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”.