In Massachusetts It Is Illegal to Break Into Your Own Home

Here's an article in the Washington Post about a Harvard professor arrested for breaking into his own home. He provided identification for himself showing the house to be his home, but they arrested him anyway. Thank goodness the cops in Massachusetts are undeterred by truth or fact. When they want to arrest you, they just damn well arrest you!

Gates was arrested Thursday at his home near Harvard University after trying to force open the locked front door. In a news release today, the Cambridge police department called the arrest "regrettable and unfortunate" and said the charge, disorderly conduct, had been dropped.

I love it... the police get to arrest you, drag you out of your own house, and then say "oops!" and the whole mess is supposed to just "all go away".

On second thought... maybe not. Gates is hopping mad and not ready for this to "all go away":

Henry Louis Gates Jr., one of the nation's most prominent scholars of African-American history, cast his recent arrest in his home in Cambridge, Mass., as part of a "racial narrative" playing out in a biased criminal justice system. Shortly before the charge against him was dropped this afternoon, the Harvard professor who has spent much of his life studying race in America said he has come to feel like a case study.

"There are one million black men in jail in this country and last Thursday I was one of them," he said in an interview with The Washington Post Tuesday morning. "This is outrageous and that this is how poor black men across the country are treated everyday in the criminal justice system. It's one thing to write about it, but altogether another to experience it."

...

"Instinctively, I knew I was not to step outside," Gates said, describing the officer's tone as threatening. Gates said the policeman, who was in his 30s and several inches taller than him, followed him into his kitchen where Gates retrieved his identification

"I was thinking, this is ridiculous, but I'm going to show him my ID, and this guy is going to get out of my house," Gates said. "This guy had this whole narrative in his head. Black guy breaking and entering."

After handing the officer both his Harvard and Massachusetts state identification, which included his address, Gates said he began to ask the officer this question, repeatedly. "I said 'Who are you? I want your name and badge number.' I got angry."

According to Gates's account, the officer refused to give it. The police report says, however, that the officer identified himself.

"I weigh 150 lbs and I'm 5' 7''. I'm going to give flack to a big white guy with a gun. I might wolf later, but I won't wolf then."

It is interesting how -- after the fact -- the police reports always "prove" that the police scrupulously followed the law. However, during the actual incident it is always hards to find anybody to substantiate that the police carefully heeded of the letter of the law.

Bottom line: when the police refuse to abide by the law, you have a real problem. An individual is completely at the mercy of a system that has infinite resources to make that person's life miserable. In this case, Gates has power and status, so he can bellow and people will listen to him. Too many "little people" simply get swallowed up by a legal system where the police ignore laws, prosecutors don't bother with facts, and the judge dozes through the court hearing. This makes a mockery of justice. I accurate imitates "blind Justice" but not in the sense intended.