Police debate Obama's remark

LOS ANGELES -- To some police officers, President Barack Obama was merely speaking the truth about how a certain department behaved in a difficult situation. To others, he committed the unpardonable sin of sticking his nose where it does not belong.

When Obama accused Cambridge, Mass., police officers Wednesday of acting "stupidly" when they arrested his friend, Harvard University scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr., he reignited smoldering feelings in departments across the country about race, police practices and citizen obligations.

Gates accused the officer of racism, a charge the officer denied.

Two well-known retired police chiefs -- Norm Stamper of Seattle and Joseph McNamara of San Jose -- agreed that Obama's language was inflammatory. Though Stamper said the president's candid remark could provoke some necessary self-examination by police officers, McNamara took a different view.

"My personal belief is that had professor Gates been white, the outcome would have been different," Stamper said. Although the incident could have ended in a handshake and "maybe even a couple of chuckles ... it ended up becoming a huge national issue."

Stamper said Gates was acting as "a true American" -- somebody who has "a healthy skepticism about authority." The officer "lured him outside ... and cuffed him up."

McNamara said he thought the officer had acted appropriately right up until the moment he decided to arrest Gates, which he thought unnecessary. But Obama, he said, made a big mistake.

"He really hurt the police terribly," said McNamara, a research fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. "What bothers me is the tremendous stature that President Obama has with the minority community." Obama's comment, he said, will lead to "a very unfortunate and tremendous setback for police efforts that have been impressive over the 50 years since I became a policeman."

Obama, McNamara said, "spoke with his heart and not with his head, as he should have -- as an attorney and the president of the United States."

But to Atlanta Police Officer Antonio Matos, who is black, even if Gates had berated Cambridge Sgt. James Crowley, as alleged in the police report, "That should have been the end of it. In our profession we're supposed to have thick skin. You can't take things personally."

The incident at Gates' house on July 16 unraveled quickly.