Angry Gates to Make Film on Racial Profiling

(NEWSER) - Another black member of Harvard's faculty has accused the Cambridge Police Department of racism, the Boston Globe reports. S. Allen Counter, a Harvard Medical School professor, was arrested outside his home in 2006 on assault and battery charges. “I was polite, and yet police lied and said I was loud, just as they did with Professor Gates,” said Counter, who was acquitted. More»

Tapes show I'm not a racist, says woman who alerted police

(NEWSER) - The Massachusetts woman who called 911 on Henry Louis Gates and his chauffeur as they wrestled with the Harvard professor’s front door said today she never mentioned race to Sgt. James Crowley, the officer who arrested Gates. Lucia Whalen’s statement contradicts the police report filed by Crowley, which states that Whalen described “two black males with backpacks,” after he arrived in person, the New York Times reports. More»

Officer calls for more cars; 911 caller unsure on men's race

(NEWSER) - In audio from the arrest of Henry Louis Gates Jr, released today by Cambridge police, the arresting officer tells the dispatcher to “keep the cars coming” as he faces an “uncooperative” suspect, the Boston Herald reports. An earlier tape reveals the 911 call in the case, in which a Harvard magazine employee says another woman “had noticed two gentlemen” who “kind of had to barge in.” She notes, "They have suitcases." More»

(NEWSER) - Money, power, and status count for little in the face of persistent racial profiling by police, African-American men tell the Los Angeles Times. Many say they know all too well how Henry Louis Gates Jr. must have felt in his home last week. The consensus generally seems to be that it's futile to put up a fight after, say, yet another traffic stop. "It's more important for me to make it home than to fight for a cause I'm not going to win," says one public school administrator who estimates he's been stopped 20 times in 10 years. More»

Sgt. James Crowley's class instructs recruits not to 'single people out because of ethnic background'

(AP) - The white police sergeant criticized by President Barack Obama for arresting black scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. at his Massachusetts home is a police-academy expert on racial profiling. Cambridge Sgt. James Crowley has taught a class on racial profiling for 5 years at the Lowell Police Academy after being hand-picked for the job by former police Commissioner Ronny Watson, who is black, the academy's director says. More»