Gates-gate: A clear case of 'contempt of cop'  July 26, 2009|By
Clarence Page, a member of the Tribune's editorial board  I
disagreed with President Barack Obama even before he did. I
didn't think the Cambridge, Mass., police officer who arrested
Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. for "disorderly conduct"
at his home acted "stupidly." Sgt. James Crowley's use of legal
force was excessive, yet well-tailored in Crowley's eyes to fit
Gates' real offense: "contempt of cop."  As just about everyone
knows by now, Sgt. Crowley visited Gates, an African-American,
in his home to find out if he really lived there. A female
passerby had seen Gates and another man forcing open the stuck
front door of Gates' home and summoned police for a possible
burglary. The sergeant says the scholar repeatedly accused him
of racism and made derogatory remarks about his mother, to wit:
"Yeah, I'll speak to your mama when we get outside." Not nice.
But Gates and his lawyer dispute Crowley's account, calling it
exaggerated and part