Cop Who Arrested Gates Teaches Racial-Profiling Class

The white police sergeant criticized by President Barack Obama for arresting black scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. at his Massachusetts home is a police-academy expert on racial profiling. Cambridge Sgt. James Crowley has taught a class on racial profiling for 5 years at the Lowell Police Academy after being hand-picked for the job by former police Commissioner Ronny Watson, who is black, the academy's director says.

"I have nothing but the highest respect for him as a police officer. He is very professional and he is a good role model for the young recruits in the police academy," Thomas Fleming said today. The course, called "Racial Profiling," teaches about different cultures that officers could encounter in their community "and how you don't want to single people out because of their ethnic background or the culture they come from," Fleming said. (More African Americans stories.)