Top cop: Officers 'pained' by Obama remark

NATICK, Mass. - The Cambridge police commissioner said Thursday that his department is "deeply pained" by President Barack Obama's statement that his officers "acted stupidly" when they arrested a renowned black scholar in his home.

Commissioner Robert Haas commended the arresting officer, Sgt. James Crowley, as a decorated officer and said his actions were in no way motivated by racism.

Crowley, who is white, has been a lightning rod for criticism after arresting Henry Louis Gates Jr. in his home last week. Police say Gates flew into a verbal rage when officers asked him for identification while investigating a report of a break-in at his home.

On Wednesday, the president said officers "acted stupidly" in arresting his friend. On Thursday, he softened his stance and said cooler heads should have prevailed.

Teaches racial profiling class
Crowley is a police academy expert on understanding racial profiling and has taught a class on the subject for five years at the Lowell Police Academy after being hand-picked for the job by former police Commissioner Ronny Watson, who is black, said Academy Director Thomas Fleming.

“I have nothing but the highest respect for him as a police officer. He is very professional and he is a good role model for the young recruits in the police academy,” Fleming told The Associated Press on Thursday.

The course, called “Racial Profiling,” teaches about different cultures that officers could encounter in their community “and how you don’t want to single people out because of their ethnic background or the culture they come from,” Fleming said.

Obama has said the Cambridge officers “acted stupidly” in arresting Gates last week when they responded to his house after a woman reported a suspected break-in.

Crowley, 42, has maintained he did nothing wrong and has refused to apologize, as Gates has demanded.

Crowley responded to Gates’ home near Harvard University last week to investigate a report of a burglary and demanded Gates show him identification. Police say Gates at first refused, flew into a rage and accused the officer of racism.

Gates was charged with disorderly conduct. The charge was dropped Tuesday.

'Any of us would be pretty angry'
Gates’ supporters maintain his arrest was a case of racial profiling. Officers were called to the home by a woman who said she saw “two black males with backpacks” trying to break in the front door. Gates has said he arrived home from an overseas trip and the door was jammed.

Obama was asked about the arrest of Gates, who is his friend, at the end of a nationally televised news conference on health care Wednesday night.

“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.”

Steven Senne / AP Cambridge police Sgt. James Crowley speaks with the media at his home in Natick, Mass., on Wednesday.

Obama did not fault the actions of Gates, who he said is a friend.

The White House said Thursday that Obama did not intend to call the officer "stupid."

Spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters that Obama felt that when it was clear that Gates was not a burglary suspect last week, "at that point, cooler heads on all sides should have prevailed."

"Let me be clear, he was not calling the officer stupid," Gibbs told reporters. He said Obama felt that "at a certain point the situation got far out of hand."

In radio interviews Thursday morning, Crowley said he followed procedure.

“I support the president of the United States 110 percent. I think he was way off base wading into a local issue without knowing all the facts as he himself stated before he made that comment,” Crowley told WBZ-AM. “I guess a friend of mine would support my position, too.”

Crowley did not immediately respond to messages left Thursday by the AP. The Cambridge police department scheduled a news conference for later Thursday.

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