Perspectives: Broken U.S. Police Culture and Lack of Police Temperament Explain Gates-Crowley Encounter: I learned fast as a cop that the catchall arrest is called disorderly conduct. When a citizen dares to disagree with an officer, he or she goes to jail. Astonishingly, the prosecutor and the judge and the whole criminal justice system accept the officer's false account of events and probable cause. And, it happens again and again, but perhaps not anymore maybe now with less frequency because of an encounter between a small-city cop and a renowned university professor, Sgt. James Crowley and Dr. Henry Louis Gates. Now the way has been paved, for the first time in U.S. history, for Americans to address the problem of a U.S. police culture that holds that arrest and harm should come to a citizen who dares question the authority of a police officer.
