President Obama stopped short of an apology to Sgt. James Crowley today for saying he “acted stupidly” for arresting black Harvard scholar Henry Lewis Gates Jr., but said he should have chosen his words more carefully. At an impromptu appearance at the daily White House briefing, Obama said he spoke with Crowley over the phone, and said he wanted to share a beer with Crowley and Gates at the White House.“Because this has been ratcheting up and I helped contribute to ratcheting it up, I want to make clear that in my choice of words I unfortunately gave an impression that I was maligning the Cambridge Police Department or Sgt. Crowley specifically and I could have calibrated those words differently.”
“My sense is you’ve got two good people in a circumstance in which neither of them were able to resolve it the way the wanted to resolve it,” Obama added.
Earlier in the day , the Cambridge and area police unions voiced their support for Crowley and called for an apology from Obama for his statement.
“His remarks were obviously misdirected but made it worse yet by suggesting somehow this case should remind us of a history of racial abuse by law enforcement,” Dennis O’Connor, president of the Cambridge Police Superior Officers Association, said at a news conference.
O’Connor also referred to statements made by Governor Deval Patrick — the state’s first black governor — who called the arrest “every black man’s nightmare.”
“Whatever may be the history, we deeply resent the implications and reject any suggestion that in this case or any other case that they’ve allowed a person’s race to direct their activities. However we hope they will reflect upon their past comments and apologize to the men and women of the Cambridge Police Department,” O’Connor said.
Obama has said he was surprised by the controversy sparked by his comments. White House spokesman Roberts Gibbs said early today that the president regrets that the media have gotten all worked up over the controversy and been distracted from other more substantive issues such as health care.
Obama’s remarks sparked outrage among many police officers who say the criticism could make it harder for police to work with people of color and set back the progress of race relations that helped Obama become the nation’s first black president.
Gates was arrested July 16 by Crowley, who was first to respond to the home the renowned black scholar rents from Harvard, after a woman reported seeing two black men trying to force open the front door. Gates said he had to shove the door open because it was jammed.
He was charged with disorderly conduct after police said he yelled at the white officer, accused him of racial bias and refused to calm down after Crowley demanded Gates show him identification to prove he lived in the home. The charge was dropped Tuesday, but Gates has demanded an apology, calling his arrest a case of racial profiling.
Obama was asked about Gates’ arrest at the end of a nationally televised news conference on health care Wednesday night and began his response by saying Gates was a friend and he didn’t have all the facts.
“But I think it’s fair to say, No. 1, any of us would be pretty angry,” Obama said. “No. 2, that the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home. And No. 3 — what I think we know separate and apart from this incident — is that there is a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately, and that’s just a fact.”
{Fox News/Elisha Ferber-Matzav.com Newscenter}
Now we know how to deal with Obama. He barks loud but when you push him back he backs away .That typical of all bullies .