Results tagged “luciawhalen”

Subverting perceptions of him as a dangerous criminal, Henry Louis "Skip" Gates Jr. has sent flowers to the woman responsible for the 911 call that eventually resulted in Gates' arrest. Lucia Whalen's attorney said her client "appreciated" the flowers, which were reportedly tulips. No word on whether Whalen is upset at not being invited to the White House or not having a burger named after her. Maybe the tequilafest will happen next week, with Ms. Whalen involved.

Lucia Whalen, the woman who called 911 in the Henry Louis Gates Jr. case, spoke to the media on Wednesday. Whalen defended her actions and said the suggestion that race impacted her actions hurt her. Tapes of the call proved that Whalen did not mention race. Despite what transpired after she called the police, she said she would do it again. In other Gates news, Lee Landor, the deputy press secretary to Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, resigned after calling Gates a racist and President Barack Obama "O-dumb-a." Former Secretary of State Colin Powell discussed the Gates situation on CNN last night.

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.