A day after celebrity cop James Crowley's service records were released for public consumption, we got a glimpse at what he gets paid for all of the aggravation the privilege of serving the city of Cambridge. We can thank the Cambridge Chronicle for this list of the salaries of every non-school city worker for FY'09 (7/08-6/09). We know everyone is only really interested in the $114,687.52 Crowley was paid, not to mention the $109,566.93 he took home in 2008. It's noteworthy that around 120 - Bostonist counted quickly - Cambridge employees earned more than Crowley in FY'09.
According to the Boston Herald, Cambridge police sergeant James Crowley has had eight citizen complaints filed against him since joining the Cambridge Police Department in 1998. Crowley arrested Henry Louis Gates Jr. on July 16 for disorderly conduct, a charge that was later dropped. According to Police Commissioner Robert Haas, those eight complaints represent "less than 1 percent" of Crowley's contact with citizens, which includes 422 arrests, 800 investigations, and 1,866 motor vehicle citations. Two complaints were filed by black men. Crowley was cleared of any wrongdoing in every case.WCVB reported Crowley is on vacation and not worried about the records being made public.
Even if the arrest of Henry Louis Gates Jr. about two weeks ago was just a simple combination of misunderstanding and overreaction, it's created disturbances much larger than anything Gates could have yelled. First Obama called the actions of the police "stupid." Then there was the racist email sent by a Boston police officer. Finally, we got around to the important question: what beer will everyone drink? But perhaps most disturbing is Gates' revelation today at the Martha's Vineyard Book Festival that he received death threats over the incident. Imagine: you're arrested. In your own home. You're upset about it. So people threaten to kill you. Gates may have overreacted to Crowley's demands, but that doesn't excuse escalating the situation from being disorderly to threatening death. And though that infamous beer summit hasn't given rise to much concrete action yet, Gates says he wants to create a documentary about racial profiling. The documentary would pair the experiences of police officers and profiled individuals to help everyone understand that there can be multiple perspectives on the same incident.
In an interesting development in the arrest of Henry Louis Gates Jr. over a week ago, the person who called in Gates for breaking into his own house says she didn't cite Gates' race when calling in the potential crime. Caller Lucia Whalen has "worked in Cambridge for more than 15 years, about 100 yards from where Mr. Gates resides," according to her attorney Wendy J. Murphy, and "never said she saw two black men." While this creates quite a twist for folks (including this Bostonist) who suspected that the non-crime might not have been called in were it not for Gates' race, it doesn't excuse the fact that Gates was arrested even though he didn't commit a crime. It is unfortunate that this information was not reported from the start; the way information is unfolding piece by piece suggests that someone—the Cambridge Police Department?—has been attempting to keep details under wraps. The police report specifically states that the caller reported "two black males with backpacks"—perhaps that should have been two males with black backpacks?—but at the end of the report Whalen is cited merely as having seen "a man wedging his shoulder into the front door to pry it open." The report also describes Whalen as white, when she actually has “olive-colored skin and is of Portuguese descent" according to Murphy.
In the aftermath of controversies about a Cambridge police officer arresting a famous African-American professor for existing in his own home (also known as Gatesgate, and of his own choice to call the action "stupid," Barack Obama has proposed the unthinkable: a discussion. Talking about race in America? Get out! Breaking a longstanding tradition of ignoring racial conflict, Obama has officially invited Cambridge police officer James Crowley and Harvard professor Henry Louis "Skip" Gates, Jr., to the White House for a beer and a bit of conversation about the incident. Obama's hope is that the debacle can morph into a "teachable moment" for everyone, and be brought to a conclusion that will allow the nation to focus once again on providing health care to all its citizens. Latest news has it that Skip has accepted the offer. We're excited to see the transcript of that chat, if it's released.
The Henry Louis Gates Jr. arrest saga won't stop. Local and national media have gone into full feeding frenzy mode. At one point today, the Herald's website was unavailable. It's back up. The Latest:
"There are not many certainties in life, but it is for certain that Sgt. Crowley will not be apologizing," said Sergeant James "Arrestsalot" Crowley after Henry Louis Gates, Jr. kindly asked him to apologize for putting him in the cooler for four hours for the dubious crime of being a black college professor in his own house who also happens to possibly like yelling at white cops who are trying to arrest him for no reason. This was presumably before the President of the United States said that Crowley acted "stupidly."
