President Barack Obama Backs Away from “Stupid” Comment Regarding Harvard Professor’s Arrest

President Barack Obama has backed away from a comment he made regarding the arrest of a black Harvard professor, telling reporters he should not have called the actions of the Cambridge Police Department “stupid.”

Obama was responding to the growing controversy sparked by his remarks on Wednesday in which he addressed the events that led to the arrest of Henry Lewis Gates Jr. after being questioned about Gates’ arrest Obama declared, “I think it's fair to say, No. 1, any of us would be pretty angry. No. 2, that the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home. And No. 3 -- what I think we know separate and apart from this incident -- is that there is a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately, and that's just a fact.”

Gates was arrested at his home on July 16 after a neighbor called police and reported a man was attempting to break in to the house. When police arrived at the Massachusetts residence they eventually arrested Gates and charged him with disorderly conduct after he began yelling at the arresting officer, Sgt. James Crowley.

Gates claimed his arrest was a case of racial profiling but those accusations have been dismissed by the Cambridge Police Department which has defended the responding officers’ actions during the situation.

While the charges against Gates were dropped on Tuesday the case took on new life when Obama made his comments late Wednesday evening. By Thursday the story was the main lead for many outlets and on Friday Obama tried to calm the situation by telling reporters “Because this has been ratcheting up and I obviously helped to contribute ratcheting it up, I wanted to make clear in my choice of words I think I unfortunately gave an impression that I was maligning the Cambridge Police Department or Sgt Crowley specifically.” Obama went on to say, “I could have calibrated those words differently.”

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