The Dr. Gates – Sgt. Crowley Collision at Harvard: A Lesson in Context

The meeting between Dr. Henry Louis Gates and Sgt. James Crowley at the White House certainly served its function, which seems to be an effort at closure. Perhaps the summit helped both men clear their air, in front of two highly-interested spectators/moderators, in President Obama and Vice President Biden.

As a retired police sergeant myself, and the author of five tactical books on police officer safety, I always look on these events where racial profiling is the concern, by thinking about the context in which most police officers function. In nearly every situation, the thoughts in the back of their minds are usually oriented around two basic fears: Will I be hurt or killed in this encounter? Will I have my authority questioned?

The first issue is basic human survival. Everyone already knows what the police officer does for a living; it's on display. The officer doesn't know what the person he or she is contacting has done or wants to do, in terms of criminal activity. Further, the person being stopped or contacted may have just done something that he is certain the officer already knows about, and the cop is there to arrest him for it. The officer may not know what just happened and when the suspect responds with violence to escape, hurt, or kill the officer, it comes as a shock.

We saw this in Oakland in April 2009 when the suspect who shot and killed the two Oakland PD motor officers (and later killed two SWAT officers in a barricaded apartment), thought they were there to arrest him for the rape of a 12 year-old child, where his DNA just came back with a match and the warrant was being put into the system.

So Fear #1 is the fear of death, since there is always at least one gun at ever police contact (his or her own service weapon).

Fear #2 is connected to the officer's use of authority. The vast majority of people, when stopped by the police, comply with the officer's requests for information or ID. Most people pull over when the red lights come on; most people stop when the officer asks them a question. A small number of people resist immediately or defy the officer's legal authority to stop them. This creates tremendous tension in the officer. Because so many people comply, when someone doesn't, the officer is usually temporarily shocked, and when he or she recovers, he or she often responds with a level of anger, force, or the need to overly-exert authority to remind the other person who is really in charge. If people ran away or drove away at high speeds every time the cops tried to stop them, we would have anarchy in the world.

Most people comply, even hard street crooks, who know the process. When Dr. Gates didn't cooperate and played the "don't you know who I am?" game, Sgt. Crowley may have responded with Fear #1 (Is this guy a burglar trying to break into this house?) and Fear #2 (Why is this guy defying my legal authority to question him about what is going on?).

The collision between these two fears is prevalent in law enforcement, especially when backing down from a confrontation (something men aren't great at anyway), is not rewarded in police work. A long-term study by the FBI concluded what many cops already know: Officer Friendly gets killed by opportunistic crooks who seem him or her as weak; Officer Aggressive gets injured or killed, because everything turns into a battle; and Officer Assertive lives to work another day because he or she knows the difference between too little authority and too much.

Both of these guys painted themselves into a corner on the day in question. Understanding context is critical in law enforcement and I hope, at Harvard.

Dr. Steve Albrecht, PHR, CPP is a San Diego-based speaker and writer on high-risk HR and security issues. He can be reached at drsteve@drstevealbrecht.com.