President Obama made a surprise appearance in the White House briefing room on Friday and told reporters he had talked with the police officer who arrested African American scholar Henry Louis Gates inside his own home near Harvard University. Obama said he had a cordial conversation with Sgt. James Crowley and that he had invited Crowley and Gates to the White House for a beer. During Wednesday’s press conference, Obama said the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting Gates at his home. But on Friday, Obama softened his criticism of the police department.

President Obama: “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 or Sergeant Crowley specifically, and I could have calibrated those words differently. And I told this to Sergeant Crowley.”