Brandeis' Name Back in the News Again for all the Wrong Reasons

I was reading through the news today about the Cambridge Police officer who arrested Harvard scholar, Henry Louis Gates Jr., on the front steps of his house, and the scandal that has surrounded that, and I was quite surprised to see a connection to my alma mater, Brandeis University, and to the Boston Celtics. Via the Boston Globe:

"When Sergeant James M. Crowley climbed the front steps of Henry Louis Gates Jr.’s house last week and unexpectedly placed himself in international headlines, it was not the first time he had a memorable encounter in the line of duty with a prominent black man. Nearly 16 years ago, as a Brandeis University police officer, Crowley desperately tried to save the life of Reggie Lewis after the Boston Celtics star collapsed while practicing in the school gym....

Crowley was a certified emergency medical technician when he performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation on Lewis, to no avail, after the player’s heart stopped on July 27, 1993. In a Globe interview later that day, Crowley said he rushed to the university’s Shapiro Gymnasium, confirmed that Lewis had no pulse, and frantically tried to revive him."

Yeah...nice publicity for Brandeis. This story has gone beyond Massachusetts as President Obama has gotten involve and put a real racial charge into this incident.

And then Deadspin released a column titled "Cop Who Arrested Henry Louis Gates Not A Racist Because He Once Put His Lips On A Dying Black Athlete". Oh joy:

The Cambridge, Mass., cop who arrested (black) Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. is the same guy who tried to resuscitate a dying (and black) Reggie Lewis 16 years ago and is therefore in no way a racist, OK?

Reports the Boston Herald:

The Cambridge cop prominent Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. claims is a racist gave a dying Reggie Lewis mouth-to-mouth resuscitation in a desperate bid to save the Celtics superstar's life 16 years ago Monday.

"I wasn't working on Reggie Lewis the basketball star. I wasn't working on a black man. I was working on another human being," Sgt. James Crowley, in an exclusive interview with the Herald, said of the forward's fatal heart attack July 27, 1993, at age 27 during an off-season practice at Brandeis University, where Crowley was a campus police officer.

It's a date Crowley still can recite by rote - and he still recalls the pain he suffered when people back then questioned whether he had done enough to save the black athlete...

Crowley, 42, said he's not a racist, despite how some have cast his actions in the Gates case. "Those who know me know I'm not," he said.

So, because a black guy was dying in front of him, and because he was so broad-minded as to give this dying black guy mouth-to-mouth, Crowley is demonstrably not a racist. Got it.

Go Judges?