MORE ON THE GATES CASE - AT 8:20 A.M. ET:  As we said in our first post this morning, this is growing and growing.

Now other police officers, black and white, are coming to the defense of the white cop who arrested Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., in Cambridge, Massachusetts, home of the elite of the elite of the very elite.  We're talking Harvard and MIT.

This, from the Cape Cod Times, published in another high-toned area: 

CAMBRIDGE -- Supporters say the white policeman who arrested renowned black scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. in his home is a principled police officer and family man who is being unfairly described as racist.

Friends and fellow officers - black and white - say Sgt. James Crowley, who was hand-picked by a black police commissioner to teach recruits about avoiding racial profiling, is calm and reliable.

"If people are looking for a guy who's abusive or arrogant, they got the wrong guy," said Andy Meyer of Natick, Mass., who has vacationed with Crowley, coached youth sports with him and is his teammate on a men's softball team. "This is not a racist, rogue cop."

Gates accused the 11-year department veteran of being an unyielding, race-baiting authoritarian after Crowley arrested and charged him with disorderly conduct last week.

And...

For five of the past six years, Crowley has volunteered alongside a black colleague in teaching 60 cadets per year about how to avoid targeting suspects merely because of their race, and how to respond to an array of scenarios they might encounter on the beat. Thomas Fleming, director of the Lowell Police Academy, said Crowley was asked by former Cambridge police Commissioner Ronnie Watson, who is black, to be an instructor.

COMMENT:  Looks like President Obama and Professor Gates have some explaining to do.

July 24, 2009