Police responding to break-in report arrest top scholar in his home

POLICE responding to a call about “two black males” breaking into a home near Harvard University in the US ended up arresting the man who lives there – Henry Louis Gates Jr, the nation’s pre-eminent black scholar.

Gates had forced his way through the front door because it was jammed, his lawyer said. Colleagues call the arrest last Thursday afternoon a clear case of racial profiling.

Cambridge police say they responded to the well-maintained two-storey 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.

Gates – the director of Harvard’s WEB 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.

Gates was arrested on a disorderly conduct charge after police said he “exhibited loud and tumultuous behaviour”.

He was released later that day on his own recognisance.

Prosecutors later announced the charges against Gates had been dropped.

Gates, 58, refused to speak publicly yesterday, referring calls to his attorney, fellow Harvard scholar Charles Ogletree.

Ogletree said Gates gave the officer his driver’s licence and Harvard identification after being asked to prove he was a Harvard professor and lived at the home, but became upset when the officer continued to question him.

“He was shocked to find himself being questioned and shocked that the conversation continued after he showed his identification,” Ogletree said.

Ogletree declined to say whether he believed the incident was racially motivated, saying “I think the incident speaks for itself.”

Several of Gates’s African-American colleagues say the arrest is part of a pattern of racial profiling.

Allen Counter, who has taught neuroscience at Harvard for 25 years, said: “We do not believe that this arrest would have happened if Professor Gates was white. It really has been very unsettling for African-Americans throughout Harvard and throughout Cambridge that this happened.”