Another Harvard Prof Accuses Police of Racism

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.

Counter says he kept his experience from the public fearing police harassment, but says other faculty knew of the incident. “The word around Harvard is never step outside your house with these guys,” Counter says. The CPD says that fear is baseless. “We don’t bait people to come outside,” a spokesman says, and anyway, “we don’t have to take you outside to lock you up.” (More S. Allen Counter stories.)