The arrest of professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. by Cambridge police officers even after police determined that he was the resident of the home and not a burglar has sent up a storm of discussion which all seems to be centering on race. Gates assumed the white cop thought he was a burglar because he was black, and he may or may not have been correct in that assumption.

The discussions of this as a racial issue miss a key point: being arrested for being in your own home is a serious abuse of authority by the officers involved. I know I would be very upset with police officers asking me to prove who I am in my own home, and I would expect them, once proof was shown, to apologize and get the hell out to work some actual crime somewhere.

This is on the same level as the Gwinnett County, Georgia cops who recently used their Taser as a toy on a restaurant employee. It should not be tolerated.

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 26th, 2009 at 2:39 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.