JokersWild24

Do you even remember what happened in that case? The Professor was the person that escalated the situation by refusing to comply with the officers orders.

 

"Cambridge police say they responded to the well-maintained two-story home after a woman reported seeing "two black males with backpacks on the porch," with one "wedging his shoulder into the door as if he was trying to force entry."

By the time police arrived, Gates was already inside. Police say he refused to come outside to speak with an officer, who told him he was investigating a report of a break-in.

"Why, because I'm a black man in America?" Gates said, according to a police report written by Sgt. James Crowley. The Cambridge police refused to comment on the arrest Monday.

Gates – the director of Harvard's W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research – initially refused to show the officer his identification, but then gave him a Harvard University ID card, according to police.

"Gates continued to yell at me, accusing me of racial bias and continued to tell me that I had not heard the last of him," the officer wrote."

 

that is the story in short and the actions of a beligerant Gates should be the one who you should be upset at, not the officer doing his job.

Thank you counselor. I'm sure we can take the officer entirely at his word. All those nutty Harvard professors are always going and acting a fool, especially two of them and all.

I'm sure it probably was confusing to the guy being in a nice neighborhood for the first time and all. It probably really shocked him that a black dude owned the house, so I guess we'll excuse him looking over their ID's or using any common sense at all.

The comment in bold is inflammatory and insulting. Just because the guy is a cop doesn't make him low rent.

 

I'm sure if you were being car jacked you would love to see this low rent goof show up.

I've had my car broken into in San Antonio. Off-duty police officer "guarding" the parking lot, an hour and a half of sitting in the parking lot waiting alone before I just called back and told them to forget filing a report... so yea, #SanAntonio ! You learn to be self-sufficient.

According to my own terms, I myself am also low-rent.

Sorry for not being sorry that I don't feel someone who arrests a Harvard professor for breaking into their own house as someone that I'd love to see showing up at my place.

By his own admission, dude's been responding to calls since he performed CPR on Len Bias, so he's obviously not moving up the ranks quickly.

The point was that the officer went to the guy's home, accused him of breaking into it, and then got mad when he showed him ID and requested his badge number, so mad that he took him to jail.

Point being, he didn't listen to two Harvard professors with identification and law degrees who obviously knew more about the situation than him, and probably stepped out of line in a way that he heard about from his superiors back at the Station once the dust settled.

Overall, he sounds like a guy who doesn't have the most sense, or if he did, he didn't use it. Sorry for calling a spade a spade, but generally, I think of people who do things like that as the ones who don't really see their own place in the big picture.

Glad dude got a trip to the White House for some to complain about though. I'm sure he can tell his grandkids about that.

What you seem to refuse to understand is the looters are calling themselves protesters. You need to explain the difference to them, not us.

That's kind of like saying people who want to call themselves Christians need to explain their differences to the people of Westboro Baptist church or other religious extremists and to get them to stop calling themselves churches.

It's not really his place to explain that to them based on his statement any more than it is yours or mine. Everyone is recognizing it, so there's not really an argument about them being "protestors" between anyone here that I know of.

Continuing on the above thought, Obama is really in a no-win situation.

When it's an officer who is accused, everyone here wants to say, "let's gather all the facts first". That's okay and that's fine, it's what we should do (though speculating has it's place too). But when it comes to any high profile incident involving race, Obama is expected to be the ambassador of our country's deep, on-going history of racial tensions, and judging from some of the comments, he's apparently supposed to immediately put on his Superman cape and do something to immediately cease decades-old social unrest.

It's honestly not an enviable situation. When he gives the "we're investigating", some people on the are going to be all over him for not condemning someone soon enough for their liking. For them, if he gives a "let's gather all the facts", it's quickly going to turn into talks of a cover-up, conspiracy, or investigation that reflects whatever he wants it to.

If he moves too quickly comes out and publicly chastises someone when it turns out to be false, then lots of people, whichever side they may be on are going to want his head. Even worse, you can't make both happy, but you can make both mad.

Either way, the people who aren't for him are going to bash him regardless, and he'll likely never win them over.

Gather facts? Conspiracy! Cover-up! Scandal!

Speak immediately and quell unrest? Spoke too soon! Should have got all the facts!

This isn't even mentioning what a dangerous political proposition it is for him when he makes a misstep in the eyes of any of his most loyal supporters. A majority of the people who are going to see fault will see it regardless, so his base is what he really has to cling to.

One of the closest Presidents to his situation in more modern times is probably John F. Kennedy, the first Catholic President. However, I think it's fair to say that Kennedy didn't face that kind of pressure in terms of an and/or of either appeasing constituents who shared his religion and/or those who didn't agree with him and would use anything as a means of voicing their displeasure and making their point.

In lots of ways, I think it's sad that people only see the color of his skin and ask that he fix things that have been prevalent for so long. Number one, it isn't just his job to fix them. Number two, if there were a good answer, then someone before him (pick any of your favorite Presidents) must have failed to improve those same things on at least some levels, otherwise we wouldn't be having this discussion now.

To assume that he should have the best answer and all these fixes, and that they should immediately take hold and turn everything around is somewhat akin to saying that Dirk Nowitzki should be able to repair a broken down Porsche that was towed to your garage in the 80's because he's a German guy and it's a German car. It's a little more complex than that. Building the car, replacing the parts, etc. those are things that occurred long before his watch. Maybe he'll do what he can and would probably do better than the average American because he's familiar with the language and the metric system, but unless Dirk is secretly a gear head, he's probably not going to be able to get it back on the road. He has to do it himself too because heaven forbid he spend some of Mark Cuban's money on it, as that's opening another can of worms in and of itself.

I think hellbirds point is Obama shouldn't have called the officer stupid before he knew exactly what happened.

Don't want this to get too off topic, but it's not really as if he should have said, "that officer sure made a great decision by arresting this lauded Harvard professor in his own home" either. I think that'd have been much more of a head scratcher.

I'm really struggling to understand some of the warped logic in all this hate for Gates. I'd imagine that if most of us were in that situation, there'd be some confusion at best if someone tries to arrest you for breaking into your own home. Once you and a colleague are able to show ID or able to provide other easily obtainable proof that indicates that you clearly belong in that neighborhood and home (if nothing else, the address is probably on his license, or he could go radio it in and quickly find out what was going on).

I think it's a bit much to heap tons of praise on an officer for overlooking the blatantly obvious and getting so butt-hurt that he takes a guy to jail over his own mistake.

I mean, how dare that Yale law graduate think he knows more than a cop running down disturbance calls? How dare an educated black man feel insulted for being accused of breaking into his own home, right?

Honestly, I thought Obama could have been much harder on the guy and that he's probably lucky to have been a guest at the White House instead of Gates getting people even more riled up and really throwing his weight around.

Article from The Atlantic that addresses some of what's been discussed here in terms of the violence/non-violence as a means of change debate.

"When nonviolence begins halfway through the war with the aggressor calling time out, it exposes itself as a ruse."

"Over the past four years, more than 100 people have won court judgments or settlements related to allegations of brutality and civil rights violations. Victims include a 15-year-old boy riding a dirt bike, a 26-year-old pregnant accountant who had witnessed a beating, a 50-year-old woman selling church raffle tickets, a 65-year-old church deacon rolling a cigarette and an 87-year-old grandmother aiding her wounded grandson...."

As Riots Follow Freddie Gray's Death in Baltimore, Calls for Calm Ring Hollow - The Atlantic

2(3x5-3)-(3-2x5)+6x2+1 = 44

And you know they are gang members because? I am not saying it's not true. But I am mentioning rival gangs meeting, an event in it self, to discuss targeting the police. Again, a very dangerous issue.

Because you don't wear their colors, have the ink, stack their signs, all that in St. Louis or Baltimore unless the real members think you haven't earned them?

Baltimore:

Fergueson:

When this is the culture of the community, be prepared for what happens when the volcano erupts. It isn't that hard to figure out...

 

Freddie Gray Is Only the Latest Apparent Victim of Baltimore Police Violence - The Atlantic

You'd think that... but...

Just looking at how

he's handled several different situations starting with his beer summit. He is an idiot and has done nothing but given more ammo to the thugs in this society an excuse to do what is going on in Baltimore.

 

Show me anytime in the last 30

years it's been this bad.

Try showing me the other side then. Try showing where I am wrong.

 

Beer summit, the POTUS calls the CT cop stupid without even learning the facts of the case simply because he was white and the professor who was a jerk eas

black.

No offense, but I really don't want to live in a country where a Harvard professor is arrested for breaking into his own home. I'll gladly take our scientific progress, especially in the medical and tech fields instead of having brain drain and investments elsewhere. Look what oppression has gotten some of the former Eastern Bloc countries.

Your Henry Gates analogy is completely lost on me. In a town with a reputation like Boston, I can understand why someone who was named one of Time's most influential Americans in 1997, a Yale law graduate with more awards and distinctions than we can count, would be upset by some low-rent goof who doesn't realize what's going on. It's not really occurring to people that maybe the officer was a bit stupid (or at least fair to say he probably isn't as sharp as Gates).

Gates is now more synonymous with an arrest where the charges were quickly dropped than all his accomplishments, which is quite unfortunate. By all means though, please bash away.

Those who'd read the whole story, you'd know that one of Gates' colleagues was there and had also showed his ID, as well as his Harvard work ID to no avail. You'd also know that the officer had refused a request to provide his badge number, which is a no-no.

But, by all means, how dare Gates and his colleague ever even think of insulting the considerable achievements of some 50-year-old who is still responding to disturbance calls and can't see the forest for the trees when he gets there.

Fact of life: most people who've accomplished a lot (and I'm not one of them) are pretentious. I've met doctors and surgeons who are downright arrogant, but I'd still go to them if my life depended on it because they are good at what they do. It's something that just goes with the territory when it comes to people who've accomplished things.

This isn't an "I hate cops" thing, it's more of a "don't mess with the wrong people and get caught in the blowback". If Gates were as petty as the officer who had to take someone to jail rather than admit he was wrong, then he'd have had the dude's job long ago, as I imagine that he has the means to do so if he really wanted to exert his influence.

One guy is a distinguished Harvard professor. One guy is the guy who tells the papers he isn't racist because he performed CPR on Len Bias. Maybe Gates was insulted and felt the guy was stupid because.... dum, dum, dum-- he was stupid.

I really liked Gullet when I saw him at State two years ago. I told a few people that if you'd have taken away any knowledge about he and Hall, that you'd have thought Gullet was the one who was more hyped. Obviously, he was probably playing a good game that night and it isn't meant as a knock on Hall, just a compliment to Gullet.

News out of Knott County today says that Simon Christon is also going to Transy.

Congrats to Mr. Christon as well. Really glad to see Transy still investing in local kids, and it should be fun seeing these guys do work for the Pioneers.

1.) We don't know exactly what went down in Baltimore yet, right? Darren Wilson looked very guilty at one time. Turns out he did absolutely nothing wrong, but a lot of people lied and said he did.

 

2.) The second guy you mentioned was arrested. What else can police do beyond that? As far as I know, he had no prior history of anything indicating he'd do what he did.

You can go back and read what I posted during the Michael Brown thing and see that I was one of the people saying, "I don't know enough to know if Darren Wilson will or should be indicted" (post #1906), but I really don't know how you can look at the situation here and think things are rosy.

To 1, no, we don't know exactly what happened, but it's pretty clear that a man died in police custody and had some injuries that are usually indicative of foul play. It's a bit disingenuous to say "we don't know exactly what went down" because we probably never will know such if one wanted to really beg the definition of 'exactly what went down'. You can use common sense and connect the dots here and say that short of some kind of explanation that city leaders are sitting on or have yet to find while their city is in chaos, things don't look good.

Example: when Thabo Sefolosha goes into custody fine but leaves with a broken leg that is untreated, his livelihood (insofar as his occupation) has likely been seriously effected, and both the NBAPA (who usually stays out of arrests) and the NYPD (which doesn't have a sparkling record) immediately launch their own investigations-- that tells you something. Sure, maybe he broke his own leg and refused treatment as a way to conspire against the officers who arrested him. Maybe that and he has the NYPD and NBAPA fooled, but that's not really the most plausible explanation, nor has anything come out so far to contradict the obvious.

To 2, yes, he was arrested. However, I'm of the opinion that if it's the first time the guy has done something nefarious, then he's probably the unluckiest guy in the world considering it was something that bad which also got caught on camera. I'm of opinion that things like that don't just happen overnight. I'd think it's fair to say that there were likely things which foretold his not being a good officer. While those most likely weren't as serious as what went down, I'd be willing to bet that there were at least some warning signs. I say that because I didn't see much hesitation and nothing came out contrary to his report until the video was sent to the media. His actions just don't seem like the type of things someone just wakes up one day and starts doing. Same for the campus PD with a controversial arrest and a Department not rushing to release his disciplinary record on requests. It was most likely because he had a laundry list of complaints, write-ups, and the like.

Obviously, both of the above are generalizations and there may be perfectly logical explanations otherwise, but for now, I think it's fair to say that things don't look good, either the situation in Baltimore being explained otherwise or the South Carolina officer having a sparkling record.

My point in the post that was quoted was only to provoke thought and make the analogy that, just like looting doesn't do anything positive for ending inequalities, police brutality won't stop suspects from running or stealing nor will it help gain the public's trust.

As things stand, society looks pretty fractured when it comes to public/police relations, and I don't see things getting better until each side shows some give and take.

None of this is meant to be argumentative because I really respect your opinion and always like debating with you, and yes, sometimes where there's smoke-- there's only smoke (and no fire), but given how high profile these things were and the state of affairs that followed, you'd think that anything that could otherwise explain things would have been thrown out by now to keep things from deteriorating even further.

In Baltimore, I think that there's been a strong undercurrent for some time, and that's why this has become a rallying cry for people so out for blood. They don't need a full investigation into this because they've seen the same song and dance many, many times and there are loads of civil suits to prove it. Even if it turns out that there's a logical explanation that completely exonerates the police, this is still something people will be fighting because things reached a tipping point well before this and the recent events were the match that lit a powder keg.

What do you mean?

The woman's event on the rough ride was in 2012. Given that the media had already gotten ahold of depositions and the like, I don't think she saw the Gray stuff in the news and decided to cash in on a claim. It's more likely that it was already pending and that the city of Baltimore either was or should have been on notice that this kind of stuff was happening given her claim (and the claim of a guy who went in walking and came out paralyzed that the city had to pay out).

I hope, and I think, that she did not mean it the way it came out.

That's what I'm thinking as well.

Bull, these kinds of actions can never be tolerated or encouraged. You'd think there are enough Lawyers in this country that any issue could be heard without violence. Problems is in many cases (maybe not this one) riots aren't because they aren't heard, it's because they don't like what they are told. Basically if we don't get our way we are going to riot, it's the modern age extortion of our society.

Just playing Devil's Advocate again, but I would take it a step further and say that if you took the bolded and applied it to police brutality, then the same would ring true. You aren't helping crime when you paralyze someone who gets arrested on the ride downtown. You aren't helping the public's trust of police when you shoot someone in the back and appear to be planting evidence on them.

Ulis

Briscoe

Murray

Poythress

Skal

 

Lee

Mulder

Matthews

Other recruit (Ingram, Brown, Diallo)

Have a hard time seeing 3 PG's starting.

If Diallo, Ingram, or Brown come, then they'll definitely be starting as well.

Congratulations to Mr. Griffin. A fine season and career at Lexington Catholic and a kid who I probably underrated most of the season. Best of luck at the next level.

If Phil were coaching, you would have a valid point. Derek Fisher would have to mesh with Rondo and I'm not sure how that would work with Fish in his second year. I also think Rondo and Carmelo are not a hand in glove fit.

Know Fish is the coach, but Phil is the guy pulling all the strings. I could see him taking on Rondo and keeping his mind so busy with Zen that he keeps him engaged and has his mind off of whatever has him so hot on the floor. I know Phil was big on giving his guys summer reading and things like that and that he used a general 7:3 ratio of build-up vs. criticism to keep his players from getting numb to hearing all the critique all the time, that way it stung more when you actually critiqued someone. He's probably had some far more difficult personalities than Rondo. His age could be a good thing, as Rondo seemed to defer to guys with seniority, and there's no questioning Phil's qualifications. I'm sure Phil wouldn't let Fisher sign him unless he thought it'd work.

Most at the high levels are born... more at the lower levels are made.

The biggest asset to Rondo in LA is Kobe. Rondo and Kobe strike me as kindred spirits. Both probably think they are the smartest guy in the room. Both think through a basketball game at a high level. Both burn to win. The only question is can Byron Scott handle both Kobe AND Rondo?

 

After reading this, I am convinced that Rondo to the Knicks would be a dumpster fire.

If Phil took him on as a personal project, I see no one that the Zen Master couldn't tame.

What are the lineups and where does he fit in? Hard to imagine he, Ulis, and Briscoe playing together. How does Cal make it work if that's what's in the fold?

I don't disagree..........but most of the folks in the video are just looking for an excuse to be destructive.

Agree 100% with that.

I pray the Lakers just let Rondo fade away never to be heard from again. Sadly he'll probably be the starting PG for LA next year.

You must be more of a Jeremy Lin guy. Put Rondo with some bigger alphas like Kobe and Randle who compare to the personalities of Pierce and Garnett and you'll see him thrive. It might be all whatever to compare a young Randle to those guys, I'm just talking about him in terms of the attitude of being the big dog on the block.

That is an informative article. I did not know Rondo was so smart. Thanks for posting it. I wonder what the future holds for him now?

Thanks. I read it earlier and thought of it last night, and it re-read it. Definitely kind of a prophetic story.

I think Rondo is off to Los Angeles or New York and that the whole thing surrounding him in Dallas is more of a sign that Rick Carlisle was a coach who couldn't handle him and less of an indictment of Rondo not wanting to win and just cashing his checks.

He's obviously not an easy guy to "get", but, IMO, some of the biggest problems happen when he's with guys who he doesn't perceive as playing at and wanting to win at his level.

Looking at Monta Ellis and reading that article, you can see how those two were a disaster to pair together.