The perfect crime, my friends. If you were a racist eager to harass prominent black intellectuals, what better cover story could there be than teaching tolerance to new recruits for years on end? Besides giving Reggie Lewis CPR in a desperate bid to save his life, I mean.

Clearly we’re dealing with a criminal genius of unusual cunning here.

Cambridge Sgt. James Crowley has taught a class about racial profiling for five years at the Lowell Police Academy after being hand-picked for the job by former police Commissioner Ronny Watson, who is black, said Academy Director Thomas Fleming.

“I have nothing but the highest respect for him as a police officer. He is very professional and he is a good role model for the young recruits in the police academy,” Fleming told The Associated Press on Thursday.

The course, called “Racial Profiling,” teaches about different cultures that officers could encounter in their community “and how you don’t want to single people out because of their ethnic background or the culture they come from,” Fleming said…

In radio interviews Thursday morning, Crowley maintained he followed procedure.

“I support the president of the United States 110 percent. I think he was way off base wading into a local issue without knowing all the facts as he himself stated before he made that comment,” Crowley told WBZ-AM. “I guess a friend of mine would support my position, too.”

Last I heard, Gates was thinking of making a documentary about his experience because, well, he’s got his narrative and he’s sticking to it — no matter what certain other prominent black intellectuals have to say. To be honest, from what little I know of the facts, it sounds like the only “crime” Gates was guilty of was being a douche to the cops. I’m not sure why that warranted arrest, but then neither you nor I nor The One was there, not that that stopped him from making grand pronouncements about the alleged stupidity of the police’s conduct. Self-serving exit quotation from his latest statement about this: “I think that I have extraordinary respect for the difficulties of the job that police officers do.”