Box Turtle Bulletin

Delhi High Court: Homosexuality Is Not A Crime

Marchers at Delhi Pride Parade, 2008 (Sonali Gulati/Wockner News)

It appears that about seventeen percent of the world’s population of gay people are about to become legal. The Delhi High Cort “read down” section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, striking India’s law which criminalizes sex between consenting adults of the same gender. The court ruled that the law is a violation of fundamental human rights:

A bench of Chief Justice Ajit Prakash Shah and Justice S Muralidhar said that if not amended, section 377 of the IPC would violate Article 21 of the Indian constitution, which states that every citizen has equal opportunity of life and is equal before law.

The court said that this judgement will hold till Parliament chooses to amend the law.

“In our view Indian Constitutional law does not permit the statutory criminal law to be held captive by the popular misconception of who the LGBTs (lesbian gay bisexual transgender) are.

“It cannot be forgotten that discrimination is antithesis of equality and that it is the recognition of equality which will foster dignity of every individual,” the bench said in its 105-page judgement.

This ruling, which is being hailed as “India’s Stonewall” by India’s LGBT advocates, appears to be legally binding only in the Union Territory of Delhi over which the Delhi High Court has jurisdiction. But it is expected to become an important precedent for the rest of the country. It is also expected that opponents will appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court.

The ruling overturns a 148-year-old colonial law left over from the British Raj. Homosexual acts were punishable with a ten year prison sentence.

Texas Public Intoxication Law Is An Open Invitation For Abuse

Two Texas state legislators yesterday called for an independent investigation into the Rainbow Lounge raid by Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission and Ft. Worth police on Sunday morning. That raid resulted in Chad Gibson, 26, suffering a severe head injury while in TABC custody and landed him in Intensive Care. State Rep. Lon Burnam (D-FW) and state Sen. Wendy Davis (D-FW) met with TABC officials to discuss what happened.

Under Texas law, being intoxicated in public is a misdemeanor. Unlike in most states, it is against the law to be drunk, regardless of where you are or what you’re doing. You don’t have to be driving, fighting, or causing any other problems in order to be cited for Public Intoxication. And unlike drunk driving laws, Texas’ PI law doesn’t define what constitutes being drunk. This comes as a surprise to people who have been drinking but have a designated driver to take them home. Texas authorities have been taking full advantage of this ambiguous law, which is an open invitation for police abuse:

The TABC has been cracking down on public intoxication in bars and clubs because the law is on their side. According to the Texas penal code, public intoxication is when a person appears in a public place while intoxicated to the degree that the person may endanger the person or another. The law also says that a place licensed or permitted under the alcoholic beverage code is a public place.

So, what does ‘endanger’ mean?

Dallas defense attorney Toby Shook said the term is vague, at best. “You can arrest people on probable cause, but it’s very hard to prove that they are a danger to themselves or others,” said Shook.

Shook also believes that ‘public intoxications’ are sometimes issued to liberally. “If officers want to quell a situation, or if they get angry with people, they can be very quick to arrest them on PI,” he said.

TABC has been in trouble before over the open-ended nature of its PI enforcement. Their PI inspections program has been suspended twice since 2005 over eggregious abuse.

In April 2006 TABC announced that it was suspending its Sales to Intoxicated Persons (or SIPs) enforcement program, which sent undercover agents into bars. Originally intended to catch bartenders and servers who sold one (or two or three) too many drinks to clearly intoxicated patrons, SIPs operations instead ended up busting mostly drinkers. Between late 2005 and the spring of 2006, TABC issued more than 2,000 citations for public intoxication.

SIPs, which targeted bars based on DWI suspects\’ self-reported claims of where they\’d had their last drink before heading down the highway, was unpopular with taverns for obvious reasons. But it wasn\’t until an agent busted a woman drinking in an Irving hotel bar that the program blew up. Although TABC had touted SIPs as a public safety measure because it prevented DWIs, the woman had a room at the hotel that night — meaning she was headed nowhere.

The Irving sting made national news and TABC officials were hauled in front of legislators to explain the program. At the time Administrator Alan Steen emphasized his commitment to SIPs, however, today the program effectively has been shuttered permanently, said agency spokeswoman Carolyn Beck. While TABC occasionally conducts an isolated undercover investigation at a bar, she said, it is uncommon and targeted toward establishments with a clear record of proven infractions.

Clear record of proven infractions? Rainbow Lounge had only been open for less than a week. So far, neither Ft. Worth police nor TABC will answer questions about why the Rainbow Lounge was singled out for a raid on the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall rebellion.

The whole process of conducting these so-called “inspections” is a complete mess. Earlier this month, a TABC agent was accused of sexual misconduct with a teenager who was assisting a sting operation by posing as an underage drinker. That supposedly resulted in a second suspension of the SIP program, despite the Rainbow Lounge’s raid just a few weeks later.

Not only is the law itself ill-defined, but the run rules for who has responsibility for what seems to be very unclear. For example, TABC has now acknowledged that Chad Gibson was injured while in their custody. Ft. Worth Police Chief Jeffrey Halstead added to that, saying “They were not my employees.”

Cell phone image of police arresting Chad Gibson after throwing him on the floor. (Dallas Voice)

And yet a cell-phone photo appears to show a Ft. Worth police officer with at least two TABC agents while they had Gibson pinned to the ground outside the men’s room. Look closely. On the left/center of the photo, you can see two officers in tan uniforms. Those are TABC agents. Between those two is a third officer in a dark uniform, which appears to be a Ft. Worth police officer. The gloved hand of a fourth officer can be seen just to the right of the bar patron watching them, but it’s unclear whether that hand belongs to a TABC agent or a police officer.

Everything about this suggests a program out of control, with no accountability, no definitions of responsibilities, no criteria for choosing targets, and no clear determination of what constitutes a violation of the Public Intoxication law. The law itself leaves to much to the discretion of an officer’s mood, temperment and biases. This entire program is an open invitation to unchecked abuse by authorities for whatever reason and needs to be put to an immediate halt.

Is Scott Lively’s “Pink Swastika” Kaput?

Not exactly. He’s made a career out of homophobia for nearly two decades now, but he now claims that he’s turning his attention to other matters:

With the June 17th publication of my final book on the homosexual issue, “Redeeming the Rainbow: A Christian Response to the ‘Gay’ Agenda,” I have completed 20 years of service as a front-lines opponent of the homosexual movement. “Redeeming the Rainbow,” which I have published as a free book in pdf format, encompasses all that I have learned through this long tour of duty and I believe there is little more that I could add on the issue.

As of now I am turning my attention to other interests and needs of the pro-family movement and will no longer be monitoring the day-to-day developments of the culture war regarding homosexuality as closely, nor posting stories about it to this site.

I somehow suspect that he’s not going very far. It’s only two paragraphs later when he reveals another update to his book, The Pink Swastika:

I have one last major project to complete on the homosexual issue, the publication of a 5th Edition of my book (co-authored with Jewish researcher Kevin E. Abrams) “The Pink Swastika: Homosexuality in the Nazi Party.” It will be published in a web-based, documentation-emphasized format. That project will begin soon and a link to it will be available on this page from the early stages, so that readers can follow its ongoing progress and make use of the facts and documentation in their own pro-family advocacy.

The Pink Swastika is Lively’s primary claim to fame. In it, he claims that Nazism was, at its core, a homosexual movement, and that the gay rights movement today is a barely-disguised update of Nazi ideology. He cites the Holocaust as but one example of the inevitable consequences of homosexuality gaining public prominence. His blatant historical revisionism has earned his Abiding Truth ministries a spot in one of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s list of twelve anti-gay hate groups.

So no, he’s not giving up his holocaust revisionism anytime soon. And since we will all get to see his “ongoing progress” with his online edition, I doubt he’ll leave it alone when he’s done.

Lively says he will continue to be available for conferences, seminars and the like, and I’m sure The Pink Swastika will continue to be the centerpiece of his talks. More recently, he took his Holocaust revisionism abroad with a three-day conference in Kampala, Uganda, where he peddled his wares alongside Exodus board member Don Schmierer. That conference called for the strengthening of Uganda’s anti-homosexuality law by adding the “option” of forced conversion therapy. Uganda’s law already provides for a life sentence. Lively’s book is now being used by Ugandan religious leaders to fuel an ongoing public campaign of vigilantism and police detentions and torture.

Meanwhile, Dr. Warren Throckmorton, an associate professor at the Christian-based Grove City College, has continued to add to his online series debunking The Pink Swastika. His latest installment is probably the most devastating, where Throckmorton catches Lively lying about his source information virtually red-handed. Throckmorton was joined in this endeavor by associate professor of history, Dr. Jon David Wyneken, whose Ph.D. is in modern German history with a focus on the period between 1933 and 1955. Together, they have undertaken a methodical exposé of Lively’s shoddy scholarship.

Throckmorton’s efforts seem to be having some effect. Leadership University, an online ministry affiliated with Campus Crusade for Christ, once proudly hosted a condensed outline of his Pink Swastika thesis. That article, “Homosexuality and the Nazi Party,” has recently been removed.

[Hat tip: Ex-gay Watch]

Don’t Ask, Don’t Live

A sailor, August Provost of Houston, Texas, was found dead at Camp Pendleton near San Diego at about 3:30 a.m. Tuesday. Sources say he was shot and burned, which lead authorities to believe that it was foul play. A “person of interest” is in custody. Some believe it wasn’t an ordinary murder, but a hate crime:

Ben Gomez, head of the San Diego chapter of American Veterans for Equal Rights, a national advocacy group for gay and lesbian military personnel, said he and other local activists believe Provost’s death was a hate crime. Citing unnamed sources with access to a report on the seaman’s death, Gomez said Provost was killed during an argument with another sailor over the victim’s sexual orientation. On his MySpace page, Provost made references to same-sex dating and identified another Houston man as “the love of my life.”

Zero Proof: Why Hasn’t FWPD Produced Evidence That Chad Gibson Was Drunk?

Update: Since this post went live, we now have a statement from Kristy Morgan, Chad Gibson’s sister:

Gibson’s sisters say her brother’s alcohol level was .2. “.08 is the legal limit. He was at .2. You have to be at .4 to have true alcohol poisoning and he was not close to that,” Morgan said.

So now we know Gibson was drunk, at more than twice the legal limit for intoxication, but well under the level for alcohol poisoning. So the next question is this: If someone is drunk, why would it take several police officers to wrestle a 160 lb young man to the ground? And why would it be necessary to slam him against a wall?

Blogging occurs in real time. We see things and gather information and get it out there when we can. When new information arrives, we need to acknowledge it and put it out there, even if (and especially when) it contradicts what we first understood to be true. There are still more answers the FWPD and TABC need to face, but this is an important piece of the puzzle.

I concluded the piece below with “the only plausible answer” in the absence of a critical piece of information. Now that we have that critical piece, there are now obviously other answers. I retract the conclusions I draw below. It is plausible that the symptoms officers observed were due either to his injuries or his level of intoxication.

But for the sake of transparency I will leave this post in place. That’s another component of blogging that I think is important: leave your errors out there, but have them duly noted. And in this post, I also believe the chronology is accurate based on eyewitness accounts, and that chronology is important in establishing culpability for Gibson’s injuries.

The Texas Alcoholic Beverages Commission and the Ft. Worth Police Department have some serious explaining to do.

They have accused Chad Gibson of two offenses in the media without providing a shred of evidence to back up either accusation. The first alleged offense, that Chad either groped or made a “sexually explicit movement,” we’ve dealt with before. Dan Savage put it best when he paraphrased Ft. Worth Police Chief Jeffery Halstead as effectively saying “that faggot had it coming.”

But the second alleged offense, that Gibson was literally falling-down drunk and exhibiting signs of alcohol poisoning is being put forward by both organizations with no evidence to back up their claims.

Before we look at what flimsy evidence they do have, let’s go to the online Merck Manual and compare their descriptions of severe head injury with severe alcoholic intoxication. First the severe head injury:

Severe Head Injury: People may have some of the same symptoms as occur with minor head injury. Some, such as headache, may be more severe. Also, symptoms often start with a period of unconsciousness that begins at the time of impact. How long people remain unconscious varies. Some people awaken in seconds, while others do not awaken for hours or even days. On awakening, people often are drowsy, confused, restless, or agitated. They may also vomit, have seizures, or both. Balance and coordination may be impaired. Depending on which area of the brain is damaged, the ability to think, control emotions, move, feel, speak, see, hear, and remember may be impaired—sometimes permanently. [Boldface emphasis mine.]

Now here’s their symptoms of alcohol intoxication:

• 20 to 50 mg/dL: Tranquility, mild sedation, some decrease in fine motor coordination, and some impairment of driving ability
• 50 to 100 mg/dL: Impaired judgment and a further decrease in coordination
• 100 to 150 mg/dL: Unsteady gait, slurred speech, loss of behavioral inhibitions, and memory impairment
• 150 to 300 mg/dL: Delirium and lethargy (likely)
• 300 to 400 mg/dL: Often unconsciousness
• ≥ 400 mg/dL: Possibly fatal

Vomiting is common with moderate to severe intoxication. Because people may be very drowsy, vomited material may enter the lungs (be aspirated), sometimes leading to pneumonia and death. Drinking large amounts can also cause low blood pressure and low blood sugar levels. [Boldface emphasis mine.]

Cell phone image of police arresting Chad Gibson after throwing him on the floor. (Dallas Voice)

Notice the overlap between the two. So what evidence do police have that Chad was showing symptoms of alcohol poisoning rather than a severe head injury? Is it this?

He was released to paramedics because of his extreme intoxication as he was repeatedly vomiting, police reported. [Boldface emphasis mine.]

Or Ft. Worth Police Chief Jeffrey Halstead’s statement on Monday Morning?

“In the police report, it was stated that he was handcuffed and he exhibited signs of over-intoxication, possible alcohol poisoning, and he fell face first,” Halstead said. “If there\’s an eyewitness to the contrary, then that is exactly the person we want to come forward to the Police Department.” [Boldface emphasis mine.]

Or the TABC’s statement?

At the Rainbow Lounge, TABC agents placed one individual under arrest, Chad Gibson who was injured while in the agents’ custody. Mr. Gibson was released to paramedics for treatment of alcohol poisoning and a head injury and transported to a local hospital.

Is that all the evidence they have? All they saw was that he vomited and fell.

I’m calling bullshit on this. People aren’t charged with drunk driving because they were weaving. They may be pulled over for it, but they are arrested and charged when they fail a legitimate test indicating blood-alcohol levels are above the legal limit. And when we read a news report of a traffic accident involving drunk driving, there is always some mention of blood-alcohol levels to substantiate the charge.

So if they are so convinced that Chad Gibson was falling down drunk, where’s his blood-alcohol level? Did the police or TABC even run a test on Chad? If so, why haven’t either of them released the figure?

Let’s reconstruct what really happened. Here’s our first eyewitness:

Club Manager Randy Norman said Gibson didn\’t seem drunk and was walking from the men\’s room, holding a bottle of water, when an officer pushed him against a wall and then pushed him to the ground. Some patrons said they heard Gibson ask the officer a question, but that he didn\’t fight back. At least three officers were involved in handcuffing him.

Kayla Lane, a visitor from California, has a slightly different memory of where he was handcuffed, but she also reports seeing someone pulled to the ground who wasn’t drunk:

After this, we saw the policemen go into the men\’s restroom, pull out at least two guys from handcuffs from there, and pull one onto the ground before forcefully removing him. What were they doing in there? Raucously disposing of their waste?! There was no reason for ANY of those arrests, at all. These people were NOT drunk, or even overly happy or silly.

We do know however that he was forcefully slammed against a wall:

“The first question I heard was, ‘How much have you had to drink?\'” said Shane Wells, a dancer at the club. Gibson “said, ‘I don\’t have to answer that question\’ and they grabbed him and ran him against that little wall.\'”

And then, according to Chuck Potter, Chad was very brutally thrown to the ground:

Chuck reported that Chad Gibson (who ended up in the Intensive Care Unit at John Peter smith Hospital because of his treatment) was tapped on the shoulder and told he was under arrest. When he asked why he was slammed against the wall, his head was pulled back so far that Chuck was worried that his neck might break. When they released him for a second, Chad tried to catch his breath and staggered as he did so. The police then slammed him to the ground and 5 cops were on top of him. A friend who was at a higher vantage point in the bar saw one cop with his foot on Chad\’s neck on the floor.

Justin McCarty was working security at the Rainbow Lounge that night and he also saw what happened:

McCarty said that he saw officers throw Chad Gibson to the floor, adding that, “There were people standing there watching it happen and crying. They were scared. It was just brutal.”

So did Alison Egert:

It was shortly after that conversation, Egert said, that she saw a patron in the bar “thrown against the wall” and then pushed to the floor. (That man was later identified as Chad Gibson.)

“Here you had this gay man who looked like he weighed about 100 pounds thrown to the floor with six cops on top of him,” she said. “That\’s when I started noticing that they were only arresting men, and they seemed to be targeting the smaller men.”

Another witness, Chris Hightower, told WFAA-TV that he saw Chad hit his head against the concrete step into the men’s room:

They spun him around this way and laid him out on the ground, and that’s when he hit his head on this step and got the head injury.

Floor and step at the Rainbow Lounge where Chad Gibson was thrown. (WFAA-TV)

That’s a very solid brick floor and sharp step for Chad to be thrown onto.

TABC now say that after they took him outside, he fell again and that’s when he received his head injury. They’re clinging to that story so they can claim he was showing signs of “alcohol poisoning”  before he fell outside. And maybe he really did fall again outside; we don’t have any witnesses who said he didn’t. But if he did, it could very easily be because of his loss of balance due to the injury he sustained when his head hit the wall, the brick floor and/or the step.

TABC and FWPD are sticking to the “alcohol poisoning” excuse even though others in the bar didn’t even think he was tipsy. That’s a huge discrepancy. Someone on the verge of alcohol poisoning would look quite a bit more than  “overly happy or silly,” don’t you think?

Nobody has come forward with any convincing evidence that he was actually drunk, but what we do have is convincing evidence that he sustained a severe head injury, because that’s what he’s been in intensive care for since Sunday.

The only way this all comes together is that Chad was injured when he was thrown to the ground outside the men’s room. Given the large number of witnesses who describe that scenario, that looks like the only plausible answer. Unless, of course, TABC or FWPD can produce results from a blood-alcohol test. And they better do that fast or retract their statements. Otherwise, nothing they say or do will have any credibility.

Ex-Gay Question to be Central to Federal Lawsuit

In Perry v. Schwarzenegger, the federal lawsuit by Ted Olson and David Boies to overturn Proposition 8, the judge has decided against placing a hold on Prop 8 and instead is opting for a swift consideration. This is the position that was requested by Gov. Schwarzenegger and Atty. Gen. Brown; they felt that placing a hold would lend to confusion for all parties.

An article in the San Francisco Chronicle reveals that Olson and Boies will be relying on the precident set by Romer v. Evans in which the US Supreme Court determined that states cannot deny rights to gay people as a class based solely on animus.

The attorneys behind the challenge to California’s Proposition 8 plan to argue during a pretrial hearing Thursday that by stripping gays of the right to wed, the voter-approved ban runs afoul of America’s founding framework in the same way — and for the same reason.

“Romer is a strikingly similar situation to what we have here. You had a ballot initiative, a majority vote of the people, taking away a right,” said Theodore J. Boutrous Jr., a member of the legal team led by former U.S. Solicitor General Theodore Olson and veteran trial lawyer David Boies. “And there was no justification or rationale other than disapproval by that majority of that group.”

This case also will ask a question that is at the core of all civil rights legal issues: are gay people really a distinct group of people. Or, in other words, is sexuality immutable.

U.S. District Chief Judge Vaughn R. Walker on Tuesday issued a tentative order to fast-track the case in his San Francisco court.

Among the questions he said he wants covered at trial are whether sexual orientation is unchangeable, if permitting same-sex marriage “destabilizes” traditional unions and whether Proposition 8’s ballot history demonstrates the measure had “discriminatory intent.”

There is little doubt that ex-gays and ex-gay groups will testify before court. And there is little doubt that they will claim “change”.

However, will they be truthful? Will they admit that “change” is only in perspective, in behavior, in identity, but not in attractions?

Sadly, the history of ex-gay activists suggests that they will seek to confuse the court and to leave the impression that orientation can be “overcome through the power of Jesus Christ”. I hope I’m wrong.

Chad Gibson’s Mother Speaks Out

According to the Dallas Voice’s Tammye Nash, Chad Gibson’s brain has stopped bleading, but he’s suffering terrible headaches.  The Ft. Worth Star-Telegram reports that Chad’s condition has been upgraded from serious condition to fair. They also have this statement from the Texas Alcoholic Beverages Commission

We are saddened that this incident occurred and extend our sincere hope that Mr. Gibson recovers quickly,” said TABC Administrator Alan Steen. “I have initiated an internal affairs investigation to answer questions about how these locations were chosen, to review the agents’ actions, and specifically to establish the facts surrounding Mr. Gibson’s injury.”

Log Cabin’s Fight Against DADT Goes Forward

In a split ruling, a federal court determined that Log Cabin Republicans could proceed with their lawsuit challenging the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell law. (pdf, 24 pages)

On June 9, 2009, Judge Virginia A. Phillips of the Central District of California denied the U.S. Government’s attempt to dismiss Log Cabin Republicans’ lawsuit challenging the U.S. military’s ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy as unconstitutional.

After a 4 1/2 year process, this case is moving forward.

The Court has scheduled a hearing for July 6 to discuss, in detail, the scope of discovery and a schedule for the case going forward.

Update: Marriage Recognition in the Nation’s Capital

Back in May, the Washington D.C. City Counsel passed legislation to recognize same-sex marriages conducted in those states in which it is legal. On May 6, Mayor Adrian Fenty signed the bill.

Rev. Harry Jackson, a pastor of a large church in Beltsville, Maryland, decided that he wanted to take advantage of a provision in D.C. law that allows for a referendom on bills. He registered as a D.C. voter (using what appears to have been a fraudulent address) and took out a petition.

However, the D.C. Board of Elections & Ethics ruled that such a referndom was in violation of the city’s election code. Election law in D.C. prohibits votes on matters covered under the city’s 1977 Human Rights Act, which outlaws discrimination against gay men, lesbians and other minority groups.

Yesterday a Superior Court judge refused to put a stay on its enactment. (Washington Post)

A Superior Court judge decided yesterday not to delay enactment of a law stipulating that the D.C. government will recognize same-sex marriages performed in other jurisdictions.

Barring some action by Congress, the bill will become law on Monday when the congressional review period expires.

Enemies of marriage equality are not likely to accept defeat

Brian Raum, an attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund, the Christian conservative law firm that represented Jackson and his group, said they will file an appeal seeking to have the law overturned. The group announced after the ruling that it will seek a ballot initiative on a law defining marriage as being between one man and one woman.

The City Council is expected to move forward on their goal of legalizing marriage in the capital.

Update: Brian, a reader at our site, provided a link to the ruling.

As he reminded me, an important part of this case was that the judge did not find that the “proposed referendum is consistent with the DCHRA.” In other words, the referendum was contrary to the District’s Human Rights Act.

HR 1283 Gets New Sponsor

The bill introduced in Congress to remove the ban on open service in the military, HR 1283, the Military Readiness Enhancement Act was sponsored by Rep. Ellen Tauscher. However, Rep. Tauscher was confirmed on June 25 as the Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security.

The Morning Call is reporting that upon her resignation, the bill was assigned to Iraq vet Patrick Murphy. You may recall that Murphy skewered Elaine Donnelly’s anti-gay rantings in Congressional testimony.

Murphy is likely to be an ardent advocate for overturning DADT and the underlying ban. I hope that he will take prompt action on this bill but it appears that he does not anticipate rapid passage.

He said he anticipates a drawn-out battle to rally enough support to bring the bill to the floor. The legislation, first introduced in 2005, has never made it out of committee.

“This is going to take months and months, but change is going to happen,” he said.

Notes From the Last Night’s Talk On Rainbow Lounge Raid

John R. Selig attended the talk at BuzzBrews in Dallas last night featuring Todd Camp and Chuck Potter, who were eyewitnesses to the Rainbow Lounge raid by Ft. Worth police and Texas Alcoholic Beverages Commission (TABC) agents early Sunday morning. The following are rough notes taken by John and passed on via Rex Wockner. John Selig apologizes for not having had the time to organize them into a more orderly post.

At approximately 1:05 AM 6 members of the Ft. Worth Police Department and 2 TABC (Texas Alcohol Beverage Commission) Officers (number of officers reported in the media) raided the Rainbow lounge in Ft. Worth and terrorized the bar for 40 minutes. Chuck mentioned that he saw more than 8 officers in the bar. Terrorize is a strong word but it was one that all of the speakers used repeatedly and from their accounts they were not overstating their case. The TABC officers were wearing shirts that had State Police on their backs but you couldn\’t tell they were police officers from the front.

Rainbow Lounge was raided to intimidate the patrons to help close the bar which had been open for just over a week. The police had been by the bar every night since it had be open patrolling the parking lot. The night before the raid the police were peering through the fence into the patio. The bar was disliked because it was LGBT and it had strippers (who all obeyed the law). The night of the raid two other bars were raided earlier (one of the speakers mentioned that he believed that the other bars were hit first as a cover for the real target which was the Rainbow Lounge which was the third and last bar raided. One of the bars hit was a Latino bar and the other had a mixed crowd. All three bars were in less than desirable neighborhoods

The raid on the Rainbow lounge was different from the raids on the other two bars in three significant ways

1) The Rainbow Lounge was the only raid that had a Paddy Wagon sitting outside. The police intended to make arrests and haul people outside.

2) The raid at the Rainbow Lounge was the only raid that resulted in bodily injury to one of the people arrested.

3) This was the only raid where the police brutally took down patrons and terrorized the people in the bar. “They came into the Rainbow Lounge full of adrenalin, pumped and ready for a fight.”

The speakers mentioned that this wasn\’t a typical TABC raid. They had seen them before. When the TABC comes in usually the music is turned off and the lights are turned on. They go behind the bar and check records and licenses and ask patrons for ID. What happened at the Rainbow Lounge was nothing like that.

The media notes that seven arrests were made. However, at least 20 people were dragged outside before it was determined which ones would be arrested.

The police walked up to patrons of the bar and tapped them on the shoulder from behind. They took one look at the patron and said you are under arrest. If the patron asked any question like is was going on or why am I under arrest, they were slammed to the floor, handcuffs were put on and they were dragged outside.

Chuck reported that Chad Gibson (who ended up in the Intensive Care Unit at John Peter smith Hospital because of his treatment) was tapped on the shoulder and told he was under arrest. When he asked why he was slammed against the wall, his head was pulled back so far that Chuck was worried that his neck might break. When they released him for a second, Chad tried to catch his breath and staggered as he did so. The police then slammed him to the ground and 5 cops were on top of him. A friend who was at a higher vantage point in the bar saw one cop with his foot on Chad\’s nexk on the floor. When a patron asked what was going on the police told him to move along or we will arrest you. When he saw the cop outside later the policeman told him that when I tell you to move along you move along and then grabbed him by the scruff of the neck. Chad was dragged outside and one cop watched him. Chad Gibson\’s injuries were caused while he was in TABC custody (which the TABC is now admitting). The cops say that Chad\’s injury was caused by Chad passing out when he was outside the bar because he was drunk. Eye-witnesses and doctors disagree with the police account. The police are also using the “Gay Panic” defense that they were groped by one of the people they arrested (I believe it was Chad Gibson. Chad was brutalized by the police and was dragged outside at 1:45 AM. The police wrote his ticket at 2:17 AM and the ambulance didn\’t arrive until 2:25 AM.

Chuck had seen Chad in the bar before and described him as shy and timid. He visited Chad in the hospital today and again described him as being fairly quiet, humble, shy and timid. Because of Chad\’s brain injury he doesn\’t remember many details from the night but doesn\’t believe he was drunk and there was no way that he would have assaulted a police officer. He wanted to thank everybody for their support and wishes.

Chuck mentioned that there were a number of heterosexual people in the bar that were shocked and outraged and three straight men were so shocked that they hugged Todd.

Patrons were traumatized by the brutality of the force used. One patron was approached (they all seemed to have been approached from behind). The cop told him that he thought the patron was drunk. The patron told the cop that he was drinking water and showed him the bottle. He was thrown against the pool table as the bottle fell to the floor and smashed. The patron\’s arms were twisted behind his back and the cop told the patron that he, the patron, had just assaulted the cop. He was cuffed and taken outside. If anybody asked any question of the a cop they were taken outside.

Todd believes that the raid had nothing to do with the Stonewall anniversary. Chuck disagreed and said he definitely believed that there was a connection that they picked that night. They wanted to intimidate the patrons so that they would leave the bar and never come back. They want the bar to close.

Most of the police were large men and many of the guys arrested were 120-150 lbs (no match for the cops) and the brutality of the force used was definitely not needed and used to intimidate and terrorize.

The bar closed at 2 AM. People were scared to get into their cars for fear of the police pulling them over and charging them with DWI. Chuck made it home at 2:45 and immediately started texting everybody that he knew. Todd who had been at the Rainbow Lounge with several friends to celebrate his birthday contacted newspapers and broadcast media as quickly as possible.

FWPD Chief Addresses Concerns At Community Forum

The Dallas Voice’s Tammye Nash attended Tuesday night’s community forum in Ft. Worth, Texas hosted by Ft. Worth Police Chief Jeffrey Halstead. Chief Halstead answered a number of questions from the audience about the Sunday morning’s raid on the Rainbow Lounge:

First: after the meeting had started, Chief Halstead announced that the director of the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission had just issued a statement acknowledging that Chad Gibson, who has been hospitalized with a head injury since the incident, was injured while in the custody of TABC agents.

Halstead, who only recently became police chief after moving to Ft. Worth from Phoenix, also announced that he wants to meet with LGBT leaders and will appoint an LGBT liaison. That leads me to believe that up until now, Ft. Worth hasn’t had one. If true, that would be a very disturbing condition for the nation’s seventeenth-ranked city, and one that I’m glad the Chief will correct. Halstead also announced that he intends to institute sensitivity training for the force’s officers, which would be another long-overdue reform for such a large police department.