Professors Watts Arrests Cop for Loitering Outside the Graduate Center
Late last week, “The Diogenes of Midtown,” GC Professor Jerry Watts, made a citizen’s arrest of an NYPD patrol officer outside the Graduate Center. Many are calling it the astonishing and unlikely sequel to America’s most famous racial-profiling incident, the arrest of Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates in his Cambridge home earlier this summer.
After receiving a few complaints from his students that an officer had been out in front of the Grad Center building in excess of thirty minutes on Wednesday afternoon, Professor Watts arrived on the scene to investigate.
“I WAS SUSPICIOUS BECAUSE I REMEMBERED THERE WAS AN AFRICANA STUDIES GROUP MEETING ABOUT TO START, BROTHER,” said Professor Watts. “WAS HE GOING TO CHECK TO SEE IF THEY HAD A PERMIT FOR ALL THOSE DRUMS? WAS HE LOOKING TO TRY OUT HIS NEW FIREARM ON ANYONE WHO TURNED THEIR BACK ON HIM? BOTH SEEMED PRETTY LIKELY, BROTHER.”
When Professor Watts approached the officer and began questioning him, Officer Leycrow became enraged and indignant. “Do you know who I am?” witnesses reportedly heard him rhetorically asking Professor Watts. “I am an NYPD officer! You have no right to question me.”
“SHIT, BROTHER,” said Professor Watts, whose aura of negritude was like kryptonite to the befuddled officer, “YOU MIGHT AS WELL HAVE INSULTED MY MOMMA AS TOLD ME THAT. I’M FROM A LITTLE TOWN CALLED FRESHOFFACOPSASS AND YOU MAKING ME HOMESICK.”
Like many a haughty academic before him, Officer Leycrow was paralyzed with fear from even a short exchange of words with Professor Watts. Unfortunately, Professor Watts mistook Leycrow’s immobility for defiance and felt he had no choice but to arrest him.
“WHAT ELSE WAS I SUPPOSED TO DO?” Watts asked me the next day. “THERE I WAS LOOKING AT THE SCARIEST, WHITEST COP I’D EVER SEEN. YOU KNOW WHAT WOULD HAVE HAPPENED IF I’D TURNED AROUND AND WALKED AWAY? HE PROBABLY WOULD HAVE FIRED FIFTY ROUNDS, BROTHER. AND MAYBE ONE OF THEM WOULD HAVE HIT SOMETHING. I COULDN’T RUN THAT RISK, BROTHER.”
The New York State Fraternal Order of Police has accused Professor Watts of brutality for holding the officer in the IRIDAC office on the 7th floor for hours before dropping the people’s charges against him.
But Watts feels he was doing the officer a favor. “HE URINATED ON HIMSELF OUT OF FEAR, BROTHER. I FELT KIND OF BAD ABOUT THAT. I WAS ONLY JOKING WHEN I TOLD HIM I WAS GOING TO GO GET A PLUNGER. THEN I DIDN’T WANT TO RELEASE HIM UNTIL HIS PANTS HAD DRIED, BROTHER.”
At a news conference on Friday, President Obama weighed in on the controversy. “I believe Professor Watts, by arresting a patrol officer for patrolling, in other words, for doing his job, acted stupidly. I mean, what would happen if all my fellow African-Americans went around preemptively arresting every police officer they thought was about to brutalize someone?” Obama, suddenly reflective, paused to consider the answer to what he’d just asked.
“I TELL YOU WHAT WOULD HAPPEN, BROTHER,” said Professor Watts, who emerged miraculously on stage next to the President. “BROTHERS AND SISTERS EVERYWHERE WOULD BE A HELL OF A LOT SAFER.”
When I asked Professor Watts whether he would participate in Beer Summit II, he had this to say, “I DON’T THINK SO, BROTHER. THE WAY OBAMA’S HANDLING HEALTHCARE, HE’D PROBABLY MANDATE THAT I HAVE SOME WATERY BEER I DON’T LIKE AND THEN MANDATE I PAY HIM TEN DOLLARS FOR IT. MEDICARE FOR ALL! IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE.”
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