Atlanta cops’ anti-gay raid

TWO YEARS ago on September 10, police raided and violated the rights of patrons in an Atlanta gay bar called the Atlanta Eagle.

This event reverberated through the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community. On the night of the raid, Atlanta officers stormed into the bar without a warrant claiming to have reports from undercover officers of "lewd conduct" and unlicensed dancing.

When the police came in, according to the patrons, officers shoved people to the ground, threatened to hit them in the head with barstools, handcuffed people, made racist and anti-gay comments, and forced patrons to remain flat on the ground with their faces against a floor covered in places with spilled beer and broken glass long after they had been searched and found to be unarmed.

One patron's complaint obtained by the Southern Voice newspaper described:

[O]fficers grabbed patrons who didn't immediately lie down by the neck and forced them to the ground. The man said he was kicked in the ribs while lying down. "Then I heard laughing and giggling and saying this is more fun than raiding niggers with crack. They also told us to shut the fuck up unless we were spoken too [sic]." The man said he heard one person told that if he spoke again he would be hit with a chair. He also reported that one officer "said to everyone in general that all you all do is flash your asses and show your cocks."

Last month, an independent investigation by the Greenberg Traurig law firm and a report from the Atlanta Police Department's Office of Professional Standards (OPS) concluded that the constitutional rights of the bar's patrons had been violated by the raid. The reports said what the patrons already knew: that Atlanta police officers in the "Red Dog Unit" performed an unlawful search and seizure of patrons who were not suspects of a crime. The reports also concluded that 10 officers were found to be "in violation of truthfulness" an offense that typically results in the firing of offenders.

A website set up by the Atlanta Eagle about the raid explained:

Twenty-four Atlanta police officers were found to have falsely imprisoned patrons during the raid; ten officers were found to have lied about their actions; and ten officers destroyed evidence in a federal lawsuit by deleting data from their mobile phones. Eagle patrons were forced to lay face-down on the bar's floor in part because of the anti-gay prejudices of the raid commander, and some police officers made anti-gay comments during the raid.

JUSTICE HAS been incredibly slow for the victims of the raid.

Three weeks ago, six of the officers involved in the raid were finally fired. But many believe the city continues to cover up the underlying homophobic bias of the police department.

One officer, Major Debra Williams, was demoted to lieutenant--but was allowed to retire from the force with a full pension and retirement benefits. Two other officers were terminated earlier this year for events unrelated to the Eagle raid. To date, none of the 24 officers who were found to have violated patrons' civil rights have been discharged for their role in the raid itself.

One of the officers who was found to be "in violation of truthfulness" was lead investigator Bennie Bridges, who the report found to have made a warrantless arrest and to have engaged in false imprisonment. According to Dyana Bagby of the GaVoice newspaper, Bridges was also arrested this past February in Cobb County for DUI and possession of marijuana. He remains on administrative leave without pay.

Disciplinary action should also be taken against Officer Jeremy Edwards for his use of discriminatory language. Edwards said that, "Seeing another man have sex with another man in the ass, I would classify that as very violent." An officer who makes such homophobic statements has no place on the force.

According to Dyana Bagby, another officer openly described gays as more "violent" than heterosexuals:

In the OPS investigation, [Sgt. John] Brock, who was a key player in organizing the raid, said he forced patrons to the floor because he believed there was violence associated with being in a leather bar:

"There's a risk factor involved when you're dealing with people you don't know anything about. S&M, that...that has a stigma of some violence," Brock said, according to the report.

In the Greenberg Traurig interview with Brock, he said he believed gay people were more violent.

"In the past I have as a patrol officer handled calls where there are gay couples living in residence where one is mad at the other, and they slash clothes, furniture, anything they can do. They're very violent. So, no. I definitely do think there was a high risk there. I think the only safe way--and I think you're getting towards why I had everybody put on the ground," Brock said.

Atlanta City Attorney Cathy Hampton has since apologized to the LGBT community for the two-year delay in the reports, explaining that it was due to technical difficulties experienced by Greenberg Traurig. Now, the LGBT community is waiting for Mayor Kasim Reed and Chief George Turner to review both of the reports and decide how to proceed.

What's crystal clear is that the actions of the police on September 10, 2009, were not motivated by legal concerns of unlicensed dancing or lewd conduct--but by cops' desire to seize an opportunity to intimidate the LGBT community.

Everyone present at the Atlanta Eagle that night had their rights violated by police, simply because they were perceived to be LGBT. The Atlanta LGBT community wants and deserves justice, and every one of the 24 police officers that violated the rights of the patrons during the Atlanta Eagle raid should be immediately fired.