We have been optimistic lately about the rate at which the LGBT community is gaining ground in the country. States are considering bills that grant more legal rights to gay couples, while Congress considers legislation addressing workplace discrimination and hate crimes based on sexual orientation.
But an incident at a Fort Worth gay bar last weekend conjures up images of a more intolerant time. And the city’s response to the issue will be a lasting hallmark of its commitment to justice.
Fort Worth police and Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission officials entered the Rainbow Lounge, a new gay bar in Forth Worth, early Sunday morning for what law enforcement officials said was a routine liquor license inspection.
Two of the bar’s patrons made “sexually explicit movements” toward the officers and were arrested for public intoxication, according to a Fort Worth police statement released Sunday night. The statement also said a third individual “assaulted” a TABC official by grabbing the agent’s groin.
By the end of the officers’ visit, they arrested seven men for public intoxication. One patron, Chad Gibson, is in fair condition after being listed in serious condition when he was hospitalized Sunday for severe head injuries suffered at the hands of a TABC agent, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
Gay rights groups nationwide have expressly called the confrontation a raid — a charge the involved law enforcement agencies have vehemently denied. The issue is more than mere semantics, though. The importance of language shouldn’t be lost.
Raids were police departments’ most successful tool in disrupting events and places the LGBT community frequented in the ‘70s and ‘80s. Then, the police could easily dispel criticism by arguing that they were acting in their official capacity.
Because of this history, the image of police targeting gay hangouts is not something our collective conscious takes lightly. Images and context matter as much as the hard facts do.
As much as police departments would like to think their actions merely serve and protect, their everyday work is undoubtedly seen through historical contexts. As such, a large number of headlines and articles on Sunday’s events have contained some historical context.
The law enforcement agencies involved in last weekend’s incident are learning this the hard way.
The events at the Rainbow Lounge took place on the 40th anniversary of the 1969 Stonewall riots, when patrons of a popular New York City gay bar fought back against police harassment and launched the modern gay rights movement. Now, Fort Worth police and the TABC are preoccupied with dodging the parallels between the Stonewall riots and the events at the Rainbow Lounge
Some Fort Worth City Council members immediately called for an investigation of the incident, which should be done thoroughly, fairly and in a timely manner.
Any excuses that delay a full-fledged investigation are a categorical slight to the state’s justice system and an affront to our nation’s commitment to fundamental fairness. Those dragging their feet on this issue exhibit the worst of what Texas law enforcement as an institution has to offer.
One such obstructionist is Jeff Halstead, the Fort Worth police chief, who said Tuesday the man who suffered head injuries was in the custody of a TABC agent, not a Fort Worth police officer — making it clear that the most disturbing abuse of force in this case is being thrown around like a liability hot potato.
It’s one thing to verify the facts of what happened, especially when two separate government agencies were involved, but Halstead’s statement looks like nothing more than a blame-it-on-the-other-guy defense to charges of excessive force on the part of his department.
The South has long been perceived as a place where hate crimes go undocumented because police departments with the jurisdiction to launch investigations are in cahoots with those performing the hate crimes. It doesn’t seem as if this happened in Fort Worth, but a similarly reprehensible occurrence did surface.
Halstead defended his officers’ actions, stating, “You’re touched and advanced in certain ways by people inside the bar, that’s offensive. I’m happy with the restraint used when they were contacted like that.”
Essentially, the police chief said that, because his officers were so deeply offended, they were right to violently assault the bar’s patrons.
While we respect law enforcement’s necessity to arrest those who disturb the peace, Halstead’s argument is nothing more than a textbook gay-panic defense. The argument, popularized by the Matthew Shepard murder trial in 1999, states that someone who is offended by homosexual advances will act out in an uncharacteristically violent manner when in the situation.
If Halstead hopes to reclaim his department’s credibility, he must retract his statement immediately.
The competency and legitimacy of the law enforcement agencies involved in the internal inquiry are on the line. As the investigation moves forward, decency and tolerance must edge out violence and conflict in Fort Worth.
