WASHINGTON (CNN)  -- President Obama said Friday he spoke with the police officer who arrested a Harvard professor and told the officer he did not mean to malign the Cambridge Police Department when he said police acted stupidly. President Obama on Friday explains to reporters the details of a phone conservation with Sgt. James Crowley. The president acknowledged that his words "helped to contribute to ratcheting" up the situation when he criticized the manner in which Sgt. James Crowley arrested professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. "I unfortunately gave an impression that I was maligning the Cambridge Police Department or Sgt. Crowley specifically," Obama told reporters. "I could have calibrated those words differently, and I told this to Sgt. Crowley." Watch Obama describe talk »
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NEW: Gates eager for incident to be "teaching moment" to improve racial relations
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President says he hopes incident provides "a teachable moment"
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Attorney says professor has no immediate plans to sue Cambridge police
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Union asked Obama to apologize to "all law enforcement personnel" offended
Gates' legal team argues that authorities are misrepresenting the professor and the officer, and @placeholder has said he is determined to keep the issue alive despite the charges being dropped.