By Yael T. Abouhalkah, Kansas City Star Editorial Page columnist
Why should police record all 911 calls and release them to the media? Because of what happened to Lucia Whalen.
She's the one who called the Cambridge, Mass., cops two weeks ago, ensnaring her in the racially tinged incident involving Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. and white Sgt. James Crowley.
On Wednesday, Whalen came forward partly to clear her name, pointing out that the now-released 911 police tapes showed she didn't identify by race whom she saw possibly breaking into a home on July 16.
It turned out to be Gates' home; he was forcing in a jammed door as he returned from out of town. Crowley and other officers arrived, with Crowley eventually arresting Gates on charges that were later dropped.
In a press conference, it was good to hear Whalen say "yes, I would make the call" again, in similar circumstances, even though she has been the target of some mean and ill-directed comments before the tapes came out.
As Whalen noted, she didn't say she had seen "two black men" in the potential break-in, something that was widely reported just after the incident, with some suggesting she had made the call specifically because she saw black men at the house.
Whalen said Wednesday:
People called me racist and said I caused all the turmoil that flowed and some even said threatening things that made me fear for my safety... I would hope that people would learn not to judge others and to really base it on facts.
In this case, the facts have shown Whalen was a good citizen, doing her duty when she saw something possibly amiss in a neighborhood that had suffered a rash of break-ins.
She was, as several have pointed out recently, the only one who really didn't overreact during the entire incident.
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Perhaps This Actually is a Teachable Moment
I don’t recall anyone calling Whalen a racist. Maybe someone did; but I didn’t hear it. Even if she had said two black men were trying to break into the house next door, that doesn’t strike me as racist—it’s descriptive.
I heard the 911 call on TV the other day and Whalen did not say the men were black, in fact she says she saw them from the back and didn’t know what race they were. Sgt. Crowley’ incident report says Whalen observed “what appeared to be two black males with backpacks on the front porch’’ of the house. Maybe that’s racism, but it is more likely faulty memory when filling out the report shortly after the arrest of Dr. Gates—mixing what Crowley himself observed with what Whalen had said.
Whalen actually told the dispatcher that the two men had suitcases and might live there. I have no idea if that was ever relayed to Sgt. Crowley.
Perhaps this actually is a teachable moment. Taking Crowley and Gates at their word, both were frightened. It appears to me that they actually perceived what happened differently through the filter of their experience. If they are honorable men, and I have no reason to think they are not, you would think they would both be interested in learning from this experience. Maybe we can learn something with them. I’m not sure we can do that if we continue to argue about who was the most racist.
The invisible man.
Shouldn't the neighbors have recognized Professor Gates? He does have a rather distinctive appearance and apparently has lived in his house for some time. Don't they see him picking up his mail, driving to work, checking his lawn, or what ever?
I don't know many people who live on my street. That's the way life is today. I think, however, that I would recognize who belongs where.
I once locked myself out of the house and had to climb up on a stack of garbage cans and wriggle into a window. Either nobody noticed, nobody cared, or they were too busy laughing to dial the police.
Evidence that Crowley's report was a lie
Whalen should be the one invited to the White House. She is actually the only one of the 3 people involved who behaved 100% appropriately.