Obama Defends Criticism of Cambridge Police in Arrest of Gates

Police Backs Up Sergeant

"The actions of the Cambridge Police Department, and in particular, Sgt. Joseph Crowley, were 100 percent correct,'' said Hugh Cameron, president of the Massachusetts Coalition of Police. "He was responding to a report of two men breaking into a home. The police cannot just drive by the house and say, 'Looks like everything is OK.'

A police source told ABC News that Gates' front door showed marks from where a previous break-in had occurred a month or two earlier.

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A high-ranking Cambridge police official, who spoke to ABC News on the condition of anonymity because the department is under orders "from the mayor not to talk," said that Crowley followed standard operating procedure for a call of a burglary in progress.

"Let's face it," the official said. "This case has nothing to do with race. This is a man who has made some phone calls and the case went away. They treated him with kid gloves. Harvard University executives rushed to the police station to monitor the entire situation."

There are questions about the way the case was handled. David Frank, a former prosecutor and a writer for Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly, said it was "unusual" for a case to be "nul-processed" [charges dropped] without a court appearance. Gates was slated to be arraigned on disorderly conduct charges Aug. 26.

"Legally, the prosecution made the right call," Frank said. "The issue, though, is that if Gates were an electrician from Everett and not a well-known professor from Harvard, the reality is that in all likelihood he would have to defend himself against the charges in a courtroom.

A spokesman for Middlesex County District Attorney Gerry Leone insisted that political influence did not play a role in the case.

"Once a complaint is issued it can be dropped at anytime," said the spokesman, Corey Welford.

Leone brokered a meeting between Ogletree and Cambridge police officials to see "if the case could be resolved,'' Welford said. "The district attorney agreed to drop the charges after an agreement was made between the Cambridge Police Department and Gates' attorney.''

ABC News' Russell Goldman, Karen Travers and Rachel Humphries contributed to this report.