Dr. Boyce: Sgt. James Crowley Comes Back in the Public Eye

Sgt. James Crowley of the Cambridge Police Department is now a hero among his peers. In light of his appearance before the Fraternal Order of Police this week, I thought that revisiting his impact on our society might be beneficial so that we can all get that "teachable moment" we were promised only a few weeks ago. As a professor, I hope that the powers that be will allow me to provide the instruction for the first class.

I am disturbed by the fact that Crowley's rise to power was driven, in part, by President Barack Obama and Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates. By talking about the right issue in the wrong way at the wrong time, our very intelligent president angered and mobilized tens of thousands of men and women who walk our streets with loaded guns on their hips. How comforting. The public backlash is also an inconvenient truth for the president to endure as he has the right wing going for his head over health care reform. Right wing pressure -- now that would be a good reason for a beer summit, since Republicans have done a good job of creating headaches for President Obama.

I literally saw the entire Gates-Crowley incident morph in front of my eyes, as Gates went from being a highly vocal accuser to quietly sitting on the sidelines, as quiet as a church mouse. The sudden silence was no coincidence, as I believe Gates saw that his media blitzkrieg against the officer was starting to backfire. The very same media he was trying to use to win his personal war was coming back to attack him with something that he failed to deliver in his allegation of racial profiling: Facts and evidence. The facts were that officer Crowley had a stellar record. Another fact was that he teaches classes on racial sensitivity. Crowley is a lot of things, but he is no Mark Furman, which reduces the credibility of anyone accusing him of racism. You can believe whatever you want and say that Crowley's record as an officer means nothing, but the truth is that you cannot completely ignore evidence just because it doesn't fall in line with preconceived notions of police abuse and misconduct. One thing I've learned in my lifelong fight for African Americans is that you must make sure you hit the target before you shoot the gun, and many of us in the black community fail to do that.

Even President Obama fell for the hype and bought into the Gates version of events instead of looking into the facts and the backgrounds of both parties. A strong conversation on a racially charged incident should not begin with "I don't know all the facts, but...." Nor should that conversation end with alleging that the second party "acted stupidly" when you aren't even sure what they acted stupidly about. As someone who has always wanted President Obama to talk about race, I was saddened to see us sacrifice millions in political capital in order to make Crowley into a hero. Let's not get it twisted: this was about one Harvard crony standing up for another. Had Pookie Jones been shot in the back during the president's press conference on health care, President Obama would have only been willing to discuss Pookie's need for affordable doctors.

But the Fraternal Order of Police needs to understand that missteps in analysis do not let the police off the hook. The more important issue in the Gates-Crowley case is not racial profiling (which certainly happens every day across America), but carefully reconsidering the limits of police power. Many white and black Americans who sent me e-mails during that tumultuous week made two important points: Gates had not committed a crime before Crowley's arrival, and he was arrested on his front porch. This, my friends, is a proven civil liberties issue, not a racial one. The decision to make the issue racial was driven by our national distrust of police, who have certainly earned that distrust by systematically abusing their authority. Rather than opening the door for intelligent discussion regarding how legislators can roll back police authority, we had our nation mulling over the details of a urination contest between two men who felt they had the right to dominate the interaction.

The FOP is going to continue to hold Crowley up as a hero. Many who had a gut feeling that this incident was related to race will keep their points of view. But the bottom line for me is this: If a police officer comes into my home and can arrest me for talking back to him, this undermines my liberties as an American. That is what should make us all nervous.

Dr. Boyce Watkins is a distinguished scholar with the Barbara Jordan Institute for Policy Research. To have Dr. Boyce's commentary delivered directly to your e-mail, please click here.