From Beer Summit to Guilty On All Counts:

Can public awareness change the culture & practice of law enforcement?

©the author

Recall Barack Obama’s famous, or infamous, “Beer Summit,” which brought Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Cambridge, Mass Sergeant James Crowley to sit down like civilized men and discuss their differences over brews?

While the event is lionized today as an example of Obama’s ability to bring people together, it went over less well at the time. The President, in particular, drew steep criticism from law and order whites after he characterized the arrest of Gates as “stupid.” Over the years, many of my white conservative acquaintances have interpreted that as Obama calling all law enforcement stupid.

Contemporary news reports characterized Sgt. Crowley as believing police were due deference from the public. While their respective accounts vary, he clearly did not get deference from Gates. In particular, Gates refused to come out of the house. So Crowley arrested him for disorderly conduct. His report stated he was afraid that Gates was a burglar who might have had an armed accomplice in another part of the house, poised to pounce.

He told Gates, later, that he just wanted to go home to his wife and children that night, after which, he claimed, Gates’s eyes filled with…