To make a long story short, in 1991 I was stopped for speeding, eastbound on Interstate 20, in Callahan County, Texas, by a Department of Public Safety trooper. As I remember, his name was West. This happened in early afternoon, on a Sunday.
On the shoulder, I got out of my rental car, and he got out of his cruiser. He was burly, and belligerent. Approaching me, hatless, he said in a loud voice, "Sir, I have three charges against you." As I say, it was a long story. The point is, as soon as I heard his tone, I knew he wanted to arrest me. For the next 15 minutes, he behaved toward me in a way that invited a reaction. The instant I did react, he would charge me with resisting an officer, and I would be arrested. That was what I believed. At one point, he said he was going to take me before the county justice of the peace, and if, on a Sunday, that official was not in his office, "then you are going to JAIL!"
I am not kidding, He said it exactly like that. My burden during this time was to keep quiet and give short, respectful answers. Finally he commanded me to follow him off the interstate into Baird, the county seat. We stopped in front of the Callahan County Courthouse. I got out of my car. After 10 minutes, he got out of his. He said the JP was not in his office, and that the fine was $68. I would have to pay the exact fine in cash. If I did not have exactly $68, he said, "you are going to JAIL!"
I had the exact $68: three twenties, a five, and three ones. Did they feel good. I held them out to him. He said, furiously: "Sir, I am not going to take your money!" He had me hold up the bills, one at a time, while he copied the serial numbers onto a document on his clipboard. To this day, I think of that $68 as bail before jail. He handed me a copy of the document and an official envelope and instructed me to place the money and the document in the envelope and drop it into a mailbox at the curb where we were parked. Then he turned, and walked back to his cruiser.
I felt compelled to say something. "Sorry for the trouble," I said. His back to me, getting into his car, he said, "No trouble, sir, I ENJOYED it." He drove up the street to the corner and turned right. I went back to the interstate and drove on, ashamed for the longest time of being proud to be a Texan.
Now we have a cop-citizen confrontation in the national headlines because the citizen is well known and the President is involved. Present indications are that the arresting officer is not a bad cop. If he is, then he's been caught and deserves every penalty that can be thrown at him. If he isn't, then he deserves, in his actions, a benefit of doubt. All cops – the good ones – carry the same burden as journalists, as they go about their duties. They are trained to react to things that "just don't look right." This cop, Crowley, was arriving at a scene that had been reported to him as a possible break-in. He needed things to look right in a hurry.
Unfortunately, he was dealing with a suspect who had just gotten off a long flight from China, had a cold, found his front door stuck, and was a black historian with personal and professional knowledge of racial profiling. The burdens, in that living room confusion, were real, on both sides. There may have been other ways to resolve the situation, but I know of one that was sure to work. If it worked on a bad Texas cop setting speed traps (I was going 71 in a 70 zone; I checked as soon as I saw the westbound cop power-slide across the median to fall in behind me), it would work on a good, presumably, Massachusetts cop who only needed help figuring things out. Professor Gates, with all respect, couldn't do anything about the cop's burden, but he could do something about his.
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