White House Tries to Justify Obama's Statement about Gates Case

The White House tried Thursday to calm a hubbub over President Barack Obama's comments about a white police officer's arrest of a black scholar near Boston, saying Obama was not calling the officer "stupid."

Spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters that Obama felt that when it was clear that Harvard University scholar Louis Gates Jr. was not a burglary suspect last week, "at that point, cooler heads on all sides should have prevailed."

At a Wednesday news conference, Obama had said that the Cambridge, Massachusetts, police "acted stupidly" by citing Gates on a resisting arrest charge, which was quickly dropped. He had not faulted the actions of Gates, who he said is a friend.

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Obama Comments Speaks on Gates arrest

 

President Barack Obama said Wednesday that police acted "stupidly" in the arrest of prominent black scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. and that despite racial progress blacks and Hispanics are still singled out unfairly for arrest.

"This still haunts us," Obama said.

Obama called Gates a friend, and said he doesn't know all the facts of the case. Nonetheless, Obama said, anyone would have been angry if treated the way Gates claims police in Cambridge, Mass., treated him. Gates claims he was arrested in his own home after showing ID to police who responded to a report of a possible burglary.

"Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof he was in own home," Obama said during a prime-time news conference that otherwise focused on the health care debate.

"What I think we know separate and apart from this incident is that there's a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately," Obama said. "That's just a fact."

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