Gates, Police Officer Share Beers, Histories With President

By Cheryl W. Thompson, Krissah Thompson and Michael A. Fletcher
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, July 31, 2009

Two weeks after a noted black scholar accused a white police sergeant of racial profiling for arresting him at his home near Harvard University, the men hoisted mugs of beer Thursday evening at the White House with President Obama and Vice President Biden.

Henry Louis "Skip" Gates Jr. and Sgt. James Crowley of the Cambridge, Mass., police sat at a round table in the Rose Garden with Biden and Obama talking, sipping beer and munching peanuts and pretzels out of silver bowls. News cameras and reporters were kept 50 feet away and allowed to view the meeting for less than a minute before being shooed away as the men began their conversation.

It was an extraordinary scene that Obama's aides hoped would convey a hopeful message about race relations and end a controversy that has ballooned into a major distraction for a president pushing an ambitious agenda.

After the meeting, Crowley and a lawyer speaking for Gates said the two men were satisfied with the tone of the discussion. Speaking to reporters at a brief news conference, Crowley said that while there was "no tension" at the meeting, no apologies were offered either. "Two gentlemen agreed to disagree on a particular issue," he said.

Gates left without speaking to reporters, but his lawyer offered an upbeat assessment of the gathering. "Everybody left with the sense that we learned some things and we can make important changes," said Charles Ogletree, Gates's attorney and a professor at Harvard Law School. "It was a chance to make sure we hear the law enforcement and the community, and out of that will come more acceptance and realizing the differences are not that far apart."

Crowley said he and Gates agreed to be in touch by telephone and to meet again in the future.

"I am thankful to Professor Gates and Sergeant Crowley for joining me at the White House this evening for a friendly, thoughtful conversation," Obama said in a statement.

Before the meeting, the president said he had invited the men to the White House in an effort to lower the temperature on an incident that has become "so hyped and so symbolic."

Obama characterized the meeting as "having a drink at the end of the day and hopefully giving people an opportunity to listen to each other," Obama said. "That's really all it is."

But, aides acknowledged, the White House also saw it as an opportunity to quell a controversy that was beginning to eclipse coverage of important initiatives, including Obama's proposal to restructure the nation's health-care system.

The incident began to dominate news coverage after Obama accused police in Cambridge of "acting stupidly" when he was asked about the arrest of his friend Gates at a prime-time news conference July 22. Obama's comment catapulted the episode into a national controversy and cast the nation's first African American president in the uncomfortable role of taking sides in a racially tinged incident about which he acknowledged he did not know all the facts.

Obama's remarks prompted police union officials in Cambridge to call for an apology from the president, while civil rights leaders applauded him for addressing a problem that has touched the lives of many African Americans.

After initially dismissing the clamor over his remarks, Obama came before reporters less than 48 hours later to "recalibrate" his statement and make clear that he thought that both Crowley and Gates had "overreacted" during their confrontation.

Apparently, however, the president had already suffered some political damage. A new poll by the Pew Research Center found that 41 percent of Americans disapprove of the president's comments, compared with 29 percent who approve.

Gates, 58, was arrested in his Cambridge home on July 16 after Crowley responded to a 911 call about a possible burglary there. Gates had just returned from a trip to China and had trouble getting in his front door, and he and the Moroccan driver who retrieved him from the airport jimmied the lock and forced open the door. A woman who saw the men called police to report a possible break-in.

When Crowley arrived, he questioned whether Gates lived in the home and demanded identification. Gates became upset and the two got into a verbal altercation that ended with Gates's arrest on disorderly conduct charges. The charges were later dropped.

Thursday evening, the two men were in suit coats enjoying a beer with Obama and Biden, who were both in shirt sleeves as they sat in the Rose Garden. The men were served beer in glass mugs by White House butlers: Sam Adams Light for Gates and Blue Moon for Crowley, Bud Light for the president and Buckler for Biden.

Before the meeting, the men spent time getting to know each other and were accompanied by their families for a joint tour of the White House. As they talked, the two men focused on their families and their histories in Cambridge, Ogletree said. "It was forward-looking, not focused on the past," Ogletree said. "They were just trying to find some common ground. It was a very warm, frank and quite open discussion."

As Gates and Crowley met with Obama, Ogletree met with Alan McDonald, the lawyer for the police unions in Massachusetts, and other law enforcement representatives from Cambridge to talk about how both camps can work together.

The incident not only forced the issue of race and law enforcement into the national spotlight, but it also prompted police departments around the country to take a closer look at their training protocols.

"I will go over our racial profiling orders just to make sure we're doing everything according to the rules and regulations," said Atlanta Police Chief Richard Pennington. "It doesn't mean that anything's wrong with our rules, but this is a good time to go back and make sure officers are . . . affording people their civil rights."

John Foust, director of academic training for the D.C. police, said the Cambridge incident made the agency reassess its curriculum.

"It made us take a second look to make sure we have the important topics covered," Foust said.

The D.C. police department requires recruits to take courses in diversity and racial profiling, as well as hate and bias crimes.

Maj. Huey Thornton of the Montgomery, Ala., police said the Gates-Crowley incident is being discussed among officers and in staff meetings.

"I don't think any department would like to find themselves in a situation like that," Thornton said. "It shows the scope of what you're subject to get involved in while responding to calls for service. And whatever training you've received, it's what you should always rely on. That's the teachable moment."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/30/AR2009073003563.html

Obama Voices Regret to Policeman

By Michael A. Fletcher and Michael D. Shear
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, July 25, 2009

President Obama, attempting to quell a mushrooming racial controversy that threatened to eclipse his top domestic initiative, expressed regret Friday for saying that police "acted stupidly" by arresting black scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. at his home near Harvard University.

Making a surprise appearance before reporters at the White House, Obama said that he had unwittingly fanned smoldering racial resentment with his response to a question at a news conference Wednesday night. The president said he conveyed that sentiment in a five-minute telephone call to Sgt. James Crowley, the police officer who arrested Gates after being called to the Harvard professor's home to check out a suspected burglary.

"I want to make clear that in my choice of words I think I unfortunately gave an impression that I was maligning the Cambridge Police Department or Sergeant Crowley specifically -- and I could have calibrated those words differently," Obama said. "And I told this to Sergeant Crowley."

The Wednesday comment had become politically costly for the nation's first African American president, who has sought to cast himself as a clear-eyed arbiter of the nation's racial divisions.

That image was challenged once before, in a controversy surrounding another Obama friend. When the racially charged sermons of the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. became a lightning rod, candidate Obama gave a rare speech that directly addressed the country's racial wounds, and he cast aside Wright, someone he had once called a father figure.

This week, as a growing clamor from conservative critics and police representatives painted Obama as siding with his friend Gates in a battle with the police in Cambridge, Mass., Obama moved swiftly to remove himself as a combatant.

The president said he continues to think the arrest was an "overreaction" by the officer, but he said Gates "probably overreacted as well."

"My sense is you've got two good people in a circumstance in which neither of them were able to resolve the incident in the way that it should have been resolved," Obama said, adding that he hoped the controversy would become a "teachable moment" for improving racial understanding.

Though he tried to remove the bite from his earlier statement, Obama described an uneasy relationship between African Americans and law enforcement.

"Because of our history, because of the difficulties of the past, you know, African Americans are sensitive to these issues," said Obama, who sponsored legislation to track the racial breakdown of drivers stopped by police when he was an Illinois state senator. "And even when you've got a police officer who has a fine track record on racial sensitivity, interactions between police officers and the African American community can sometimes be fraught with misunderstanding."

But the president rejected the notion that, as Crowley said Thursday, he was wrong to take a position on the incident. Any president, he insisted, has a responsibility to contribute constructively to the discussion of racial discord, which he called "a troubling aspect of our society."

"There are some who say that as president I shouldn't have stepped into this at all because it's a local issue. I have to tell you that that part of it I disagree with," he said. "Whether I were black or white, I think that me commenting on this and hopefully contributing to constructive -- as opposed to negative -- understandings about the issue is part of my portfolio."

The controversy has become a lesson for Obama's young presidency, reminding him of the raw sensitivities surrounding race and its ability to distract. Determined not to let the issue distract from the discussion of health care, his top domestic priority, Obama moved within 48 hours from shrugging off the controversy surrounding his comments to coming before the cameras to recalibrate them.

From the moment the word "stupidly" slipped through Obama's lips Wednesday night, debate over Gates's arrest became a polarizing national issue. Obama's top advisers said the president quickly became aware that his words had been received in a way he had not intended.

"We all read the newspapers," said David Axelrod, a senior adviser to Obama. "It was obvious from [Thursday] morning on that this discussion had taken on a life of its own."

The morning after the news conference, conservative blogs and police union representatives pummeled the president for not being more supportive of law enforcement. At first, the White House was publicly dismissive of the controversy.

In an interview with ABC News's "Nightline" on Thursday, Obama defended his words, saying that he was surprised at the controversy they had stirred. "I thought it was a pretty straightforward commentary that you probably don't need to handcuff a guy, a middle-aged guy who uses a cane, who's in his own home," he said.

On Thursday, just hours before Obama spoke to reporters, press secretary Robert Gibbs said the president had not made any attempt to talk to Gates, Crowley or anyone else involved in the case.

"If he realized how much of a overall distraction and obsession it would be, I think he would probably regret distracting you guys with obsessions," Gibbs said.

He added: "I think he's said what he's going to say on this."

Aides would not say what finally convinced Obama to revisit the issue.

Shortly after Gibbs's remarks, police officers in Cambridge denounced the president's statement and demanded an apology in a news conference carried live on cable news channels. Dennis O'Connor, president of the Cambridge Police Superior Officers Association, said the Cambridge police "deeply resent the implication" that race was a factor in the decision to take Gates into custody.

"The president used the right adjective but directed it to the wrong party," O'Connor said.

Axelrod hinted that the police news conference at least in part prompted Obama's remarks.

"We live in a dynamic world. You can see issues evolving and how they are evolving. He was well aware of that," Axelrod said. "His reaction is: 'You know what? Let's deal with it. Let's confront it.' "

It was not the first time that Obama has been forced to quell a public relations storm he created with comments that, in retrospect, seemed less than well considered. Early in his term, he said huge bonuses awarded to executives by companies that had taken bailout money were "shameful" and "the height of irresponsibility."

But when his words helped fuel a congressional effort that almost resulted in legislation banning bonuses, Obama quickly moved to tamp down the criticism.

In March, he drew criticism for jokingly invoking the Special Olympics in describing his bowling skills to Jay Leno on "The Tonight Show."

On Friday, Obama said he and Crowley had talked about "having a beer" at the White House with Gates. Later in the day, he called Gates and invited him to join them.

"I think the president is doing the right thing by trying to lower the temperature in this matter and trying to make sure that this leads to an opportunity for constructive dialogue," said Charles Ogletree, Gates's attorney and a friend and confidant to Obama.

Ogletree said: "I don't think that Skip drinks beer, but I think he would welcome the invitation."