American Morning
President's beer summit
[cnn-photo-caption image=http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/07/30/am.intv.sweet.gates.art.jpg caption="Sweet says a teachable moment of the beer summit would be one doesn't 'have to be trapped in an endless soundbite.'"]
Thursday President Obama will have Professor Gates and the man who arrested him Police Sergeant James Crowley, over to the white house for beers. He hopes the meeting will be a national "teachable moment.” The racially-charged debate's been a learning experience for the president, who helped create the rift with his response to this question at last week's news conference.
The reporter who asked the question, Lynn Sweet, Washington bureau chief for the Chicago Sun-Times spoke with CNN’s Carol Costello about the controversy.
Distracted driving: Senate to ban texting at the wheel
Laws against texting and driving could become as common as seat belt laws. A new bill in the Senate would require states to ban the habit, or risk losing federal highway money. Drivers are 23 times more likely to crash when they're texting. For the past ten years researchers at the University of Utah have been studying the affects of driving while using cell phones. Bottom line is whether texting, or talking hands free, you are increasing your chances of crashing. CNN’s Jason Carroll shows you this phenomenon.
'Jungle monkey' e-mail jeopardizes Boston officer's job
(CNN) - A Boston, Massachusetts, police officer who sent a mass e-mail in which he referred to Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. as "banana-eating" and a "bumbling jungle monkey" has been placed on administrative leave and faces losing his job.
Officer Justin Barrett, 36, who is also an active member of the National Guard, sent an e-mail to some fellow Guard members, as well as the Boston Globe, in which he vented his displeasure with a July 22 Globe column about Gates' controversial arrest.
The columnist, Yvonne Abraham, supported Gates' actions, asking readers, "Would you stand for this kind of treatment, in your own home, by a police officer who by now clearly has no right to be there?"
In his e-mail, which was posted on a local Boston television station's Web site, Barrett declared that if he had "been the officer he verbally assaulted like a banana-eating jungle monkey, I would have sprayed him in the face with OC [oleoresin capsicum, or pepper spray] deserving of his belligerent noncompliance."
Barrett used the "jungle monkey" phrase four times, three times referring to Gates and once referring to Abraham's writing as "jungle monkey gibberish."
He also declared he was "not a racist but I am prejudice [sic] towards people who are stupid and pretend to stand up and preach for something they say is freedom but it is merely attention because you do not get enough of it in your little fear-dwelling circle of on-the-bandwagon followers."
According to a statement from Boston police, Commissioner Edward Davis took action immediately upon learning of Barrett's remarks, stripping the officer of his gun and badge. Barrett is "on administrative leave pending the outcome of a termination hearing."
CNN has been unable to reach Barrett for comment.
Davis wants Barrett, a two-year veteran of the Boston police force, fired, a source close to the investigation said. But Barrett will continue to be paid while on administrative leave, and no date has been set for his termination hearing.
Caller in Gates case says she'd do it again
[cnn-photo-caption image=http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/07/30/art.lucia.whalen.gi.jpg caption="Lucia Whalen, who called 911 to report a possible break-in, speaks to reporters Wednesday."]
(CNN) - In her first public appearance, the woman who made the 911 call that led to the arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. said Wednesday she would make the call again if placed in the same situation.
The arrest and its aftermath have sparked accusations of racial profiling, and even President Obama has become involved. He plans to meet Thursday with Gates and the arresting officer, Sgt. James Crowley, at the White House.
Gates was arrested for disorderly conduct July 16 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, after he had shown Crowley that the home he was suspected of breaking into was his. The charge was later dropped.
"If you're a concerned citizen, you should do the right thing if you're seeing something that seems suspicious. I would do the same thing," Lucia Whalen said.
Whalen said she contacted police after an older woman with no cell phone told her she was worried that someone was trying to break into the house.
She said she was en route to lunch when the woman approached her.
"I thought: 'I'm the one with the cell phone. I should probably call'" police, she explained.
Although Whalen never referred to black suspects when she called authorities about the suspected break-in, the incident prompted a heated discussion across the nation on race relations in the United States.
Police released tapes Monday of her 911 call.
Beers at the White House: Teachable moment or photo op?
[cnn-photo-caption image=http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/07/29/am.intv.boyce.watkins.art.jpg caption="Watkins says there's something deeper going on."]
[cnn-photo-caption image=http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/07/29/am.intv.michael.fauntroy.art.jpg caption="Fauntroy says this is proxy for bigger issues."]
WASHINGTON (CNN) -A senior administration official said Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Sgt. James Crowley of the Cambridge, Massachusetts, Police Department will be visiting the White House Thursday.
The meeting among the three men will take place at 6 p.m. Thursday.
Last week, Obama said he called Crowley and "there was a discussion about he and I and Professor Gates having a beer here in the White House."
Gibbs said: "I think it was Sgt. Crowley's suggestion about the beer, and I think the president thought it was a good idea."
Obama said he hoped the incident in Cambridge, which quickly spiraled into a national and racially charged controversy, "ends up being what's called a teachable moment" for the country.
As President Obama gets ready to hoist beers at the White House tomorrow with Harvard professor Dr.Henry Louis Gates Jr. and the man who arrested him police sergeant James Crowley will this indeed be a "teachable moment" as the president hopes? Or just another photo op?
Boyce Watkins, a professor at Syracuse University and a resident scholar for AOL black voices and Michael Fauntroy, a professor at George Mason University and author of ‘Republicans and the Black Vote’ spoke with CNN’s John Roberts Wednesday.
Police search Jackson doctor's home, office
[cnn-photo-caption image=http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/07/29/art.conrad.murray.house.cnn.jpg caption="Investigators arrive at the Las Vegas, Nevada, home of Michael Jackson's personal physician."]
LAS VEGAS, Nevada (CNN) - Investigators searched the Las Vegas home and office of Michael Jackson's personal physician, Dr. Conrad Murray, on Tuesday morning, a Drug Enforcement Administration spokesman said.
Los Angeles police and DEA agents, carrying search warrants, were "looking for a lot of things," said Assistant Special Agent in Charge Mike Flanagan.
Aerial cameras showed investigators leaving Murray's home, three hours after they entered, carrying several containers.
The searches came a day after a source with knowledge of the investigation confirmed to CNN that Murray administered a powerful drug that authorities believe killed the singer.
Flanagan said that while he could not disclose details of the search warrants, because a judge had ordered them sealed, he confirmed they were looking for documents and computer records.
Murray's attorney, Ed Chernoff, issued a statement saying that officers from the DEA, Los Angeles police and "various local agencies" executed a search warrant at Murray's home and office beginning about 8 a.m. (11 a.m. ET) Tuesday.
"The search warrant authorized investigators to look for medical records relating to Michael Jackson and all of his reported aliases," the statement said. "Dr. Murray was present during the search of his home and assisted the officers."
Investigators left Murray's home about noon, he said, taking cell phones and a computer hard drive. "As of 2 p.m., the search at Dr. Murray's office continues," the statement said.
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