Gatesgate: Police Overzealousness in the Post-9/11 World

By now it's well known that, last week, Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. was arrested on his front porch after breaking into his own home when his front door was stuck after he returned from a trip to China. Professor Gates shouted racism when he was arrested for disorderly conduct, and was vocally upset at the officers for what he viewed as mistreatment due to his color. I'd like to argue that this goes beyond race, and instead is another example of police abuse of authority in the post-9/11 world. These days, police more often take a hard line response against minor threats to their authority, rather than let emotions run their course and demonstrate an understanding of human psychology.

If a citizen shows any sign of disrespect of authority, the police have clamped down, sometimes in outlandish ways. For people tracking the misuse of so-called "nonlethal" weapons such as the infamous and ubiquitous taser, there seems to be a new example every week. "Don't tase me bro" became a joke after University of Florida student Andrew Meyer pleaded with officers not to use the device on him at an event featuring Senator John Kerry in 2007.

More recently, a video of a peace-promoting naked man at the Coachella festival made the rounds in April when he was tasered after he refused to put on his clothes. Then there are the myriad reports of women, drunk or pregnant, who were tasered by overzealous cops:

Suspected drunk driver tasered at Sheffield Village police station in 2007.

Pregnant woman tasered by Seattle police for refusing to sign speeding ticket in 2004.

Even outside of taser use, police aggression rears its ugly head.

Another video shows a cop pushing a bicyclist, who was unfortunate enough to be within grabbing distance, off his bike and onto the street during Critical Mass, a bicycle protest event, in New York in 2008.

All of these examples demonstrate that in the post-9/11 world it is better to be aggressive if you are a police officer, even when the crime itself is debatable.

Editors note: Amnesty International has called tasers "potentially lethal." Recently an Australian man carrying gasoline burst into flames when he was tasered by cops.