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Former cop's thoughtful assessment of Gates/Crowley
By david_yamada on Thu, 07/30/2009 - 4:59pm
Charles Hayes is an Alaska denizen, former Dallas police officer, and author of some very thoughtful books about adult learning and lifespan development. His commentary on the Gates-Crowley incident is perhaps the most insightful I've read. Hayes ultimately concludes that Crowley erred and Gates likely committed no crime, but he does so with a calm voice. You don't have to agree with his conclusion to draw understanding from his observations. Here are some snippets, but the short essay is worth reading in its entirety:
As an ex-police officer, I have a unique perspective about the subject of police authority and racism, especially after having distanced myself from the profession with an aggressive thirty-year history of studying the antics of human behavior. One of the things that psychology has made clear about primates and humans is that males in positions of power experience a rise in testosterone.
For a teachable moment to occur out of the recent incident with a Cambridge police sergeant and a distinguished university professor it would be necessary to reenact the incident, to do a play-by-play enactment of everything said, of every gesture made, and of the voice inflection and tone of everyone involved, and then to read the laws covering this situation very carefully.
For the full essay:
http://www.septemberuniversity.org/newscomment.html
If you like his approach, check out the rest of his website and consider ordering one of his books. (The Rapture of Maturity is my favorite.)
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Comments
he also WASN'T THERE
Charles Hayes is an Alaska denizen, former Dallas police officer, and author of some very thoughtful books about adult learning and lifespan development
Does he also have a magical crystal ball?
The only thing this case proves is that officers need to have video recorders on them and in their cruisers.
Not that I don't agree with him but....
a white police officer from 1960s Texas? A lot of white guilt there Im sure. People just don't think like this man anymore.
And how come Crowley never had more arrests like this? Surely hes dealt with hundreds of racial calls like this before right? Does he do this kind of stuff often? Do the Cambridge police? Does the TX officer know about how charges are dropped in MA?
I mean, TX does things a lot fucking differently than here in MA, and I leave the profanity in there for effect. And Im not talking about 1960 Texas either, Im talking about 2009 Texas.
Pete, look at Barrett's e-mail...
Uh, Pete, did you read the full text of officer Barrett's lovely e-mail to Yvonne Abraham? Greater Boston c.2009 isn't Dallas c.1960, but we're hardly free of virulent bias.
I'm in no way suggesting that sgt. Crowley is like officer Barrett; there's absolutely nothing to support that. But what I respect about Hayes is that he understands the nuance in all of this. Power, race, saving face, etc., may be all part of the mix. And Hayes understands that the only way we could make this an ideal teachable moment would be to have the parties replay the incident in exact detail.
You complain in another response about the 1000s of people who have an opinion on this, but what's wrong with that? And if someone who understands the psychological processes that influence police behavior weighs in on this, informed by personal experience, what's wrong with that? Is it because Hayes isn't from Boston? Is someone from another part of the country who served as a cop and reflected thoughtfully on the experience somehow less qualified to say something than, say, a Boston area resident who doesn't have experience working as a cop?
I find it odd that people here and elsewhere who claim be weary of all the opinions being expressed nevertheless continue to chime in. When I feel like I'm on info or opinion overload, I simply tune out.
Simple answer
It's not your dirty laundry. Of course you don't care if people talk about it.
Some people want all police business to be secret, no public airing, no discussion permitted. That's because they are fascists at heart.
It's fairly natural for people to cling to prerogatives, whether legitimately or illegitimately gained. At this point in this country, abusive overreach by police is widespread. Of course they don't want to give it up. It's just human nature. So they come up with the justification that it would be a danger to them if they couldn't, or other malarkey. Because they don't want anybody taking anything away from them, especially when it comes to power.
It takes an abuse like this happening to a famous fellow like Gates to put it on the front page. Unfortunately, so many people are so distracted by the he said she said about racism to see the undeniable and larger issue of police abuse of authority. The fact that the police union can stand by an obviously bogus arrest indicates a sickness that infects the whole body.
And sicknesses have their defense mechanisms. So stop talking about it.
6 degrees top dead center
good point re dirty laundry
It strikes me that unwillingness to air dirty laundry in public -- indeed the frequent use of the term itself -- while not unique to Greater Boston, is much a part of the regional culture.
It's fine for "outsiders" to praise an institution and its denizens (indeed, when it comes to certain institutions & individuals, we're EXPECTED to bow and scrape), but once something bad happens, up go the barriers, down comes the Cone of Silence, and shame on anyone who dares question or criticize.
Of course, we should remind ourselves that police departments are PUBLIC institutions, paid for by our tax dollars like our schools, transit authority, and whatnot, which means that we have a direct stake in this as well.
no
Some people want all police business to be secret, no public airing, no discussion permitted. That's because they are fascists at heart.
Im a facist though so who cares what I think. Maybe you are right about Boston though and the police state. Maybe Ill move it up on my list of the most fascist places to live historically.
1. Warsaw, Poland (1941)
2. Moscow, Russia (1935)
3. Berlin, Germany (1938)
4. Boston, MA (2009)
5. Pyongyang, North Korea (2009)
Sock Puppet if you need extra supplies for you basement or an extra gun from the police invastion, give me a shout.
police state vs. police culture
If we can't agree that the blue wall of silence is a disturbing phenomenon while not being as threatening and oppressive as fascist dictatorships of the 1930s and 1940s, there's really no room for meaningful discussion.
you are right david...
but the word fascist was thrown out there....
Now, now, petey
I didn't say you thought that. I said some people. I'm sure you don't think that. But it is kinda funny to watch your knee jerk.
Barrett
Although I would never defend Barrett and think he should be fired, I just assume (maybe unfairly) that the Dallas cop might have been the type who at one point felt blacks shouldn't even mix with whites anywhere. Thats why I think Hayes opinion is slanted either way. And I say that because I know hundreds of cops in the northeastern US and they simply don't think that way or act that way. I know guys like Barrett. But guys like Barrett aren't not going to avoid black people like someone in 1960s Dallas would. But maybe you are right. Ill take a white Dallas 1960s police officers opinion for what its worth. But my experiences would lead me to believe otherwise.
segregationists are easier to deal with, in some ways
Actually, I've always felt that the in-your-face segregationists and bigots are easier to deal with than the stealthier ones. Having personally dealt with both in-your-face racism and more insidious forms of racial exclusion, I'll take the former, as at least you don't have to spend time figuring out what's going on.
Many African Americans who have lived in both the south and north have remarked that northern racists are worse, because they hide it better.
I certainly see that in Boston, bias and exclusion are often more subtle and insidious, gnarled in the insecurity, insularity, and parochialism that define so many of its long-time institutions and neighborhoods.
As for Charles Hayes, you seem to be filling in the blanks about his life and character the way that we're all doing so with Gates and Crowley, on even less information. When you say his "opinion is slanted either way," you're basically suggesting that nothing he says can rescue his credibility.
Hey, we're all slanted in many ways. That's his point. No one is free of bias or prejudice of some sort; we wouldn't be human if we were. It doesn't make everyone a "racist" or "sexist" -- though Officer Barrett seems to meet both tests quite easily.
They are easier to deal with...
but isn't that like saying butterflies are easier to deal with and get rid of in your house than termites are?
And as I said about Hayes, it was unfair for me to define the mans character and history from one article.
But we kind of do know Crowley's history now, and it doesn't seem to add up to the character that Hayes wants to make Crowley out to be...
We still don't know
We still don't know if Crowley was testilying when he documented a conversation he had with Lucia Whalen in his incident report. He claims she said "two black men with backpacks"; She claims she said not such thing.
Im still trying to figure out how that matters..
I mean, it would have helped Crowleys case if he had said two men of unknown race were seen breaking into the house. Then, by seeing a black man inside, he would have more of a reason to suspect the man was breaking in. But Crowley says in the report that he suspected that the man inside lived there, so by saying black men were seen breaking in, and then seeing a black man inside but deciding that he lived there, it wouldn't add up would it?
So if he lied here, the lie would hurt his credibility more than it would help it.
It always matters when an
It always matters when an officer of the law stacks the deck against a suspect.
If he swore to the truth of the report in the court of law, he would be perjuring himself, a criminal violation subject to penalty and incarceration.
Officers breach the trust between themselves and the community when they lie on their official incident report. Ask yourself, how many people have been wrongly convicted becuase of dishonest incident reports of planted evidence? I know you would agree more than zero is too many.
yea Im not saying lying doesnt matter.
Im just trying to figure out his motive for lying about that part of the report. Saying that the caller told him 2 black men with backpacks were seen breaking into a house doesn't really help his case.
But it helps if you can figure out what the motivation for lying is.
That also doesn't mean that he is lying under oath or that he would lie if asked about this in court. If he was asked about this section in court and he changed his answer to what the truth really was, it doesn't mean he lied. He could have been mistaken, or maybe the 911 caller did say something to the effect of what she though, or maybe Crowley though the 911 caller was someone else etc..
And Im not saying dishonest incident reports or planted evidence doesn't happen. But more cops care about losing their jobs than they do about convicting criminals trust me.
But my point was that if he really wanted to be dishonest, why not make up the fact that he didnt realize Gates probably lived there in the first place? Or make up that it was two white guys who were breaking in?
More than zero is too many.
More than zero is too many. Of wrongfully convicted Massachusetts defendants, however, the vast majority of them went to prison because victims and witnesses were mistaken in their identifications -- not because of planted evidence or lying cops. As I understand it from the Innocence Project, this is the trend nationally as well as locally.
I don't say this to dispute the point above (we've moved to vacate past convictions for a wide variety of reasons, including allegations of police misconduct and the failure of prosecutors to share exculpatory evidence, even when there was a likelihood of guilt), only to put it in its proper context.
Does Commissioner Hass' have
Does Commissioner Hass' have an interest or a responsibility to investigate the conflicting witness testimony between Sargent Crowley's incident report and Lucia Whalen?
And I thought there had been
And I thought there had been enough said on this topic.
No...
Retired 1960 Texas Police officers have something to add too....
You're not obliged to say
You're not obliged to say anything more ...or are you saying you wish other people would stop considering it?
Its just that 1000 people have an opinion on it now..
Black people defending the police, working class whites defending Gates....
It goes on and on....