Audio tapes from the Gates arrest ?

[democracy1st]

The president of the Cambridge Police Patrol Officer's Association says that President Obama's statement that officers "acted stupidly" when they arrested black scholar Henry Louis Gates was "disgraceful."

Stephen Killion told the Huffington Post that he was shocked when he heard the president make the remarks during Wednesday night's press conference.

"That was totally inappropriate. I am disgraced that he is our commander-in-chief. He smeared the good reputation of the hard-working men and women of the Cambridge Police Department. It was wrong to do. It was disgraceful."

Killion, whose union does not represent officer Sgt. James Crowley, says that Crowley is "a good sergeant." He added that Obama's comments today, in which the president said that cooler heads should have prevailed, were "back-pedaling, not a clarification."

Killion also claimed that audiotapes, now in the possession of the city solicitor's office, will show that Harvard Professor Gates "turned this non-incident into a racial incident." He said the audiotapes will prove Crowley's account of the incident and show that Gates "was provoking the incident. He wanted to prove who he was... He deems himself higher than everyone else around."

On the tapes, Killian claims, "you can clearly hear him berating the officer, creating a scene."


We'll see !

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/23/cambridge-police-union-pr_n_244048.html

[bigdarryl]

1. Then why hasn't they been released then

[MUAD_DIB]

2. If Killion's statement about Gates turns out to false then

he will be the one that appears "disgraceful." It will also end the careers of some Cambridge police officers and may open up the possibility of a lawsuit by Professor Gates.

If on the other hand the tapes do show that Gates "was provoking the incident" then it will just play into the hands of the real haters, racists, freepers and trolls, and not those who were just looking for to weigh ALL the facts before rushing to judgment.




On a separate note I like Professor Gates. I have never met him, but I thought his documentary Looking for Lincoln was very well put together, informative and enjoyable.