Gates was arrested for loud and tumultuous behavior. Here's how it went down:
It was early afternoon when Gates, 58, reached his house by taxi. The front door was stuck, so he entered through the back door, disabled the alarm and then again tried to push open the front door with the help of the north African taxi driver.
A woman walking by saw a black man trying to force the door, called 911, and hapless Sgt James Crowley arrived.
He asked Gates to step outside as he was investigating a report of a break-in. "Why, because I'm a black man in America?" Gates asked, according to Crowley's police report, refusing to leave his front room.
Asked to prove it was his own home, Gates showed his Harvard ID and local driving licence. In return, Gates asked Crowley for his name and badge number. "This guy had this whole narrative in his head: black guy breaking and entering," Gates told the Washington Post.
In his report, Crowley said Gates accused him of being a racist and told him he had no idea who he was messing with. The officer wrote that when asked Gates to step outside again, he responded: "I'll speak with your mama outside."
"I was quite surprised and confused with the behavior he exhibited toward me," the sergeant said. Crowley called more officers from Cambridge and from Harvard's own police, and Gates was arrested.
As you can see, Gates right off the bat was combative and acted like a fool. If he simply would have complied everything would have gone smoothly, but instead decided to take up the racist narrative from the jump and even gave subtle threats to the officer. If anyone "acted stupidly" it was Gates.
The hilarious part is that Gates accuses the officer of having the narrative of black guy breaking and entering, when he was the one with the narrative. Cop racist.