Police raid on Texas gay bar leaves man hospitalized.

A surly group of police officers raided the Rainbow Lounge in Fort Worth, Texas, on the anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, leaving one bar patron hospitalized with a fractured skull... 

Tammy Nash writes on the Dallas Voice:  Kristy Morgan, sister of Chad Gibson, just called me to give an update on her brother. Chad is the man who was hospitalized after being thrown to the floor by police during a raid last night on the Rainbow Lounge in Fort Worth... a second CAT scan performed this afternoon showed that the bleeding in his brain had increased.  "We won’t know anything more until tomorrow when they do more tests,” she said.  Kristy said Chad has awake today, but that he has no memory of the incident in the bar and that his memory of events today have been spotty. She said he remembers her being there, but that he doesn’t remember talking to the doctor this morning, and he doesn’t remember visits by some of his friends during the day.  Fort Worth City Councilman Joel Burns has issued the following statement:  "I  am calling for an immediate and thorough investigation of the actions of the City of Fort Worth Police and Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission in relation to the incident at the Rainbow Lounge earlier this morning, June 28, 2009.  It is unfortunate that this incident occurred in Fort Worth and even more so to have occurred on the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall protests... I am working together with our Mayor, Police Chief, the City of Fort Worth Human Relations Commission, and our State Legislative colleagues to get a complete and accurate accounting of what occurred...  Every Fort Worth citizen deserves to have questions around this incident answered and I am working aggressively toward that end."

I'm old enough to remember when the HPD routinely raided gay establishments in Houston.  I was hauled off to jail during one of these raids and my partner and I were present when several others went down.  This harassment was not uncommon even two decades years ago.  Raids usually happened when a bar owner couldn't afford to grease the palms of cops patrolling the area, or wouldn't hire an off-duty officer for "protection."  It was always the same.  HPD accompanied by TABC goons swept into a club, supposedly looking for liquor violations.  They made a big show of examining the club's permit to sell alcohol.  If they couldn't find any infractions, they started arresting people at random - usually for public intoxication.  They would make clubgoers stand against a wall, and one of the cops would walk down the line and point:  "You" and "you" and "you" and "you."  And then it was off to the slammer.  (Yes, the cops were rough, and often there were injuries.)  Thing is, many of the patrons they took to jail were sober.  But the police knew that gays would likely pay their fines and keep quiet.

In Texas, homobigots are more common than cattle.  But something like this happening in 2009, at this particular time of the year, just smells.  It smells like vengeance against the gay community over recent advances in LGBT equality.  (Updates, after the jump...) 

UPDATE:  According to the Houston Chronicle, Fort Worth Police are now saying that "two intoxicated individuals made sexually explicit moves toward officers and a third grabbed a TABC agent’s groin." 

This claim is not only offensive, it's totally absurd.  When a raid is going on, bar patrons are thinking of only one thing:  "I want to get the hell out of here without being arrested."  Facing a night in jail, no one is interested in fondling some fat cop.

UPDATE:  Fort Worth Police Chief Jeff Halstead says that he's "happy" with the restraint used which left Chad Gibson hospitalized.  Dan Savage at Slog translates Halstead's public statements into "Them faggots in that thar bar touched mah officers and now they're complainin' about some rough stuff and one little ol' faggot with a brain injury? Those perverts should be grateful they're alive."

UPDATE: After seven days in the hospital, Chad Gibson is still not out of the woods. A blood clot remains in his brain that could kill him.  Today, Gibson told WFAA that he has lost all faith in law enforcement:  "You used excessive force and that's why I got hurt...  They have blamed it on me, that I was drunk [and] that I hit my head.  I groped the officer.  I did this.  I did that.  You know what?  No.  Accept responsibility."  The TABC officers who caused Gibson's injuries have been placed on desk duty during an internal investigation.

Comments

[Don]

Thanks for keeping this in the eye of those searching for news on the 'net. Keep at it please.

I saw news of this story and got sick to my stomach. I've always believed that the police were there to protect people who were not doing anything wrong from people who were.

Now I have to wonder, who is going to protect us from the police?

[Trisha]

God, what a police state we live in.