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Rifts remain between minorities and police officers
Disagreement between Crowley and Gates ignites lasting debate
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Published: August 5, 2009
Only Sgt. James Crowley knows what subjective motivations prompted him to arrest professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. for disorderly conduct on his front porch on July 16, 2009.
However, this incident highlights a broader institutional problem plaguing law-enforcement institutions -- an insular police culture imbued with unwavering group loyalty, lax internal discipline and poor external oversight.
These characteristics, combined with the unconstrained discretion officers enjoy in our society, create a volatile cocktail that is toxic for police-community relations.
Society necessarily entrusts police officers with a vast amount of discretion to effectively investigate crimes and make arrests. Lamentably, it took the arrest of a prominent scholar to ignite a debate about what many racial minorities have long recognized: some police officers abuse their discretion. Nevertheless, local police departments across the nation should seize this opportunity to end this "us versus them" mentality by engaging community members and police officers in an honest conversation about the impact that race, gender, class and power dynamics have on policing.
Following the incident, the "us versus them" divisions became clear. Predictably, Crowley's police union and comrades have rallied to his side, citing his past good deeds to buttress the argument that Gates' arrest could not have been racially motivated. Police unions nationwide chastised President Obama's off-handed critique of the incident before themselves having the benefit of an independent investigation. Equally predictable is the response of Gates' supporters and pundits who decried Gates' arrest as emblematic of the racial profiling and the indignities minorities have long suffered. Not surprisingly, African-Americans and Latinos remain extremely distrustful of police because they believe that they acutely and disproportionately experience these inappropriate uses of discretion. Statistical evidence supports the notion that this is more than a figment of their collective imagination. A 1996 study by the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics showed that although African-Americans and Latinos represented 20 percent of the U.S. population, they made up half of the documented cases of police brutality across the country.
If Crowley had a justifiable basis to arrest Gates for disorderly conduct (which is highly questionable, given the facts), his discretionary choice to arrest Gates illustrates how easily this power is abused. Crowley's initial inquiry that Gates identify himself was reasonable because Crowley could not have effectively investigated the report without determining that Gates indeed occupied the home. But once Gates produced his identification, Crowley's decision to arrest him is curious.
The majority of police officers display professionalism despite the imminent dangers they face daily. Crowley's arrest of Gates, who may have been visibly (and justifiably) angry, served no law-enforcement interest. Crowley certainly was aware that his discretionary choice to make an arrest would require a vast amount of public resources. As with any arrest, police officers transported the arrestee to the station, photographed and fingerprinted him, and generated a police report. A prosecutor then spent valuable time reviewing the arrest to decide whether to dismiss the charges. These tangible costs, however, pale in comparison to the intangible costs and damaged credibility of police officers in minority communities.
Reasonable people may disagree as to whether Crowley engaged in racial profiling. It is undeniable, however, that the arrest exposed a long-standing rift between racial minorities and police officers. Although the details of Gates and Crowley's symbolic meeting with Obama were not publicized, perhaps this meeting will spark desperately needed conversations between citizens and law-enforcement officers on a national scale.
Tackling this problem will require more than the beer Obama shared with the two men. The Obama administration should demonstrate a serious commitment that includes the necessary financial resources to ensure that local police departments regularly review their policies and practices. For example, the federal government should use its authority to seek injunctive relief against local police departments that engage in patterns or practices of constitutional violations. Several police departments, including the Los Angeles Police Department and the Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police Department, have been subject to this legislation, and therefore began important internal reforms to promote police accountability. This federal authority has been underutilized, but broader enforcement might encourage more local law-enforcement agencies to review their practices.
Perhaps most important, the Obama administration should ensure that municipalities provide meaningful opportunities for all citizens and the police officers serving their communities to work collaboratively to promote police integrity and accountability.
■ Kami Chavis Simmons is an associate professor at Wake Forest University School of Law.
The Journal welcomes original submissions for North Carolina Voices on local, regional and statewide topics. Essay length should not exceed 750 words. The writer should have some authority for writing about his or her subject. Our e-mail address is Letters@wsjournal.com. You may also mail a typed essay to Letters to the Journal, P.O. Box 3159, Winston-Salem, NC 27102. Please include your name and address and a daytime telephone number.
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