Los Angeles Times:
Todd Camp and some friends had just marked the 40th anniversary of the police raid on New York's Stonewall Inn by screening a documentary on the historic gay riots and then heading for drinks at the Rainbow Lounge.
Camp remembered looking across the bar, packed with gay and some straight couples, and marveling how much times had changed since Stonewall -- the spark that ignited the gay rights movement.
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Stonewall all over again? Not hardly, because at Stonewall the gays fought back. This was a case where 7 cops decided to go bust (and bust up) some queers and 300 gays stood around and let them do it.
Hopefully, the gay patron who was given a blood clot on the brain from a thug cop has found a very good attorney. If the police department were taken to court and penalized for millions of dollars and some cops lost their jobs, maybe they would think twice about using unnecessary force in the future.
Hmmmmmmmm early morning hours at a bar after celebrating all day.......
...benefit of the doubt goes to the cops because the people they assaulted in a bar were drinking? booze muscles? how many ways are there to justify homophobia?
The cops were SUPPOSEDLY there to check for "underage" and "drunk drivers". It appears to me as though they FORGOT why they were SUPPOSED to be there, and arrested ONLY gays who "touched" them?
I most certainly WILL be quick to condemn the cop for "touching" back by SLAMMING a gay patron's HEAD into a WALL!!! I hope he SLAMS him with a LAWSUIT!
The Texas-bashing here at HuffPost is always so entertaining. If Texas were to leave the union, the number of attractive women in the country would drop and the quality of pro athletes in the NFL, NBA and MLB would decline noticeably.
Winner of the dumbest post of the day. There are beautiful women the world over and talented athletes the world over. I also have a feeling your idea of beautiful and every one else's might be different.
Didn't say that there weren't beautiful women or talented athletes all over the world. I'm just saying that Texas produces bunches of both. Look at the drafts in pro sports over the last couple of years and you'll see that lots of the top picks come from Texas. That's just a fact.
That's a stupid reason for TX leaving.
Look at the number of corp. HQs based in Texas, look at the technology corridors of DFW, Roundrock/Austin and those growing in San Antonio and Houston. Look at the sheer amount of trade from Texas - we lead cattle and cotton production. We produce an abundance of various cereal and bean crops. We produce a ton of minerals for industry. What about our oil refineries? What about oil production? We also have a huge number of renewable energy sources in place.
How about fiscal responsibility? We have no state income tax and receive about $0.94 of ever $1 taxes sent to Washington.
Ranked thirty-fifth, actually. Ironically, the fifteen states that receive even fewer tax dollars from the federal government all voted for Obama. So actually, what else does Texas have going for it? Egos don't count.
not to mention the fact that it's unfair to generalize all Texans negatively. it's so hypocritical. i'm a proud liberal, but I'm also a proud Texan. it's offensive to hear "let them go" and "good riddance" because the vast majority of Texans wouldn't even think of seceding from the U.S. it's 50% of republicans, yet people here make it seem like it's the whole entire state.
Texas needs the USA more than the USA needs Texas.
Don't need you at all.
The gay-bashing of TX is a blight on the U.S. Why would you defend such a blatantly bigoted act?
You can not prove that gay-bashing happens in Texas more than it does anywhere else (because it doesn't), so why look silly by implying otherwise?
what about the gay-bashing that happened to my friend during pride in NYC last weekend? is NYC a blight on the U.S. now?? what about that matthew shepherd kid - that didn't happen in Texas...th
7 cops to do license checks PLUS the ABC guys? C'mon, people, think. The fact that they went to two bars beforehand was just a ploy to show that they weren't singling out the gay bar. The two bars were just a setup for what they really wanted to do....bust the queers on their grand opening night. What do you want to bet that the seven cops were volunteers? The cops were sending a message to the gay population. If you think this was just a coincidence, you are deeply mistaken.
good points.
cmilburn, I'm sort of with you on your post. Seems pretty blatant even though they attempted to make it look plausible. That one guy got his head bashed by a cro-magnon "officer" is similar to the incident last week in San Diego where a 60 yr old gay woman was having a fund-raiser to run for office. The cops got called by a neighbor who was hiding in the bushes hurling epithets. A young cop arrived and when the older people protested he got into a hate tizzy and threw two 60-70 yr old women (one just recovering from surgery of the shoulder) to the ground and sprayed pepper spray into the faces of those wanting to help the women. Of course, there is an "investigation" but San Diego like Ft. Worth, have not evolved and hire bullies to "enforce" not keep the peace. San Diego is ultra conservative and reactionary and these so-called peace officers get to do horrendous things in the name of protect and serve. It's rampant.
I'd put money on the fact that these same cops would walk into a "straight" bar and watch a bunch of young girls bumping, grinding and kissing each other and not do a thing other then try to get in the middle of the action.
I feel the rights for gays still have a long way to go. Particularly down south.
You are so right! They'd be falling over backwards to encourage "touching"!
The thugs and goons on police departments everywhere should probably be on notice now. I've met some queer roughs and some rough queers.
Should have left Texas as their own country. Those people are religious nutjobs.
(except for anyone who smokes pot in Texas they are fine by me)
Some of us very liberal dems don't smoke, so please be diverse and include us :)
Once again, we have a misleading headline.
This raid had nothing to do with the fact that there were "gay" people in the bar. It was a routine alcohol check that was also done at several other nearby bars and the bar owners knew about it in advance.
This is just an attempt to cry "discrimination", when it didn't happen.
If you are going to be hostile to a police officer, either verbally or physically, then expect it NOT to end well for you.
It was a drunken mob, and they decided to throw themselves into it on the worst possible (symbolic) day at a late hour with obviously little pre-plan. You cannot tell me that this was a bad administrative decision AND a seriously botched operation. Although I don't completely buy the discrimination allegation, I can see why it is perceived as such. Any cop knows that perception is reality - that's lesson #1 when dealing with the public.
Somehow I don't think that the police in Texas keep track of all the gay "aniversaries" when making their "raid" plans.
Well it seems odd. Typically they send in under cover for inspections (my experience as a bartender in college). If the owner was told, as they said why was he surprised? Also if an officer was grabbed why no assault charges filed? On a side note, what kind of police officer can't deal with a little taunting?
If I was on duty that night I probably would have smiled and made light of it. Unless they were grabbing, which I highly suspect happened at all - and even then, there are more diplomatic ways of dealing with drunk people touching you than administering head injuries.
Did you note that none of the others arrested at the previous bars had bashed heads or broken bones? Why the violence in this particular bar?
Resiting arrest.
I agree with Sepulchre. I was a waiter for 5 years in Fort Worth and this is not how TABC operates. They walk in and might tell the owner/manager at the time that TABC is on the premises, but mostly they walk around in plainsclothes carding people and double checking the bartender's due diligence. If there's a problem, that's when they call in the police or only have a couple of cops outside.
One night my restaurant was raided by TABC because of some under age kid that ended up drunk, and the process followed was nothing like what happened here.
None of the patrons at the other bars had their heads literally bashed in, now did they? And do you honestly believe that any of these armed police had their crotches grabbed by anybody? You must live in that alternate universe that Fox reports on.
bunch of drunks ......no crotch grabbing..
Would anybody really care if Texas seceded? These people are living like 200 years in the past. Despicable.
All sarcasm aside, I really think whoever decided to do a random ABC check at 1 AM on a gay bar in Texas on the Stonewall anniversary needs to be reprimanded, at the very least. This whole thing has blown up like a flaming litterbox because of that decision. And anyone with one-tenth of a brain should have said, "this is not a good idea and the potential is high for it getting out of hand".
If anything, the Ft Worth PD needs some serious lessons in risk management, leadership, and administrative decision-making. (As well as citizen contact, but that's not really the underlying problem here.)
And a progam that teaches them how do deal with taunting.
Even if they were taunted, it doesn't excuse this... but as the taunting (whatever that entailed) started - they were already committed to do the inspection, which means anyone who said "um, Sarge, this isn't a good idea" was being insubordinate. The whole situation was FUBAR from the top-down (no pun intended).
Really. Don't we teach our children "sticks and stones..."
It seems to me that the cops were doing the taunting by pulling up to the bar with a paddy wagon.
They "entered a hostile environment and were taunted by patrons with sexually explicit movements". More likely the hostility was from coming from the cops and to a homophobe everything about gays is "sexually explicit". Cast an innocent glance in their direction and they think they're being lusted after. I know gays are utterly alien and mysterious, in the minds of many bigoted heterosexuals, but in my experience we're just as deferential to the police as anyone else, if not more so.
Did I miss something? Exactly when did we become a third world country?
Since when are pre-informed alcohol checks a third world practice..
With 8 policeman? for a routine alcohol abc check? 8 policeman and 2 abc officials? GIVE ME A BREAK. OVERKILL. They (the cops) were looking for any excuse to let loose. 8 cops in UNIFORM for an ABC check is OVERKILL and ridiculous.
I am shocked that people in a bar are intoxicated.
Welcome to Texas. This does not surprise me in the least. Lived there for 8 of the worst and longest months of my life and could not wait to get out of there. I hope and pray to never have to step foot there again.
Austin's cool. With awesome food. Gotta respect that.
I thought Texas had seceded from the union ??
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Los Angeles Times | P.J. Huffstutter
First Posted: 07- 6-09 08:33 AM | Updated: 07- 6-09 09:40 AM