Charles Ogletree

Police plan to drop all charges against Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., an eminent black scholar,�who was handcuffed and arrested at his Cambridge home in what critics charge is a case of racial profiling.WHDH TV�in Boston reports that a person with knowledge of the case says Cambridge police will announce the move later today.Gates was arrested on a disorderly conduct charge after police said he "exhibited loud and tumultuous behavior." Gates had just returned from filming a PBS documentary in China and was trying to open a stubborn front door of his house.

He asked his driver, also black, to help.

That prompted someone to call in a break-in report to police.Gates, 58, was handcuffed and arrested after police apparently were not satisfied with his Harvard ID and a heated exchange ensued, The Boston Globe reports.The newspaper quotes his lawyer and Harvard colleague, Charles Ogletree, as saying Gates was most angered by the police officer stepping inside his house, uninvited, to demand identification and question him.The Globe says�the Cambridge police report describes "a chaotic scene" at Gates' door:�The visibly upset professor responded to the officer's explanation that he was responding to a report of a break-in by saying, "Why, because I'm a black man in America?''Update at 2:07 p.m.

ET: Prosecutors have dropped a disorderly conduct charge against Gates, the Associated�Press reports�The city of Cambridge issued a statement�saying the arrest was "regrettable and unfortunate" and that both sides agreed that dropping the charge was a just resolution.

"This incident should not be viewed as one that demeans the character and reputation of professor Gates or the character of the Cambridge Police Department," the statement said.(Photo: Top, Josh Reynolds, AP; middle, Charles Krupa, AP; bottom, Cambridge Police Dept., AP)

http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2009/07/report-police-to-drop-charges-against-harvard-prof.html