Look at your TV news. Who is creating *most* of the crime? Does that race comprise only about 11 percent of the US population?

The police officers were absolutely justified. Gates is a buffoon. And Barack Obama looks less presidential every day. This is from a white leftist who voted for him.

Slapping flies with your bare hands: Now that is doing something “stupidly.”

We are going to have to shut him down in the November 2010 elections. And we can.

Clayton L. Hallmark
Twinsburg, Ohio

Just outrageous, and I empathize with Professor Gates, as a few years ago I returned home to New York from studying abroad only to find we are bombarded with incessant harassing messages telling the public “If you see something, say something”. It’s nice if it works, but it backfired on me, and I wound up in handcuffs for the first time in my thirty years of life – and have never been in trouble with the law ever before!

As I was rushing to catch a train to Long Island at Penn Station, I noticed that there was a “suspicious package” (a suitcase left unattended) near an abandoned lobby of the A, C, E subway lines at 34th Street. Nobody was in the token booth, so I went up a level to alert the first authorities I could find. Five officers were trying to wake up a well-dressed couple on the floor – who were obviously harmlessly resting waiting for a train, unless they were sedated suicide bombers.

When I tried to get the cops’ attention, they told me to go away and instructed me to tell the subway police because they had nothing to do with the subways, just Penn Station. When I tried to explain that there was nobody down there, they told me to leave, and I expressed disbelief that they were so preoccupied with the sleeping couple, that they would ignore somebody telling them about something potentially very dangerous. They told me not to challenge them, and I said shook my head incredulously, I read the primary officer’s name off his badge. He said “you want my name, I want yours”.

Without opposition, I produced my driver’s ID from my right pocket, and suddenly my left hand was pulled behind my back and cuffed, then cuffed together with my right hand. There was absolutely no reason to put me this way, but I became prey, and they forgot all about the sleeping couple as they dragged me away to a holding cell. It was futile to struggle, so I just went peacefully, and they cuffed me to a bench in the catacombs.

They asked me if I had been in custody before, and some other questions, and I knew better to answer as politely as possible with “yes sirs, no sirs”. An officer asked me why I was on my way out to Long Island if my driver’s license says my Manhattan address, and even though I wanted so badly to say something along the lines of “it’s a free country”, I told them because I was staying with my parents. Another officer asked me what I did, and when I told him I studied journalism he responded, “oh good, this can be your first story!’

About an hour later, I was released but given a summons for “disorderly contact” and had to appear in court. They escorted me halfway out of the station and told me to leave. When I told them I had to take the train, they told me to leave even sterner.

Needless to say, I ran out shocked and panicked in the streets, fleeing like an escaped convict and tried to hail a cab.

After a few days of trying to sort out in my mind what really happened and why, the only conclusion I can come up with was blatant abuse of power from the police. Not sure if it was racially motivated, as I am Caucasian and three off the five officers were as well.

The public is constantly encouraged to tell police if anything odd is happening (like the over alarmed neighbor of Professor Gates), and they should have been trained to deal with this situation better. When I gave them my ID, and showed them I was not a threat, and did not resist questioning, I should have been released immediately. Instead, I was cuffed, summonsed, humiliated and traumatized for trying to do my part as a good citizen.

When I went before the judge, the court offered me a “plea bargain”, where I would admit that I was actually the one who left the package un-attended. They fined me almost $1000, and I even got six months probation. They coerced me into flipping the story to convict myself for something I was completely innocent of committing!

Next time I see something that I feel is offbeat, I will just keep walking and definitely keep my mouth closed – for fear of being detained another time.

After what Professor Gates and I have endured, if I see something ever again, I will certainly never say anything ever again – even if I witness a person breaking into a house – especially regardless of their complexion.