Obama’s remark about police acting “stupidly” was ill-advised

8 comments July 23rd, 2009

Maybe President Obama is just under a lot of stress lately, but his off-hand remark about Prof. Henry Gates’ incident with the Cambridge, Mass. police was, well, stupid. He admitted he didn’t know the details and then said the police acted stupidly.

Sgt. Crowley, who was alone, was responding to a 9-1-1 call that stated a break-in was in progress. So that’s what he thinks his happening. Read the police report , the facts of which Gates hasn’t disputed.

Now comes more information on Crowley, namely that he is an expert at teaching officers about racial profiling at the academy. He also administered mouth to mouth resuscitation to Boston Celtics star Reggie Lewis, who collapsed during practice at Brandeis University, where Crowley was a cop at the time.

It seems to me that President Obama should have said something like this: “Skip Gates is a friend, and I respect his work greatly. I realize police were responding to a call of a break in in progress. ,Local officials in Cambridge are looking into all the details of this incident, and it’s not prudent of me to comment further at this time.”