Professor Gates Should Skip the Blather and Sue

"The problem with false arrest is cancerous in our communities," Temple told me. "Police are locking people up at will, using the charge of disorderly conduct as an opportunity to abuse people, to lock them up, instead of having meaningful exchanges with them."

The cases are pervasive, he said, and appear ever more egregious. Recent court rulings bear him out.

In April, for instance, New York City agreed to pay more than $250,000 to 16 black youths who were falsely arrested in the working-class, ethnically diverse Bushwick section of Brooklyn while walking to a friend's wake. Can you imagine 16 white youths being arrested while on their way to a wake?

In June, a U.S. District Court judge in Alexandria ruled that an African American plaintiff can pursue claims of excessive force and false arrest against members of the Prince William County police. The man alleges that he was arrested near a roadblock that police had set up to execute an arrest warrant at a nearby apartment complex, that he was not told the reason for his arrest, and that he was thrown to the pavement and suffered head injuries for which he was denied medical treatment.

False arrest is not a claim to make -- or take -- lightly. Gates must press his case. We need to see the wheels of justice grinding away at the hearsay, rumors and myths that have characterized so much of the recent discussion about racism in America. And we need to see the black elite engage in the struggle for justice using the same legal remedies available to everyday black people.

In an interview on MSNBC soon after Gates was arrested, Ogletree said, "I think that if you talk to any lawyer, any law professor, any judge, they'll tell you that what happened, on these facts, did not justify an arrest for disorderly conduct."

I'd like to know what a jury thinks.

E-mail: milloyc@washpost.com