Elmer Smith: Police misconduct the crux of Gates incident

THIS WHOLE flap would have been easier for President Obama to duck than that shoe that whizzed by former President Bush's head last year.

He could have said, "I don't know enough about Professor Gates' arrest to comment at this time," or, "I have known Skip Gates for years and it would be impossible for me to offer an unbiased view."

Or, "Let's not shift focus from the important policy issue we are here to discuss."

Instead, he waded into troubled waters by linking Gates' arrest with "a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately."

"That's just a fact," Obama told America.

That's not news. But it struck a nerve. Most white Americans think blacks often cry racism just to excuse criminal behavior. They don't want to hear their president differ with them on that.

By reminding them of that "long history," he disturbed the peace for many Americans who had hoped that talk of racial discrimination would at least subside because we have elected a black as president.

Last week at the NAACP convention in New York, he sounded a similar theme: "Make no mistake about it," he said. "The pain of discrimination is still felt in America."

Yes it is, and it still is appropriate for the president to address it.

But the pain Gates felt had less to do with what he calls racial profiling than it does with an even more insidious form of police misconduct.

Gates' offense was failure to genuflect in the face of police authority. He refused to follow the script that black mothers give their sons as soon as we're old enough to leave the block.

We were told to say, "Yes, Sir" and "No, Sir," not make any sudden moves and, above all, to never raise your voice or show attitude, even when wronged.

If this had happened anywhere other than his home, Gates may have followed the script. But at home, he thought he had a right to talk back to a cop.

Police had responded to a call from a neighbor who thought two men were trying to burglarize Gates' house. It was a reasonable suspicion, Gates agrees, because he and his driver had tried to push their way into the front door when the lock jammed.

He was inside by the time police arrived. But Gates refused when police demanded that he step outside. Sgt. James Crowley followed him inside the house without his permission, Gates says.

Gates showed two forms of ID, which Crowley accepted. But he continued to question Gates. Tempers flared when Gates refused to answer him.

"I said, 'I want your name and your badge number,' " Gates told a reporter for The Root, a Web site he helped found. "I said it repeatedly."

Once was too many. When he followed Crowley out onto the porch, police locked him up.

Crowley and Gates agree that Gates accused Crowley of mistreating him because he is black.

Crowley's report said he believed Gates "was lawfully in the house." But he said he was "surprised and confused" by Gates' behavior.

Gates seemed just as surprised by Crowley's behavior. I don't know where he's been.

I saw a guy get slammed against a wall once for asking for a cop's badge number. They can get a little chafed when somone questions their authority.

But, despite our mothers' warnings, it's not a crime to question a cop's authority. No one should get busted just for arguing with a cop.

Cambridge police dropped the phony disorderly conduct charges after a squadron of Harvard lawyers showed up. The mayor even called to apologize.

But if he wasn't professor Henry Louis Gates, he would certainly have an arrest record and maybe a cracked jaw to go with it.

Having a black president will not solve that problem anytime soon.

"Given the demographics of Cambridge," Gates speculated in an interview this week, Crowley "probably voted for Obama . . . That wasn't much help for me." *

Send e-mail to smithel@phillynews.com or call 215-854-2512. For recent columns: http://go.philly.com/smith