Police tactics vary

Sgt. James M. Crowley, left, at a news conference Friday.








Police departments issue their officers Kevlar vests to stop bullets, and thick helmets and even shields to protect them from bottles and bricks. But there is nothing in the equipment room to give an officer thicker skin. That tool — as vital to an officer’s safety and the public’s as anything clipped to his belt — is developed in training, and its strength differs from one officer to the next.

The issue of tolerance, in fact, lies at the heart of the dispute surrounding the arrest of the Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. in Cambridge, Mass. The police say Professor Gates was arrested and briefly charged with disorderly conduct after he ignored warnings to stop haranguing an officer who had asked him for identification inside his home.

Though Professor Gates said he was not abusive and was the victim of racism, the police report said he told Sgt. James M. Crowley, “I’ll speak with your mama outside.”

Two people have very different versions of the incident.

Several officers interviewed in four cities on Friday said they tried to ignore such remarks. Others said they had zero tolerance for being treated disrespectfully in public.

Respect: I insist on it, but have some tolerance for it not being fully accorded. However, a police officer has a significantly more delicate, touchy.

A mounted police officer who has been with the Los Angeles Police Department for 25 years said that taking verbal abuse was a regular part of his job.

“We don’t get to tell people what they want to hear,” said the Los Angeles officer, who, like others interviewed for this article, spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid being quoted on duty. “Whether we’re giving them a ticket or responding to some conflict between a husband and wife, we’re not dealing with people at their best, and if you don’t have a tough skin, then you shouldn’t be a cop.”

Excellent point.

“I wouldn’t back down if there’s a crowd gathering,” the Brooklyn officer said, in part out of concern of sending a message of weakness that could haunt another officer later. “We’re a band of brothers. We have to be there to help each other out. If there’s a group and they’re throwing out slurs and stuff, you have to handle it.”

A 13-year veteran of the Denver police force, who did not wish to give his name, said likewise. “We’re not going to take abuse,” he said. “We have to remain in control. We’re running the show.”

Running the show?

But Robert Anderson, with the same department five years, said he tried to “let people vent” if they grew irate. “People usually aren’t happy to see the police,” he said. “They’d rather see a fireman.”

Cops and firefighters were many of the Little League coaches I knew, and his point is spot-on.

In New York, State Senator Eric Adams, a retired New York City police captain and co-founder of the group 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement, said the rules for dealing with someone differed by setting.

“If it’s their house, they’re allowed to call you all sorts of names,” Mr. Adams said. “A man’s house is his castle. If they’re in the street, and they don’t listen to the officer’s warning, ‘Sir, you’re being disorderly,’ you can lock them up at this time.”

Not that the officer necessarily should, he said.

“Let’s say I do a stop,” Mr. Adams said. “I question, and it’s nothing. ‘Sir, I’m sorry, I apologize.’ What’s the reason for staying, if the anger’s directed at me? If it’s directed at a third party, a storekeeper, I stay.”

But if the officer himself is the provocation, the officer should leave, he said, and added that Sergeant Crowley did not use such common sense.

They might be finally gettin' it

“It’s kind of like we all went overboard,” said Ms. Taylor, 33. “And we’re trying to get back to where we should have been.”

Kind of like.

It is a sign of the times when Sacha Taylor, a fixture on the charity circuit in this gala-happy city, digs out a 10-year-old dress to wear to a recent society party.

The other side of apologizing

Potomac-Land has rituals: one is apologizing (Jesse Jackson: I do not want to hurt Obama's campaign, even though in private – wink, wink; nod, nod– I said I thought he was blaming black folks unfairly and want to cut his nuts off); another is denying blame.

Witness the imbroglio of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac being bailed out.

For years, Washington officialdom enabled Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the congressionally chartered mortgage companies, to grow until they dominated the U.S. market. Now lawmakers are confronting the result: a crisis of confidence in the two companies that raises questions about whether they can make it through the deep downturn that has struck the real-estate market. And nobody wants to get stuck with the blame.

Someone has to be responsible. It didn't just happen; the legislation was crafted, considered, and passed. So, who did it?

Lobbyists from the companies are said to have strongly influenced the 1992 legislation, particularly in the House Banking Committee, whose chairman then was Rep. Henry Gonzalez, a Texas Democrat. Critics of the companies say that Rep. Barney Frank (D., Mass.), the current chairman of the committee, also helped put forth the companies' arguments. Mr. Frank now is widely regarded as a strong voice for tougher regulation. "I've been a supporter of their role in housing, but I've been pushing for some time to improve the regulation," he said in a telephone interview on Monday. As for the legislation in the early 1990s, he said he doesn't recall being involved in weakening it.

There it is: I don't recall.

Fannie and Freddie issue debt to the public in order to buy up home mortgages from banks. They hold some of those mortgages as investments and securitize the rest, adding a guarantee of repayment in the event homeowners default. By now, Fannie and Freddie own or guarantee about $5 trillion in mortgages, almost half of the U.S. total.

Last week it was $15 trillion. $5 trillion is too big to disappear.

Congress created Fannie as a government agency during the Great Depression, to encourage banks to lend. Fannie continued to function as a government-run agency during the 1940s and 1950s, even as it took steps toward privatization. In 1968, President Lyndon Johnson decided to turn Fannie into a shareholder-owned company as part of a broader housing bill. Mr. Johnson proclaimed that the new Fannie Mae would "close an important gap in the existing network of financial institutions." In fact, administration officials acknowledged that the move actually was aimed at shifting Fannie's growing operations off the government's books.

Another facet is the history of these GSEs: the first part, of helping to provide liquidity to the loan markets, was good, noble, and it worked. The next part, despite LBJ's rhetoric, of moving them off the government's books is, in the least, questionable. If they got moved off the government's books, where did they wind up?

Investors continued to assume that Fannie's debt carried the full faith and credit of the U.S. government, however. Congress did little to dispel that idea, bestowing a range of breaks on the companies, as well as other government ties.

Wink, wink; nod, nod.

The companies' operations suited a lot of other people, too: home builders, real-estate agents, Wall Street investment houses and politicians. And, of course, the companies have helped millions of people buy homes, particularly in times of economic uncertainty.

Potomac-Land apology

Even Jesse Jackson apologizes. This is an incident which provides a glaring contrasts between generations. Story headline is Jesse Jackson Apologizes for Remarks on Obama.

Mr. Jackson, before an interview with a Fox News anchor on a different topic, sharply criticized Mr. Obama for how he has been referring to African-Americans. He specifically took issue with how Mr. Obama had singled out black men in recent speeches for failing to uphold their responsibility as fathers.

Jackson is in his sixties, Obama in his forties. But more than age, it is a generational outlook and attitude that is at play here: Jesse comes from the Civil Rights struggle, from Operation PUSH, from when black people had to fight for their rights; Barack comes from the post-Civil Rights age, and is a politician who is running for president and has a serious chance to win.

Mr. Jackson, who sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988, has been a supporter of Mr. Obama. He has played no formal role in the campaign, but tensions have occasionally flared behind the scenes with Mr. Jackson, who is known for his outspokenness and his penchant for drawing attention to himself.

That last phrase is key: perhaps there is an element of jealousy at play: Jesse always had to be the center of attention, and is not now.

Mr. Obama’s candidacy has served as an example of a generational and stylistic shift in black political leadership in America. The remarks drew an unusually stern rebuke from Representative Jesse Jackson Jr., Democrat of Illinois, who also serves as a national co-chairman of Mr. Obama’s presidential campaign.

“Reverend Jackson is my dad, and I’ll always love him,” the congressman said Wednesday evening in a statement. He added, “I thoroughly reject and repudiate his ugly rhetoric. He should keep hope alive and any personal attacks and insults to himself.”

That is a stinging rebuke. Deserved.