After his son was arrested outside his San Fernando Valley home, Michael Reagan, himself the son of late President Ronald Reagan, compared his progeny's arrest to that of black Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. outside his own home in July.

“Where is the American Civil Liberties Union when Cameron Reagan is tackled in his own driveway,” he said through a spokeswoman, Kirsten Fedewa, who was interviewed on CNN.

She said that Cameron Michael Reagan, 31, had returned home when he accidentally tripped of a silent alarm that brought out Los Angeles police shortly after 12 Thursday monring. When he heard a commotion outside he went out to investigate only to be arrested after reaching for ID, she said.

Officer April Harding, however, called the Reagan legacy, who is an ex-con, “uncooperative and belligerent.”

Professor Gates, if you'll recall, was arrested after allegedly being uncooperative with police who were called to his home after someone spotted him trying to push open his own door.

Gates argued that the arrest, by a white officer, wouldn't have happened to a white man. President Barack Obama got some heat for calling the arrest an act of “stupidity,” and he organized a “beer summit” comprised of himself, Vice President Joe Biden, Gates and the arresting cop.

“I'm waiting for a call from the president,” the elder Reagan said through his spokeswoman. “This sounds a lot like what happened to Obama's buddy.”

His son, he noted, “drinks Red Stripe.”

Comparing a troubled man who had a privileged youth and who, as an heir to Ronald Reagan's legacy, is arguably part of the history's most elite ruling class, to an African-American, whose own people have largely been on the opposite end of class warfare in America, is a major stretch.

And, in Gates' case, there was the historic model of a white man placing a black man in cuffs. In the younger Reagan's case, the comparo would only be fitting if the cops were all minorities.

Given former Los Angeles Police Chief Bill Bratton's proud pronouncement that the LAPD is now populated by a majority of cops of color on the streets, it's possible. But the whole notion of an ex-con Reagan kid having his civil liberties infringed upon is about as solid as a block of government cheese in the California sun.

Advertising disclosure: We may receive compensation for some of the links in our stories. Thank you for supporting LA Weekly and our advertisers.