<p>@Smoda + cdz, thanks for the quotes tips. Finally…</p>
<p>@cdz, we are focusing on the legality/morality of Crowley’s actions when we are discussing the restraining orders. I know that their is no restraining order, you don’t have to convince me! This is all about whether Crowley reasonably realized the possibility of a restraining order, and contacted the Harvard Police because of a potential restraining order. All I am doing is assessing what Crowley thought at the time and whether he acted reasonably.</p>
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<p>Sorry if I did not make it clear, but I am talking about what was going through the mind of the police officer (who has not yet verified who Gates is), not the actuality of a restraining order. The actuality of the restraining order is irrelevant. Your whole paragraph deducing the fact that their was no restraining order is also irrelevant. You see, I misunderstood you, because you misunderstood me, lol. I falsely assumed that because you were responding to my quote about Crowley’s mindset, you intended your paragraph to be about just that: Crowley’s mindset concerning the possibility of a restraining order. </p>
<p>I think we are now on the same page, lol? So in your argument about search warrants and restraining orders, you are just describing the general process and not its connection with the policeman and his subsequent actions, I got it. But in that case, those paragraphs are irrelevant in determining whether the cop overstepped his boundaries and whether he is indeed racist (our main debate topic). I know I talked about search warrants on files (which also had nothing to do with this case). So lets just agree to drop those topics and focus on the the innocence/guilt of Crowley/Gates, ok? In my opinion, this debate is getting clustered with a bunch of irrelevant side-debates which overcomplicate our argument</p>
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<p>Now I am assuming you are talking about Crowley’s responsibility to know the ownership of the house, if a restraining order did exist; therefore, removing the need to contact the Harvard police? (just to be clear).</p>
<p>I agree with the process you described in your paragraph up until that quote ^^. Yes, in the case of a restraining order, the police would have a file; however, like I said earlier, policeman do not carry/review restraining order files when alerted of an emergency robbery. So, on the spot, Crowley could not verify there was a restraining order. Anyways, that was not his assumption, only a possibility. And it would just be time consuming for him to call the police office and check on the possibility of a restraining order, especially when the possibility of a robber still remains.</p>
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<p>Alright.</p>
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<p>Yea, I thought you were talking about Crowley and his specific “police” unit because during the course of this whole argument, police was synonymous to that specific unit. </p>
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<p>I don’t know much about restraining orders, but I do know that police would not waste a whole policeman/squad to monitor every restraining order. Restraining orders deal with the punishment of someone who makes contact with someone else illegally, NOT the prevention of that contact: “When the abuser does something that the court has ordered him or her not to do, or fails to do something the court has ordered him or her to do, that is a violation of the order. The victim can ask the police or the court, or both, depending on the violation, to enforce the order.” -wiki
Thats how they are enforced. So in this specific case, there could have been a restraining order and not a monitoring unit. </p>
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<p>Yea, I used the wrong word to describe the situation, my bad. What I meant to say was that CNN omitted a section of Crowley worrying about his own safety as he was assessing the situation with Gates. And just to be clear: I thought Crowley’s safety worries were “rightly so” not CNN’s omission of the article- that part of the sentence was also vague, sorry about that.</p>
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<p>Once again, I am not talking about the actuality of the situation. That quote, by me, inside the quote box is to describe Crowley’s motive for asking Gates to step outside. It does not matter whether Gates knows there is no robber (I know he knows that). What matters is that Gates has to follow Crowley’s procedures nonetheless because he is legally following the Standard Operating Procedures of such a situation, and he has the authority to diffuse the situation, not Gates. </p>
<p>I brought up the case of Gates talking to the police to explain the rationality of the arrest. It wasn’t a counter-argument to anything you said. Just an additional detail.</p>
<p>I can relate with you, this argument is time consuming, lol. For some reason, all long lasting arguments on CC tend to start out small, then become a large heap of side-arguments. I just personally like to argue about certain issues, though I am not very good at it. I agree though, after 5-10 posts, it gets old. I would understand if you can’t respond back.</p>