I don't know enough to really make any conclusions about this, but I thought the analysis from a guest on CNN yesterday morning was probably correct. This incident doesn't sound like it was about race at all, as much as it sounds like it was a clash of egos; and both parties had it within their power to have a different outcome, but they were too proud to take those steps.
The mistake Gates (probably) made is that he reacted far differently than the vast majority of people would when the police show up to their door. This in no way could be considered racial profiling by Crowley being that he was responding to a phone call about a break-in that was in progress; one could argue that it was racial profiling by the person who made the phone call, but odds are pretty good that if they saw a white man they didn't know or recognise breaking into a neighbours house they would have called the police. Most people would have reacted by being respectful and polite and quietly answering Crowley's questions and he would have left a few minutes later; and most people would have felt pretty good after the fact that if their had been a break in their neighbor would call it in, and the police would respond in a timely fashion. By becoming so adversarial Gates changed this from being a short (routine) response to a break-in ...
The mistake Crowley (probably) made is by not reassuring Gates to diffuse the situation. By simply saying something along the lines of "We deal with calls all the time when people get locked out of their home. I have some routine questions that have to be asked, and a few things that need to be confirm, to verify that this incident was just that."
