Obama wades into arrest of black professor
Police who arrested black Harvard professor for breaking into own home were 'stupid', Barack Obama says
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By Adam Leveridge. |  |
Friday, 24, Jul 2009 10:35
Police who arrested a black Harvard professor for breaking into his own home this week were 'stupid', Barack Obama has said.
The president's comments have opened a fiery debate over race and police in the United States after he himself admitted he was not aware of all the facts.
Henry Louis Gates, a friend of the Obamas, was stopped by Cambridge, Massachusetts police when neighbours reported a robbery in progress after he and a driver forced his front door.
Although he reportedly presented the officer with his ID he was nevertheless arrested for "loud and tumultuous behaviour in a public space" and held in police custody for four hours before being dropped.
At a press conference this week President Obama made light of the incident after being asked what would have happened to him if he had been caught breaking into the White House.
"Here, I'd get shot," he said.
But he went on to say: "Now, I don't know, not having been there and not seeing all the facts, what role race played in that, but I think it's fair to say, number one, any of us would be pretty angry; number two, that the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home; and, number three, what I think we know, separate and apart from this incident, is that there is a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately.
"And that's just a fact."
The arresting officer in the Professor Gates case has refused to apologise, while his force has criticised the president's comments after launching a review of the arrest itself.
In a letter to Mr Obama from the president of the International Brotherhood of Police Officers, David Holway, the president was accused of 'alienating' police officers across the country.
"You not only used poor judgment in your choice of words, you indicted all members of the Cambridge police department and public safety officers across the country," he said.