That "racist" cop is a real person, Sgt. James Crowley, and he's been called a racist before.

The Boston Herald reports:

The Cambridge cop prominent Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. claims is a racist gave a dying Reggie Lewis mouth-to-mouth resuscitation in a desperate bid to save the Celtics superstar’s life 16 years ago Monday.

“I wasn’t working on Reggie Lewis the basketball star. I wasn’t working on a black man. I was working on another human being,” Sgt. James Crowley, in an exclusive interview with the Herald, said of the forward’s fatal heart attack July 27, 1993, at age 27 during an off-season practice at Brandeis University, where Crowley was a campus police officer.

It’s a date Crowley still can recite by rote — and he still recalls the pain he suffered when people back then questioned whether he had done enough to save the black athlete.

“Some people were saying ‘There’s the guy who killed Reggie Lewis’ afterward. I was broken-hearted. I cried for many nights,” he said.

Crowley, 42, said he’s not a racist, despite how some have cast his actions in the Gates case. “Those who know me know I’m not,” he said....

Though he harbors no “ill feelings toward the professor,” a calm, resolute Crowley said no mea culpa will be forthcoming.

“I just have nothing to apologize for,” he said. “It will never happen.”

And The Smoking Gun has the police report, so Crowley's version of the incident is easily read. (It's detailed and well written.)

And now we know the name of the woman who called the police. I suppose her life will be ruined now, as she'll be portrayed as a racist. Lesson learned: If you think you're witnessing a crime, mind your own business. Somewhere, the new Kitty Genovese walks into the alleyway.

ADDED: Wow! Matt Yglesias abysmally misreads the Boston Herald article:

Now we see the Officer Crowley edition of the saga, as he explains that he once tried to save the life of a black man, so he must not be a racist.

Come on, Matt! Crowley was talking about how he was accused of racism for not doing enough to save that man. Incredible!