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Gates-gate: Caller Disputes Account

By Robert J. Ambrogi

The woman who called the police in Cambridge, Mass., to report a possible break-in at the home of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. is now talking to the public -- through her attorney, at least. The woman, Lucia Whalen, has hired high-profile lawyer and TV commentator Wendy Murphy (pictured). Through Murphy, the woman issued a statement disputing the police account that she said two "black" men were breaking into the house, according to a report today in the Boston Herald. "This woman is 100 percent clear on what she said," Murphy said. "She never said she saw two black men. She said, 'It never crossed my mind that there were two black men.'" The woman wants the world to know that she is not a racist and is not even white -- she has "olive-colored skin and is of Portuguese descent," Murphy said. Whalen's account is at odds with the police report of the incident filed by Officer James Crowley. The report recounts that when Crowley arrived at the scene Whalen called out to him and identified herself as the person who had reported the possible break-in. "She went on to tell me that she observed what appeared to...

Full post as published by Legal Blog Watch on July 27, 2009 (boomark / email).