A normally bustling lunch crowd of about 100 stood quiet as a mouse inside Tommy Doyle’s Irish Pub in Cambridge, Mass.
Bar regular Sgt. James Crowley was about to take an important phone call . . . from the president of the United States.
“You could hear a pin drop,” said the bar’s co-owner, Peter Woodman.
The veteran lawman, who drew Obama’s criticism after he arrested a black Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., was “cool as a cucumber” during the five-minute chat with the president, who invited him to the White House to make amends.
“He seemed vindicated after he took the call, it seemed like a weight was off his shoulders,” Woodman told The Post.
“I saw him the past few days and he was stressed, he has three young kids who don’t understand what’s going on. He wasn’t used to this whole thing, he was just trying to do his job,” he added.
Crowley spoke to Obama “like he was talking to you and me,” Woodman said.
Crowley, a white officer, busted Gates at his home after reports of a break-in July 16.
Gates, Crowley and the president agreed to have a beer together at the White House soon and clear the air.