Word: arrested
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Here is what the absurdist, typically stilted language of Sergeant James Crowley's report on the arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. really means...
...Gates: You're not the boss of me! Crowley: I am the boss of you. Gates: You are not the boss of me! Crowley: I'll show you. You're under arrest...
...Unless you confess to a crime or threaten to commit a crime, there is nothing you can say to a cop that makes it legal for him to arrest you. You can tell him he is stupid, you can tell him he is ugly, you can call him racist, you can say anything you might feel like saying about his mother. He has taken an oath to listen to all of that and ignore it. That is the real teachable moment here: cops are paid to be professionals, but even the best of them are human and can make stupid...
...have an uncomfortable choice with Sergeant Crowley. Either he didn't know what disorderly conduct is or he decided to show Gates who's boss the only way he knew how - by whipping out his handcuffs and abusing his power to arrest. Police make the latter choice in this country every day, knowing the charges are going to have to be dropped. (See TIME's 10 Questions for Henry Louis Gates...
...some black, TV talking heads obviously believe that Gates was stupid if he actually exercised his constitutional right to say anything he felt like saying to a cop. Because they know it is not terribly difficult to provoke U.S. police to violate their oaths and the law and arrest people for no legal reason...