already proof that they were in their own home , '' the president said . Was it stupid behavior or was it an understandable result of police procedure -- the culture , or rather sub-culture , of this profession . People depend on police in a time of trouble but are quicker than lightning to judge harshly when things go wrong . But the most important question in this case is : Did they go wrong ? One needs to understand that the interaction between a police officer and a suspect is just part of a larger context . When a neighbor calls the police to report a burglary in progress and a police officer is dispatched to respond , a decision-making process begins for the officer . Police work is about sub-cultural contexts , about war stories , about suspicion , about unpredictability , about danger and fear for one 's life . Police officers make their decisions based not just on a given situation but also based on their prior experience , the experience of those they have worked with and the stories they have heard about incidents that happened in the past . A call to respond
Editor 's note : Maria -LRB- Maki -RRB- Haberfeld is a professor of Police Science at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City . She has served in the Israeli Defense Forces and the Israel National Police , and worked for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration as a special consultant . From 1997 through 2001 , she was a member of a research team , sponsored by the National Institute of Justice , studying police integrity in three major police departments in the United States . She is the author of `` Critical Issues in Police Training '' -LRB- 2002 -RRB- and co-author of `` Enhancing Police Integrity '' -LRB- 2006 -RRB- . Maria Haberfeld says police officers make decisions based on their awareness of potential danger . NEW YORK -LRB- CNN -RRB- -- We teach our children to think about what others feel before they act , but as grown-ups we frequently assume we understand what others do without ever having walked in their shoes . President Obama expressed his opinion about a police officer 's interaction with Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates . `` The Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was