Un-Civil Servants, Or, This Is Acting Stupidly

As we learned during the Sotomayor hearings, New Haven firemen have to pass a job related test to get a promotion.  Which leaves us wondering, what is the procedure for the Cambridge Boston Police Department - do you have to fail an intelligence test to get a job there?

This email is an embarrassment and a disgrace (I am assuming it is authentic, but it would be great to be wrong.)  Repeatedly using a "jungle monkey" metaphor to refer to Henry Louis Gates?  Writing to the Boston Globe reporter on the receiving end of this tirade that "I might as well ax you the question"?  Ugh.

HMMPH:  It's the Boston PD, not Cambridge, so who's stupid now?

Comments

[Person of little or no color]

He was a Boston policeman. Although close by, Cambridge is world apart.

[Jane]

Mayor Menino has asked for his dismissal. No one has asked for Gate's dismissal for his racist remarks toward Crowley.

Double standard?

[Jane]

And what is happening to free speech?

[verner]

Hey, I wonder what all those people who are preaching that HLG has a perfect constitutional right protected by the first amendment to be a complete racist jerk have to say about this!

[narciso]

It's a negative right, dontcha know, Jane, not like health care or housing. That being
said, that was a remarkably stupid thing to do

[verner]

If the cop is fired, the Harvard should fire Gates as well, and for the same reason.

[I thought they were 'bunnies'.]

His mistake was not requesting anonymity from the reporter. Far worse than this is done by civil servants with cover by the reporters. And the terminology? Almost parodic. If this weren't real, I'd suspect a plant.

[willem]

Ooooo... and now there's THIS:

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0709/25592.html

[Jane]

I missed all the Lucia scorn. But anything that makes this a damned if you do, damned if you don't scenario is okay with me.

[Dave (in MA)]

"Justin Barrett is the cop race-baiters like Gates hoped Sgt. Crowley would be." --Boston talk show host Michael Graham

[verner]

Also, I heard that Crowley will be accompanied by a rep from his union and an attorney, along with family members.

Smart guy.

I hope he brings his mom. That should make Gates' jaw drop--yo mama indeed.

[Sue]

Did anyone ask the Boston policeman if he was tired and cranky?

[Caro]

I hope he brings his mom. HA, verner, me, too.

[DebinNC]

lol, verner. That's inspired.

[LUN, or Link Under Name]

pssst, willem. Put the URL in the third space after name and email just before posting. UR wilkommen.

[boris]

So if a black posice officer is called to the home of someone like Justin Barrett who creates a public disturbance using yelling insults like "banana eating jungle monkey" and winds up getting arrested ...

... Does anybody think AllahPinhead at HotAir would have a problem with it? After all according to AllahPinhead all libertarians should support the absolute free speech rights of any non criminal on their own property. No matter what.

[boris]

er ... ** black police officer **

[Jane]

I hope he brings his mom.

My thought exactly!

[The Company You Keep]

Tommy's legion of morons believe any shit that Officer Crowley spews, despite the fact the reporting party, Ms. Whalen, says Crowley's characterization of her statement is a blatant lie. (And her 911 call confirms what she said in real time.)

So I put it to you: Which white person do you believe? Do you have the balls to call Whalen a liar?

Life's a bitch when you don't have skin color to make up your minds for you.

[Dave (in MA)]

ABC's Tapper:

The president, we are told, will be drinking Bud Light, Crowley will have Blue Moon, and Gates will have Red Stripe -- Red Light and Blue.

So, only Officer Crowley will be having an American beer.

[Bud Light:Belgium, Blue Moon:Colorado, Red Stripe:Jamaica]

Figures.

[verner]

Ya know Deb, If I were Crowley's mom, I'd insist on going. Just to tour the White House, and all that.

[DebinNC]

So I put it to you: Which white person do you believe?

I believe Ms. Whelan objected to being classified as "white".

[Captain Hate]

I'd be interested to find out why mayor Menino thinks the policeman should be dismissed. I'm not one of those that ludicrously believe that employers have to adhere to the same rights of citizenship in their terms of employment (for example, you can't send out obscene garbage under company letterhead and then claim you can't be fired because you were just exercising free speech) but I fail to see that email as being a fireable offense, and I'm sure his union will weigh in.

That said, it was an extremely ill-advised email to send; doubtlessly written in anger and one that he would've been better off to hit "erase" for rather than "send".

[Mike Myers]

Tom get your Police Departments straight.
The Cambridge Police Department is to the Boston Police Department as the Berkeley Police Department is to the Oakland Police Department. Each case involves big city police department next to a smaller university town police department.

Of course back in the day (late 60's) it was the Oakland cops that such Black Panther leading lights as Huey P. Newton were shooting. The Panthers didn't call the Oakland cops by any racial name--well honkeys maybe--mostly they called them "targets".

[Take your content with your content and skedaddle.]

What difference does the race in the initial report have except as a clue to identification. She wasn't reporting skin color, she was reporting a suspected crime in progress. The skin color was irrelevant to the reporting of that fact and the fact of the police dispatch. So, what company do you keep? The company seeing race in everything? Aren't you tired of being a slave to victimhood?

[Captain Hate]

The Panthers didn't call the Oakland cops by any racial name--well honkeys maybe--mostly they called them "targets".

You must not have been alive or were very very young then; invariably they called them "pigs".

Life's a bitch when you don't have skin color to make up your minds for you.

Were you looking at your reflection when writing that?

[Original MikeS]

So I put it to you: Which white person do you believe?

Have you ever wondered why they record 911 calls?

[Jane]

I'd be interested to find out why mayor Menino thinks the policeman should be dismissed.

Menino came out in the beginning with Patrick and the Mayor of Cambridge against Crowley and for Gates. This is just more of the same.
Mumbles knows where his bread is buttered I guess.

[Danube of Thought]

Damned good thing Crowley will have a lawyer and a union rep along (hope the guy is black). I have a hunch this is going to be an awkward and stilted affair.

[Danube of Thought]

What's going on at Ras is heartstopping. Minus twelve today, and minus three in the "somewhats."

And since suddenly everthing seems to be about black vs. white, keep in mind that Obama's favorable rating among blacks is 97%. Do the math and figure how this guy is doing with non-black Americans.

[narciso]

You're right, I can't imagine an awkward get together, how about them Red Socks?

[Parking Lot]

((Damned good thing Crowley will have a lawyer and a union rep along (hope the guy is black). I have a hunch this is going to be an awkward and stilted affair.))

I wish Crowley had said he had other plans and couldn't make it ... the situation required straightforward apologies to him and his police department, nothing less.

[DebinNC]

I bet Obama doesn't even (willingly) drink beer. Gibbs said he drank a Bud at the All Stars Game, but that was another of those staged BO-beer-in-hand photo ops, where pics show him holding a full mug or tentatively taking one sip. I don't know what he drinks at his regular WH cocktail parties, but it isn't a Bud. And during the campaign he carted around cases of Black Forest Berry organic tea.

I hope more and more folks will see that he isn't the "regular guy" his massive pr machine portrays. He's inauthentic. He's a bamboozler. And his mask is slipping.

[clarice]

Do you suppose he'll wear a suit? His mome jeans? Michelle's flowered apron to the event?

[clarice]

*mom*jeans

[bad]

LOL

[Dave (in MA)]

I think The Preznit selected Bud Light because he's watching his figure. He doesn't want to have to start shopping at Lane Bryant.

[michaelt]

Dave,

Blue Moon was a Coors brand, and Coors is now owned by SABMiller, so it's as American as Bud is now.

[Anthony]

TO THE COP, GATES LOOKS LIKE A "JUNGLE MONKEY",(FREEDOM OF SPEECH?)
THE AFFIRMATIVE ACTION "PROFESOR" TEACHES AFRICAN AMERICAN CULTURE (OR HOW TO HATE THEM WHITE MOTHER F...KRS).
OBAMA RESURRECTED RACISM IN AMERICA BY PLAYING THE RACE CARD THAT GOT HIM ELECTED.
SO, DON'T COMPLAIN BLACKS, ENJOY THE RIDE, YOUR MESSIAH IS VOTING HIMSELF OUT OF THE WHITE HOUSE, WE'LL GET A R E A L PRESIDENT IN 2012; AFFIRMATIVE ACTION IS NOT ENOUGH TO GOVERN THIS GREAT COUNTRY !

[glenda]

Wouldn't it be great if Crowley had been adopted by loving parents who happen to be black?? It would be a teaching moment, for sure. It's the person who becomes bigoted, not the race..it's ones' actions and deeds that label one such, not the color of their skin. If only Obama believed it. No, lived it.

[Dave (in MA)]

I smell a Moby

[jimmyk]

Who cares what beer they're drinking and whether it's American or not? But will the union rep and lawyer get a beer too?

Coulter makes a good point: Crowley's police report was written long before he would have had any idea that the confrontation would become a national incident. While that doesn't mean he couldn't have been covering his a** in some way, there's no evidence whatsoever that anything in the report was inaccurate, and everything that has been uncovered so far is consistent with Crowley's version of the events.

[Captain Hate]

I think The Preznit selected Bud Light because he's watching his figure.

I believe in his delusional construct, that the jug-eared punk believes he is an unacknowledged great athlete wanna be; just like his jock-sniffing upcoming vacation neighbor Shelton Lee. He doesn't want his court "quickness" to be weighted down by any useless calories and burning Kools doesn't hurt that; although he'd be sucking wind any time any real athlete would run his scrawny ass into the ground.

[Dave (in MA)]

michaelt, I didn't know that.

[Jane]

What's a "moby"?

[jimmyk]

From the LGF dictionary

moby - An insidious and specialized type of left-wing troll who visits blogs and impersonates a conservative for the purpose of either spreading false rumors intended to sow dissension among conservative voters, or who purposely posts inflammatory and offensive comments for the purpose of discrediting the blog in question. The term is derived from the name of the liberal musician Moby, who famously suggested in February of 2004 that left-wing activists engage in this type of subterfuge: "For example, you can go on all the pro-life chat rooms and say you're an outraged right-wing voter and that you know that George Bush drove an ex-girlfriend to an abortion clinic and paid for her to get an abortion. Then you go to an anti-immigration Web site chat room and ask, 'What's all this about George Bush proposing amnesty for illegal aliens?'" The strategy has been frequently attempted on LGF and elsewhere, but has not been nearly as effective as Moby envisioned, since false rumors are easily debunked by fact-checking minions, and cartoonishly extreme commenters often get immediately identified as mobys and banned from LGF.

[Porchlight]

Someone who comes on a blog and pretends to be a regular or a sympathizer, but then makes outrageous statements, in the hope that his/her opinion will be seen as representative of the blog. IOW if a lib troll poses as a fellow conservative on JOM and makes racist statements in order to make JOMers look bad.

[Jane]

Ugh - thanks for the explaination.

[Rocco]

Yesterday I posted a toast to Sergeant Crowley with a youtube of the Boston PD bagpipe band. I used Boston instead of Cambridge because of the bagpipes and also because of the extreme amount publicity, thanks to our President! So if I've caused anyone confusion, I apologize.

I made that post then did a bit of work around here and later went on an errand where I heard Justin Barrett's lawyer on the radio. How's my timing? First let me state emphatically that what this guy did was so wrong it's indefensible. And it's a shame this will reflect poorly on Sergeant Crowley who I'm convinced did nothing wrong. Barrett's lawyer said he was more worried about his National Guard dicipline because conduct unbecoming will land him in the stockade.

Perhaps instead of drooling over a Guinness, I should have been thinking about PFC Bowe Bergdahl!

[Dave (in MA)]

Rocco, were you listening to the Jay Severin show last evening? He basically recused himself from the interview with the guy's lawyer in favor of the host (McPhee) from the next time slot, I'm guessing it was due to his own recent troubles being suspended due to ethnically-insensitive comments that he made on his show and not simply in deference to her journalistic background like he was suggesting.

After hearing Barrett's lawyer I felt that he was a bigoted horse's ass, but that it shouldn't cause him to lose his job because it was sent to his friends from a private e-mail account. Then I read that he sent the letter to the Boston Globe and identified himself--that's what makes it an issue for the BPD and to me justifies firing the guy.

[Jane]

I'd like to see the You Tube Rocco!

[Rocco]

Dave

Yes I was listening to Severin, although I must admit I don't really care for him anymore since he started calling Bush a war criminal. I do like McPhee and Graham however.

Jane

I probably shouldn't have posted it since it was kind of a tribute to Crowley from Cambridge but here it is

[Jane]

WoW Rocco - that was amazing!

As for Jay Severin, I stopped listening to him about 6 years ago. His arrogance absolutely did me in.

I had dinner with Michael Graham recently for a republican fund raiser. I got to ask him a bunch of radio questions.

As for McPhee, I want her spot.

[glenda]

Jane..
and my other good MA friends, I don't understand the video's meaning--was this an attempt to associate Crowley with this? Please excuse my vacuity on this, and I'm not too proud to ask what's going on.

[PeterUK.]

"What's a "moby"?"

A dick.

[glenda]

PeterUK....now, I understand that!!! I will never forget the horror on my children's faces when their Dad (first timer) at Jack-N-the-Box ordered their fish sandwiches by saying I'd like 2 Moby Dicks, instead of Moby Jacks. Ah...the 70's!!

[Jane]

It was just a raucous celebration including the police. It was St Paddy's day which is huge in Boston and the year after 911 - so I saw it as about solidarity. Now Rocco can tell me I'm nuts.

[Neo]

BLACK POWER,BLACK LOVE,BLACK UNITY,BLACK MINDS,KILLIN CRAKKKAS LUN

He's only a member of the 14th Ward Democratic party committee in Philadelphia.

[Rhodey]

How about some factual information concerning the prize twit Prof.Gates He with the almight chip on his shoulder appeared in the series Great Railway Journeys of the world, a BBC documentary 1996.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Railway_Journeys
It states as follows -:Great Zimbabwe to Kilimatinde
Henry Louis Gates Jr
Celebrated black American scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr explores his African roots on a 2,000-mile trip back to the Tanzanian bush village where he did voluntary work as a teenager. Accompanied by his wife and daughters, he travels on the Chinese-built Tazara railway, visits the ruins of an ancient black civilisation in Zimbabwe and marvels at the majestic Victoria Falls.
So much for being scholarly and his African roots.Afro American slaves came from the West Coast of Africa thousands of miles from Rhodesia/Zimbabwe. Its like saying you are Portuguese American and your roots are in Lisbon, so you go to Warsaw - the distance is about the same.
Also to this day the Zimbabwean Ruins have defied any archeological label as to who built them.

In the actual film where Mr Gates has no verbal control he asks an African child whether life is okay in Zimbabwe,but it then greeted with the comment that life under Mr Ian Smith was a lot better than under Robert Mugabe.

[DrJ]

I'm getting into this conversation very late, but...

The Cambridge Police Department is to the Boston Police Department as the Berkeley Police Department is to the Oakland Police Department.

While I don't know the Boston-area police forces, I suspect this is right. FWIW, I have found the Berkeley police to be superb. I witnessed a shooting there about a decade ago, and the manner in which the police handled the affair was outstanding. They found the shooter a few hours later, and I took a ride with one to do the identification. Great guy, and very professional.

The shooter ultimately plead guilty to attempted murder.

The Oakland cops, on the other hand, you simply don't mess with. They are much like the Chicago ones, only less patient. There is a night-and-day difference between them and those in Berkeley.

[Rocco]

Jane
McPhee's my 2nd favorite female host.

glenda
It was foolish of me to post that video of the Boston PD and link it to Sgt Crowley. But when Obama announced to the world Cambridge PD's "stupidity", I thought someone reading about this in...Rangoon might not recognize Cambridge but they'll probably know Big Brother Boston right next door. I was thinking about beer, Irish beer, now I wish I was drunk, at least I'd have an excuse!