A Raid at a Club in Texas Leaves a Man in the Hospital and Gay Advocates Angry

[garbon]

As Marty has been asleep on the job, some gay outrage.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/05/us/05texas.html?_r=1&pagewanted=2&ref=us

FORT WORTH — The grand opening sign still hangs above the door of the Rainbow Lounge, but the recently opened dance club has already become a rallying point for gay men and lesbians here, after a raid by law enforcement last week left one man hospitalized with a head injury and prompted complaints of brutality.

The raid in the early hours of June 28 by Fort Worth police officers and agents from the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission has set off a political uproar and galvanized gay advocates in Fort Worth, who have traditionally been less vocal than in Dallas and Houston. After years of keeping a low profile, gay men and lesbians in Fort Worth say they are furious, and their complaints have spread on the Internet, attracting support from gay rights groups across the country.

They have organized protests and formed a new organization, Fairness Fort Worth, to keep track of various investigations into the incident that have begun or been requested. They also have taken up collections and organized a benefit concert to help the injured.

"It has brought this community together so tight — it's almost impermeable now," said Randy Norman, the manager of the lounge.

The incident has drawn even more attention because of its timing; it came on the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall riot in New York City, widely considered to be the start of the gay rights movement.

Law enforcement officials have begun an investigation into the accusations of brutality, and internal affairs officers from the state liquor authority were interviewing employees of the club on Friday afternoon, sifting through conflicting accounts of what had happened.

Fort Worth's police chief, Jeffrey W. Halstead, initially stood behind his officers, saying Monday that patrons had provoked the scuffle by making sexual gestures toward officers.

But as the week went on, Chief Halstead backed away from that stance. By Thursday, he had ordered an inquiry, suspended operations with the state beverage commission and promised to give police officers "multicultural training." He declined a request for an interview.

"Make no mistake, if our officers acted in error, this department will address the problem," Chief Halstead said in an open letter to the community posted on the city's Web site on Thursday. Chief Halstead said the state agents, not his officers, had been the ones who had taken the hospitalized man into custody.

Alan Steen, the administrator of the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission, has put two officers involved in the raid on desk duty and said an inquiry would be conducted.

Several witnesses said six police officers and two liquor control agents used excessive force as they arrested people during the raid.

Chad Gibson, a 26-year-old computer technician from Euless, about 15 miles northeast of Fort Worth, suffered a concussion, a hairline fracture to his skull and internal bleeding after officers slammed his head into a wall and then into the floor, witnesses and family members said. Mr. Gibson was still hospitalized on Friday evening as doctors monitored a blood clot in his brain, his mother, Karen Carter, said.

Another patron suffered broken ribs, and a third had a broken thumb, said Todd Camp, the founder and artistic director of Q. Cinema, a gay film festival in Fort Worth. Mr. Camp, a former journalist, said he was celebrating his 43rd birthday in the bar when the police arrived at 1:05 a.m.

The officers entered the bar without announcing themselves, witnesses said. Earlier in the night, they had visited two other bars looking for violations of alcohol compliance laws. Those bars do not cater to gay patrons, and the officers had made nine arrests at those establishments on public intoxication charges, officials said.

"They were hyped up," Mr. Camp said of the officers in the Rainbow Lounge raid. "They came in charged and ready for a fight. They were just telling people they were drunk or asking them if they were drunk, and, if they mouthed off, arresting them."

More than 20 people were taken out of the bar for questioning, handcuffed with plastic ties and, in some cases, were forced to lie face down in the parking lot, witnesses said. Five were eventually booked on charges of public drunkenness, the police said.

In a statement released Sunday, the police said that two of those arrested had made "sexually explicit movements" toward the officers. Another was arrested after he grabbed a state agent's groin, the statement said.

Several witnesses dispute that account, saying they had not seen anyone harass the officers. So many questions have been raised about the police account that on Friday afternoon, Mayor Mike Moncrief asked the United States attorney for the Northern District of Texas, James T. Jacks, to review the Police Department's investigation.

Tom Anable, a 55-year-old accountant who said he was in the bar during the raid, said that for more than a half-hour the officers entered the bar repeatedly in groups of three and escorted people out. Then around 1:40 a.m., he said, the officers started to get rougher, throwing one young man down hard on a pool table.

Minutes later, one of the state agents approached Mr. Gibson, who was standing on steps to a lounge at the back of the bar with a bottle of water in his hands, and tapped him on the shoulder, Mr. Anable said. Mr. Gibson turned and said, "Why?"

Then the officer, who has not been identified, twisted Mr. Gibson's right arm behind his back, grabbed his neck, swung him off the steps and slammed his head into the wall of a hallway leading to the restrooms, Mr. Anable said. The agent then forced Mr. Gibson to the floor, Mr. Anable said.

"Gibson didn't touch the officer," Mr. Anable said. "He didn't grope him."

Two police officers and a second state agent arrived and helped subdue Mr. Gibson, kneeling on his back. A lounge employee, Lindsey Thompson, 23, said she saw an officer slam Mr. Gibson's head into the floor while he was prone with his hands cuffed behind him.

The raid prompted swift action. Hours later, more than 100 people were protesting on the steps of the Tarrant County Courthouse. As the week went on, calls for an independent investigation grew, with a state senator, a group of local business leaders and two churches joining the chorus.

Yet some gay residents said the outcry had been loud in part because what happened at Rainbow Lounge was uncharacteristic for this city of 750,000 people. "This has been unnerving, I know, to a lot of people in Fort Worth because it's not the Fort Worth we know," said Joel Burns, a gay member of the City Council. "There is a lot of scratching of people's heads."

Kathleen Hicks, a council member who represents the neighborhood where the bar is located, said the accusations of police brutality have rattled the city government and warrant an independent investigation. She added that she had heard no complaints about the bar before the raid.

"It has caused a lot of soul searching within City Hall and beyond," Ms. Hicks said. "Fort Worth has been able to move quietly along and avoid all the tension and strife that you have seen in other cities, but sometimes you need to have tension and strife. I hope that this will be a wake-up call."

Despicabke1!

[Martinus]

Old news.

I just think it's fucked up that you can get arrested for "public intoxication" in a bar in the US. Wtf. 

[Berkut]

So the cops were going into bars and arresting people for being drunk?

Are you fucking kidding me?

[Valmy]

I just think it's fucked up that you can get arrested for "public intoxication" in a bar in the US. Wtf. 

The rest of the US doesn't have the anti-alcohol gestapo that is the TABC.  This is why you should be happy your country is run by Catholics and not Baptists.  Those fuckers are enemies of fun in any form.

[Valmy]

So the cops were going into bars and arresting people for being drunk?

Are you fucking kidding me?

Acohol iz the devil!!

A town north of here fired the police chief because he was drunk in public...off duty!!! OMG!

Those Latinos cannot sneak in here fast enough to put those bible beating losers out of power.  It is pretty unusual for the TABC to do this shit in a major city like Fort Worth though.

[garbon]

I just think it's fucked up that you can get arrested for "public intoxication" in a bar in the US. Wtf. 

Doesn't happen in the civilized parts.

[Valmy]

Doesn't happen in the civilized parts.

Yeah this sort of thing usually happens in the towns in Texas not the cities.  I point out this was done by the state anti-alcohol secret police and not the actual Fort Worth cops.  The city probably had no idea this was going down.

[The Brain]

America.

[Berkut]

America Texas.

Fixed.

[The Brain]

40 gallon hats are cool.

[Razgovory]

I thought we had a special gay thread where we keep this away from the rest of God Fearing languishites.

[MadBurgerMaker]

The rest of the US doesn't have the anti-alcohol gestapo that is the TABC.

  While the TABC guys were total douches in this case (Drunk in a bar?  No way!), and many other cases I'm sure, the idea that other states don't have booze regulating agencies is...odd.

California: http://www.abc.ca.gov/questions.html
Arizona: http://www.azliquor.gov/
Florida: http://www.myflorida.com/dbpr/abt/index.html
Arkansas: http://www.state.ar.us/dfa/abc_administration/abcadm_index.html
Connecticut: http://www.ct.gov/dcp/cwp/view.asp?A=1623&Q=273660
Colorado: http://www.colorado.gov/revenue/liquor
Delaware: http://date.delaware.gov/dabcpublic/index.jsp
Illinois: http://www.state.il.us/LCC/
Etc.  Wikipedia makes this easier: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:State_alcohol_agencies_of_the_United_States

There's also ATF, who bring tanks to raids.

Edit:  Re public intoxication:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_intoxication

[Valmy]

  While the TABC guys were total douches in this case (Drunk in a bar?  No way!), and many other cases I'm sure, the idea that other states don't have booze regulating agencies is...odd.

Well for their sake I hope they are not like the TABC.  Those guys strut around like they are the freaking FBI.

[garbon]

I don't understand how what you've cited are anti-alcohol agencies, MBM.  Those are just agencies that handle liqour licenses (at least the California link).

[MadBurgerMaker]

I don't understand how what you've cited are anti-alcohol agencies, MBM.  Those are just agencies that handle liqour licenses (at least the California link).

TABC isn't "anti alcohol," either.  It's just the agency that regulates it in Texas.  They do their silly little "don't get drunk" crusades every once in a while, where they'll go around and hand out tickets and shit for public intoxication (and attack gay people now, I guess), etc, so they may be more hardassed than most, but they're not "anti alcohol."  They wouldn't exist without alcohol.

Well for their sake I hope they are not like the TABC.  Those guys strut around like they are the freaking FBI.

*puts on bulletproof vest and grabs shotgun*  TABC AGENTS AREN'T FEDS, SCUMBAG!  GIVE ME YOUR ID!