July 23 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama said police officers in Cambridge, Massachusetts, “acted stupidly” in their arrest of Harvard University African-American studies professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. after responding to reports of a burglary at his home.

Disorderly conduct charges against Gates, 58, have been dropped and the Cambridge police department in a statement called the arrest “regrettable and unfortunate.” Gates had just returned home after a trip to China when the July 16 incident occurred.

“The Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home,” Obama said at a White House press conference last night when asked his reaction to the matter and what it said about race relations in the U.S.

It marked one of the rare occasions when Obama, the nation’s first black president, has waded into the subject of race relations in the U.S. He addressed it most directly in a speech in Philadelphia during the primary campaign to quell the controversy over racially incendiary sermons made in the past by his former pastor and adviser, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright.

Remarking on Friend

Obama, 47, began his comments by saying Gates, who he referred to by the nickname Skip, “is a friend, so I may be a little biased here.”

The president said that while “I don’t know all the facts” of the arrest or the role race played in it, the case highlighted “a long history in this country of African- Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately.”

He added: “That’s just a fact.”

“I am standing here as testimony to the progress that’s been made” on race relations, he said. “And yet the fact of the matter is, is that, you know, this still haunts us.”

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Obama doesn’t regret addressing the issue and that “he was not calling the officer stupid.”

Obama felt that once the authorities had determined no burglary had occurred “cooler heads on all sides should have prevailed,” Gibbs told reporters aboard Air Force One as the president traveled to Cleveland for a health-care event.

Distraction

John Feehery, a Republican political strategist in Washington, said Obama’s remarks are liable to create an unnecessary distraction on a divisive issue at a time when he needs public support for his top priority, health care.

“For a lot of African-Americans, they’re tired of this kind of stuff. They think Obama is right in calling cops stupid,” Feehery said. “But a lot of other folks are worried about crime, and they’re likely to view calling a cop stupid as troubling.”

Scott Reed, another Republican strategist, called Obama’s statement “shocking, in that the president usually uses more measured words and fully understands the circumstances before launching off.”

The president’s candor may be an advantage, according to Democrat Chris Lehane, who was former Vice President Al Gore’s communications director.

“Given that Obama made clear Professor Gates is a friend - - using the reasonable person standard -- most people will see this as a guy standing up for a friend who was treated in disgraceful manner,” he said.

Police Response

Police were called to Gates’s house after a passerby mistook his effort to open his jammed front door for a break-in. Gates and the officers who responded to the call had a verbal confrontation, leading to his arrest.

Obama, in his response to the final question posed at his press conference, said: “Even when there are honest misunderstandings, the fact that blacks and Hispanics are picked up more frequently and often time for no cause casts suspicion even when there is good cause.”

He also indulged in some levity as he empathized with Gates’ predicament. “I mean, if I was trying to jigger into -- well, I guess this is my house now,” he said, referring to the White House.

“Here, I’d get shot,” he said.

Gates, one of the country’s most celebrated and influential scholars, is director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard. He is one of 20 people at the school who hold university professor chairs, a title created in 1935 to honor “individuals of distinction.”

The officer in the case, Sergeant James Crowley of the Cambridge police department, told the Boston Globe he wouldn’t apologize and said the arrest wasn’t racially motivated, the newspaper reported on its Web site.

‘Way Off Base’

Crowley told WBZ-AM today that Obama was “way off base wading into a local issue without knowing all the facts,” the radio station reported on its Web site. Crowley also told the station he supports the president “110 percent.”

The city’s independent Police Review and Advisory Board has scheduled a meeting for July 29 to decide whether to begin a formal inquiry, the Globe reported.

To contact the reporter on this story: Edwin Chen in Washington at Echen32@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: July 23, 2009 13:09 EDT