Charges Against Gates Dropped

Cambridge officials announced Tuesday in a press release that a disorderly conduct charge against renowned Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. will be dropped, the Boston Herald reported.

Gates was arrested Thursday, July 16, after a woman reported seeing a man trying to pry open the front door of Gates’ home not knowing that the suspected intruder was Gates.

The Associated Press reported that police ordered the man to identify himself and that Gates refused. According to a police report, Gates then called the officer a racist and said, “This is what happens to Black men in America.”

The statement, issued by the city and Cambridge police, described the July 16 arrest of Gates as “regrettable and unfortunate.” It stated that the Middlesex County District Attorney’s Office has agreed to enter a nolle prosequi in this matter, which means the state will not pursue it.

After calling Crowley a racist, the Boston Herald reports, the professor was charged with disorderly conduct and released for a $40 fee.

Gates is the director of Harvard’s W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research.

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