprompter, the true colors come out. So much for the media labeling him “a genius.” What can you expect from an Acorn trained radical.
Isn’t it funny how the ones with the biggest mouths yelling racism all the time are the ones that “made it” or were born with silver spoons in their mouths???
Perhaps a better explanation is that professors consider themselves to be members of the upper class, and expect policemen, who are by definition members of the working class, to be more deferential and respectful to their betters.
The policemen see it otherwise. This exemplifies how “class” rather than “race” is becoming the dominant divisor in American society. The event would have played out identially with a white academic and a black cop except that no one would have yelled racism.