Concerned Citizen’s 911 Call Begins the Debate

A Cambridge (Mass.) citizen who saw something suspicious, and who believed she ought to become involved was how a national debate began over law enforcement, race, President Obama and the two men at the center of the incident. The incident lifted Prof. Henry Gates Jr. and Sgt. James Crowley into a national spotlight, after Gates admittedly became irate when confronted by Crowley inside his home, and then was arrested for disorderly conduct. As it turned out, what neighbor Lucia Whalen saw was Gates and a limo driver trying to force the stuck door to Gates’ own home. But she only knew that two men were using their shoulders against the door of a nearby house. She dialed 911 and answered the unnamed dispatcher’s questions. Later, every word of the call would be played to the world from the logging tape, and studied by those who wondered if there was a hint of racism in Whalen’s voice or words. The logging tape of the CPD radio transmissions was also scrutinized. In the days after the call, Whalen was vilified on Internet blogs, mistakenly accused of racism for assuming two black men could only be burglars, and the President weighed in by saying the police “acted stupidly” to arrest Crowley. At the core, the incident demonstrates how routine questions asked by a calltaker about race can become part of a large national experience. Listen to Whalen’s 911 call, and to the radio transmissions.