CNN Interview With Other Officer In Gates Arrest Photo

[tomm2thumbs]

Run time: 04:22 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxM8cwosjew   Posted on YouTube: July 25, 2009 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: July 25, 2009 By DU Member: tomm2thumbs Views on DU: 3002

 

Anderson Cooper speaks with eyewitness officer Sgt. Leon Lashley talks about his impressions of what happened at the Gates arrest location. He supports the President's comments, seems to me to indicate that the first suggestion of arrest was made inside the home as he overheard some of the conversation/yelling, although the actual arrest took place outside the home as things escalated (on the porch).

He ends by saying that Crowley acted within his authority arresting Professor Gates as 'it was getting out of control after he came outside' and he thought it would have gone different had he been there first as a 'black man to black man' in that situation.

** Posting text for those with hearing impairment so please forgive me not including everything. If I were to give commentary it would be that the officer seemed most comfortable speaking that the situation seemed to being close to getting resolved now and least comfortable with the other questions. (Those are my opinions on that so please don't attack me for saying it is part of the video!!!!) **

[BlueIdaho]

1. Just a question

Is this becoming our own birther moment?

[DefenseLawyer]

3. You mean our being outraged about something crazy that has no basis in fact?

Like racial profiling and disparate treatment of African Americans in the criminal justice system? Uh, no.

[BlueIdaho]

4. No

I mean the inability to move on after all the principal players have decided to sit down together, have a beer, and talk this over - to try to find some sort of consensus and perhaps a larger truth.

Is there, as the president said, a teachable moment here for all of us - oh hell yes. I just wonder how many more days, weeks, or months to find satisfaction that this particular incident has out lived its usefulness in the larger dialogue about race in America. That is - when it becomes counterproductive.

Its just a question - please do carry on.

[Drunken Irishman]

5. The difference...

This is rooted in fact and is only an issue because people want to undercut the validity of Pres. Obama's and Gate's claim.

The birthers have no validity whatsoever.

[Cha]

40. Thanks for explaining the difference,

DI.

[ShamelessHussy]

6. fighting back against police abuse is an important struggle and should never be 'moved on' from

the teachable moment is that this is an all too common experience for people of color dealing with the police and I for one am very glad that it has risen to national prominence and salute Obama for speaking up on this important issue.

[L. Coyote]

15. Some people are only just now checking out this story, for obvious reasons.

Like those of us who boycott the mindless media and have little time for the intelligent media.

Life really is much better if you are well-enough tuned out to not know what this was all about until today!! :rofl:

[ejbr]

2. I can work with that. n/t

[ro1942]

7. black brown & broke

you have way the worst of it and everybody knows it

[theFrankFactor]

11. Can You Imagin if "White Folk" Were Brown for a Week!

White guilt? Well why the fuck not? You strive create an underclass that gets executed if they "get any learnin'" and create a genetic "product" that's of "hardy stock", beat the shit out of them, forbid the slightest growth and participation in society... talk about having "issues". And then you agree on paper that maybe ya need to stop that shit. Then for the next 100 years... ya don't. That brings you to 1964... hmmm, and STILL we have Plantation owner wannabe's runnin' around with guns.

I know, it wasn't you and it wasn't me. Fair enough. But only the ignorant think "it's all over now."

[Stellar]

8. This cop - is damned if he does and damned if he doesn't.

Was he protecting his job by seemingly to agree with what the arresting officer said and did?

He claims had he arrived *FIRST*, this would have ended differently. Why couldn't the arresting officer have handle it accordingly?

But this cop doesn't know what was said inside of Prof. Gates house before he got there, and he could hear loud talking coming from inside once he arrived. So I guess Prof Gates decided to protest more outside of *HIS* house so they put him in handcuffs (without his cane).

At what point did the professor show his ID? Was it inside of his house or outside of the house? There's a whole lot left out in this interview that wasn't explained. I think he was protecting his job and not rat out the arresting officer. Wasn't there any innocent bystanders they could have interviewed?

[wackywaggin]

9. Confirmation from other officer

of what I suspected was going on, but everyone is afraid to state. There was a racist on the scene but it was not Crowley, it is Gates.The other cop heard Gates yelling about a "white woman calling in a report"!

:smoke:

[Stellar]

10. That's what makes him a racist

because he said it was a 'white' woman that called the police? Mentioning the color at all it's because that person is racist? Just like the lady that drowned her three children a few years ago and blamed it on a 'black' man when in fact she did it herself. She used the color of the man knowing that people would believe that. If you knew your history, you would know that more black people have been killed because of what a white person has said. It is said that most racist can identify with reverse racism but not racism itself.

But anyway, what did the other cop do but stand with the other cop to save his job. There is no way he would have had this job after coming down on a fellow police officer. That is a no-no. Anybody that knows police officers know this.

[Stellar]

12. Gates-gate: What's the Law Say?

David E. Frank, a former prosecutor who is now a reporter for Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly, says that the charge against Gates was unlikely to hold up under the Massachusetts disorderly conduct statute.

Commonwealth v. Richards, 369 Mass. 443, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts held that the First Amendment prevents application of the disorderly conduct law to language and expressive conduct, even when it is offensive and abusive. The one exception would be language that falls outside the protection of the First Amendment, "fighting words which by their very utterance tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace."

But even if one were to assume the accuracy of the police version -- that Gates called the officer a racist and warned him that he had no idea who he was dealing with -- there is no basis for prosecution, Frank concludes.

While the report refers to Gates" conduct as "loud and tumultuous," there does not appear to be anything there that would allow for a conclusion that they were "fighting words."

The SJC has also said that for a defendant in Gates" situation to be found guilty, his actions must have been reasonably likely to affect the public in a place to which the public had access. Where much, if not all, of the alleged conduct occurred on Gates" property, it appears that legal requirement would prove fatal to the DA"s case.

http://legalblogwatch.typepad.com/legal_blog_watch/2009/07/gates-gate-whats-the-law-say.html

[TankLV]

25. sure it is...!!!

couldn't WAIT to pounce on this BULLSHIT by the PIG, right?

[RBInMaine]

16. What did Gates have to "protest"? The cops investigating a reported burglary? Gates was overly

defensive. Maybe they didn't need to arrest him, but he was NO angel here. Seems like he was the one who needlessly inflamed this thing, not the cop. The cop, it seems, was just doing the job he was paid to do. Maybe in the end didn't need to go so far as arresting the guy, but no racial motive, and Gates as a Harvard Professor was no angel here at all. Maybe a good person, but too racially oriented and too defensive.

[noiretextatique]

29. so he is paid to harass black people?

at least you are honest enough to admit it :toast:

[Stellar]

41. *Deleted*

Posted to wrong poster

[PinkyisBlue]

21. Yes, this cop sounds like he's not on Crowley's side 100%.

He works with Crowley and probably likes the guy, so he has to support him to some degree. But he sounds like he also understands what the professor was up against.

As an aside, I heard this Officer Crowley interviewed on tv a couple of days ago, and he stated he supports the President but he didn't vote for him. My assessment of a person's judgment is definitely altered when he or she admits to having voted for McCain/Palin.

[eShirl]

24. but you don't know whether he voted for McCain/Palin

Only that he didn't vote for Obama

Maybe he voted for Ron Paul, or didn't even vote.

[PinkyisBlue]

28. I thought about those two options.

If he didn't vote at all, it doesn't speak well for him.

And he may have voted for Ron Paul, which (in my view) puts him above a McCain/Palin voter. But because the vast majority of people who voted in the last election voted for either Obama or McCain, I believe it is most likely he voted for McCain/Palin. And I question the judgment of anyone who voted for that ticket.

[L. Coyote]

13. Obviously, Sergeant Crowley acted stupidly!

[Butch350]

18. But obviously, you were not there.

[JustJon]

14. Not that racial profiling isn't a topic worth discussing, but...

I think the issue would've played better if Obama toned down the race angle in his own comments. Because what makes the arrest so silly is that the guy was in his own home doing nothing illegal, and he basically got busted because he didn't get submissive enough when prompted to provide evidence he wasn't up to no good.

Forget that what got the cops sicced on him in the first place was that he was a suspicious looking black dude. Imagine if what got the cops sicced on him in the first place was if he were a suspicious looking white guy possessing a gun. If the cops understandably got called to check out an armed guy and they arrested him even after he proved he had a valid license (even if he took his sweet time providing the evidence), a whole different chunk of society would be outraged over this invasion of privacy where a man got arrested in his own home for, as it turns out, not really breaking the law in the first place.

In my opinion, his focus should've been more about the invasion of privacy and the ridiculous act of arresting people for how they conduct themselves in their own home. That's something everybody should be able to agree with him on. Instead, it got turned into the big racial thing.

Reminds me of an episode of "The West Wing" where somebody wanted the President to make an ill-advised statement about some issue, and the President said something along the lines of: "I shouldn't open my mouth on this right now. I'm a human starting pistol."

Obviously it's a conversation worth having, but he could have sparked the conversation in a better way. Obama could have side-stepped the racial angle, instead playing up the broader point about police invading an innocent man's privacy. And as the press filled in the rest of the Gates story in their post-game coverage, everybody would have gotten the racial profiling message anyway without any of the controversy ever sniffing Obama for something he didn't come out and say himself (even if he essentially prompted the media to say it for him).

[Tx4obama]

17. Outside

Mr. Gates was arrested for ranting and raving loudly OUTSIDE of his house in PUBLIC. If Gates had not followed Crowley outside at the end and stood on his porch hollering for everyone in the neighborhood to hear then they would not have arrested him.

[Hutzpa]

20. He was standing on his porch

porch is still considered your house.... no!....:shrug:

[Tx4obama]

22. Outside is different than inside.

If you are outside 'even if it is on your porch' then the law is different than if you are inside your house.
There are many things that are against the law for a person to do on their front porch IN PUBLIC: You can not stand on your porch naked in the view of other people, you can not have sex on your porch in the public view, you can not wave around your gun and point it at people while standing on your front porch, and you can not rant and rave and cause a disturbance.

[noiretextatique]

32. why were the charges dropped?

and why did a MA prosecutor say a conviction would be unlikely? bullshit bogus arrest is why.

[noiretextatique]

30. um, that's not illegal

a MA prosecutor said it would be unlikely that gates could have been convicted on a public disorderly charge. and of course, the charges were dropped. and of course, the cop lured him outside for the bogus arrest.

[Hutzpa]

19. These guys have no idea

that interview is so incriminating it's unbelievable, now the photo makes sense he was
actually handcuffed inside his own house instead of on the street. Officer Lashley could
not answer whether standing on his porch is considered public place if not why did officer
Crowley arrested Prof Gates for lipping..... hmmmm.....

Those police union better back off if they don't want Prof Gates to own them.

[Tx4obama]

23. That photo

That photo was not when Mr. Gates was originally handcuffed or when he first came outside.
When Mr. Gates first came outside he was not yet under arrest and was not handcuffed.
Also, originally he was handcuffed behind his back.
Then another officer handcuffed him in front.
Then they went inside the house to retrieve Mr. Gates walking cane.
So, unless there is a video of the whole event you can not judge what happened or tell the true story of that photo.

[awnobles]

26. The Cops

Are trained to de-escalate the situation, not bait them to come outside of their house enabling an arrest. The cops did behave stupidly and contrary to common sense and training. He was simply arrested for pissing off a cop, not illegal.

[Tx4obama]

27. Wrong

In the end Sgt. Crowley was leaving and Mr. Gates followed him outside still hollering at Crowley.
When Gates then was on the front porch LOUDLY ranting and raving IN PUBLIC in front of the other officers and neighbors that is when he was arrested for Disorderly Conduct.

[noiretextatique]

31. um, that't not illegal

and crowley lured him outside so he could make the bogus arrest. the charges were dropped because it was a bogus arrest.

[Tx4obama]

35. charges were dropped because

because on TV they said that they dropped the charges because the city didn't want to go through the expense of a trial.

[noiretextatique]

37. right...a trial they would lose

there was already enough taxpayers' money wasted with the arrest. add to that a possible civil suit. good they had the sense to fold in a no-win situation.

[W T F]

33. Did everyone miss what he said?

He said that he heard Mr.Gates inside the house yelling about being arrested "because a white woman calls the police" and then he claimed the he was arested when he stepped outside.

Sounds like he just contradicted himself. Was Gates arested inside or outside?

[Tx4obama]

34. We don't have a full timeline

We don't have a full timeline of how many times Mr. Gates went in and out of the house so it's a bit fuzzy right now.

The cops did say though that it was 'after' Gates came outside and was hollering that he was put under arrest.

They did go back in at least one time after that to get his cane.

[Tx4obama]

36. Once the radio transmission tapes are released

I'll betcha that we will be hearing an apology from Mr. Gates to Sgt. Crowley and the police force.

[kevsters]

38. Watch Mika Brzezinski make one of the more ignorant and racist statments I have heard in a while

On Morning Joe yesterday, Mika Brzezinski made one of the more ignorant and racist statements I have heard in the mainstream media in quite sometime.

Here is the clip.

http://progressnotcongress.org/?p=2288

[tblue37]

39. Thanks for the summary. I recommended you for it! nt

[tomm2thumbs]

42. thanks for making a note about it in another video - i would not have known otherwise

it also helps others who want to decide what the clip is about before going further with their time so it is a win-win to add some kind of description, even if it suggests a bias one way or the other to how the viewer might see the clip. Will try to do it in the future, even if just a quick summary. Thanks for the idea.