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Obama rushes to quell racial uproar he helped fire

(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-07-25 14:08

Gibbs said just Friday morning that the president had probably said most of what he was going to say, and that the only problem was media "obsession."

Hours later, Obama showed up to try to put the issue to rest.

Cambridge Police Sergeant James M. Crowley listens as representatives of various police unions speak in support of Sergeant Crowley at a news conference in Cambridge, Massachusetts July 24, 2009. Sergeant Crowley last week arrested prominent black scholar and Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. after responding to a call about a break-in at Gates' home in Cambridge. [Agencies]

There were signs both that Obama's statement had helped to ease tensions and that his critics were not about to let that be the end of it: A trio of Massachusetts police organizations issued a statement thanking the president for his "willingness to reconsider his remarks." The statement said Crowley was "profoundly grateful" Obama was trying to resolve the situation. But a Republican congressman from Michigan, Thaddeus McCotter, said he would introduce a House resolution calling on Obama to apologize to Crowley.

Obama tried to lighten his tone in his public remarks about his phone conversation with Crowley.

He said the police officer "wanted to find out if there was a way of getting the press off his lawn."

"I informed him that I can't get the press off my lawn," Obama joked.

In his conversation with Gates, aides said, Obama and the professor had spoken about the president's statement to the press and his conversation with Crowley.

The case began on Monday, when word broke that Gates, 58, had been arrested five days earlier at the two-story home he rents from Harvard.

Supporters including Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson called the arrest an outrageous act of racial profiling. Public interest increased when a photograph surfaced of the handcuffed Gates being escorted off his porch amid three officers, two white and one black.

Cambridge police moved to drop the disorderly conduct charge on Tuesday - without apology, but calling the case "regrettable."

That didn't end the national debate: Some said Gates was responsible for his own arrest because of his response to Crowley, while others said Gates was justified to yell at the officer.

Obama's criticism of the police only added fuel to the racial debate.

Related readings:  Obama stokes racial passions, police anger  Charges dropped against Harvard professor-report  Professor's arrest riles African-Americans  Obama pushes for healthcare reform

Meanwhile, the police union and fellow officers, black and white, rallied around Crowley, a decorated officer who in 1993 tried to give lifesaving mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to Reggie Lewis, a black Boston Celtics player who collapsed at practice. Lewis could not be revived.

Crowley, 42, had been selected to be a police academy instructor on how to avoid racial profiling.

A multiracial group of officers and union officials stood with Crowley on Friday at a news conference to show support and to ask Obama and Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, who is black, to apologize for their comments. Patrick had called Gates' arrest "every black man's nightmare."

Obama's take on the situation: "My sense is you've got two good people in a circumstance in which neither of them were able to resolve the incident in a way that it should have been resolved."

Democratic activists around the country were hopeful the president's latest remarks would quell the uproar.

"Let's concentrate on the business at hand - fixing the economy and health care for everybody," said Florida state Rep. Luis Garcia, a vice chair of the state Democratic Party.

In Michigan, 19-year-old Mitchell Rivard, the president of the Michigan State University College Democrats, expressed hope the controversy would indeed be a learning experience for the country.

"I think it's going to make people talk about race relations around the United States and in their hometowns," Rivard said. "This will be something that people are going to talk about across the nation in terms of how we can have better race relations."

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