president obama made an extraordinary appearance in the white house briefing room where he made a surprise announcement. i actually just had a conversation with sergeant jim crowley the officer involved and i have to tell you that, as i said yesterday, my impression of him was that he was an outstanding police officer and a good man and that was confirmed in the phone conversation and i told him that. and i. because this has been ratcheting up and i obviously helped to contribute ratcheting it up, i want to make clear that in my choice of words, i think i unfortunately gave an impression that i was maligning the cambridge police department, sergeant crowley specifically. and i could have calibrated those words differently and i told this to sergeant crowley. i continue to believe based on what i have heard that there was an overreaction in pulling professor gates out of his home to the station. i also continue to believe based on what i heard that professor gates probably o