In a book published in June titled “The Presumption of Guilt: The Arrest of Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Race, Class, and Crime in America”, Ogletree writes that Gates’ arrest “provided a monumental opportunity for examining the issues of race and class in the criminal justice system.”

Ogletree criticized the report’s suggestion that Gates and Crowley were on equal standing. When a police officer is investigating the suspect of a crime, Ogletree said that the officer, in a stronger position of power, bears a greater responsibility for the outcome of the situation. Nevertheless, he refused to describe the scant treatment of profiling as a flaw, saying that the committee wanted to release a report quickly and was able to make recommendations that he called “exceptional.”

“I consider it an omission that was a result of time and focus on other aspects,” Ogletree said. “But even though race is not mentioned, the idea of looking at disorderly conduct and more involvement with the community is tiptoeing around the issue.”

Also touching upon race was Miller’s reading of the arrest, which characterizes the clash between Gates and Crowley as one between two identities.

Under his interpretation, Crowley felt a threat to his identity as a police officer, and Gates sensed a threat to his identity as a prominent African-American scholar. These fundamental, internal conflicts led to what the report called an “avoidable” arrest, and Miller said that officers can avoid situations like these through stronger conflict de-escalation training, a recommendation that was proposed by the report.

Considering alternatives to arrest is a worthwhile endeavor, especially when policing a heterogeneous population, CPD Commissioner Robert C. Haas said Wednesday.

“The national conversation that followed the arrest of Professor Gates underscored my belief that the current model of policing did not adequately address the reality of interacting with highly diverse communities,” he said.

But the quest to more effectively interact with the community is not one that is over yet, Ogletree said.

“This is not over,” he said. “I think this is the first chapter in a multi-chapter dialogue about police and community relations.”

—Xi Yu contributed to the reporting of this article.

—Staff writer Naveen N. Srivatsa can be reached at srivatsa@fas.harvard.edu.