Cambridge city and police officials announce at a press conference Monday two appointments to a committee reviewing the July 16 arrest of Henry Louis Gates, Jr. They released police tapes of the arrest after the press conference.

UPDATED 4:22 P.M.
Police tapes from the July 16 arrest of Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. shed little light on the dynamics of the now nationally publicized confrontation, but confirm that the caller did not cite the race of the two men she saw breaking into Gates' home when she called police.

In the police radio transmissions from the confrontation, Sgt. James Crowley is heard telling police dispatchers that the man in the house, whom he identified as Gates, is uncooperative. Crowley, whose voice seems steady and measured in the tape, also told police to "keep the cars coming." Another individual can be heard occasionally in the background, issuing what seems to be a protestation at one point in time, although it is unclear if the man is Gates.

The recordings were released by the Cambridge Police Department at a press conference Monday afternoon, where Police Commissioner Robert C. Haas, City Manager Robert W. Healy, and Mayor E. Denise Simmons reiterated their intent to use the experience not as a way to "make any official judgments on the actions of officers," but to identify lessons that can be applied to the policies, programs, and practices of the Department.

In the 911 call, Lucia Whalen, an employee of Harvard Magazine, tells the police dispatcher that she saw two gentlemen "pushing the door in" to the home and that the screen door had been broken. When asked by the dispatcher if the men were white, black, or Hispanic, Whalen said that one of the individuals looked "kind of Hispanic" but that she was unable to see the other clearly.

The two individuals were actually Gates, who was returning home from a trip to China, and his car driver, who helped Gates carry his luggage and force his way through the jammed front door.

While Whalen has not publicly commented on Gates' arrest thus far, her lawyer said in a phone interview with the Boston Globe this past weekend that her client was "personally devastated" by media reports suggesting that she was prompted to call police because the men were black. Police reports of the incident state that Whalen saw "what appeared to be two black males with backpacks on the front porch" trying to break into the home, but Police Commissioner Robert C. Haas told the Globe that the report was a summary based on information and inquiries not necessarily compiled from the initial 911 call.

At the press conference, Healy and Haas declined to judge the material on the tapes, saying that the recordings spoke for themselves. They said that they made the tapes public in order to remove "any lingering doubt that anything is being hidden" by police.

Whalen, who said in the call that another older woman at the scene alerted her to the possible break-in, repeatedly noted that she was not sure what was happening or "if these are two individuals who actually work there [or] live there." She said that once the two men had entered the home, she looked more closely and noticed two suitcases.

Whalen also said that she could not see clearly from her angle and that she did not know if the men had a key or if they "just had a hard time with their key." But she noted that the men "used their shoulder to try to barge in."

"I just saw it from a distance, and this older woman was worried thinking, 'somebody's breaking in someone's house, they've been barging in,'" Whalen said to the dispatcher. "And she interrupted me, and that's when I had noticed, otherwise I probably wouldn't have noticed it at all, to be honest with you. So I was just calling because she was a concerned neighbor, I guess."

At the press conference, Healy announced that the City has asked Robert Wasserman, a national expert on police strategy, diversity, and management, and Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, to chair a committee "to facilitate an analysis and develop recommendations" from the incident. Healy said that the committee's mission is "larger than a mere investigation into the events of July 16," and that it will examine the police department's organization, policies, and relationships with the local community.

"Recently, Cambridge has become a city that many people around the country are associating with July 16th, 2009," Healy said, adding that Gates and the officer "met in an unfortunate set of circumstances that did not have a desirable outcome."

"I am committed to making sure that our city is not defined by that day. Today is the day to move forward," Healy said.

Link to the audio of the Cambridge Police radio.

Link to the audio of the 911 Call.

—Check thecrimson.com throughout the day for updates.

—Staff writer Peter F. Zhu can be reached at pzhu@fas.harvard.edu