Man says he suffered bruising, muscle strain when officer tackled him
Fort Worth Police Chief Jeffrey Halstead said Tuesday night, June 30, that the director of the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission would shortly be releasing a statement acknowledging that Chad Gibson incurred a head injury that left him hospitalized while in TABC custody.
TABC spokeswoman Carolyn Beck said Wednesday morning, July 1, that Halstead had been reading from a draft copy of a statement, and that the final version of the statement was not ready for release.
But even though the final version of the TABC statement may clear the Fort Worth P.D. of any involvement in Gibson’s injury, it doesn’t mean that Halstead’s department is in the clear regarding the arrests that occurred shortly after 1 a.m. Sunday, June 28 at the Rainbow Lounge.
George Armstrong said this week that he, too, was injured in the incident, although not nearly as severely as Gibson.
"I was one of the ones that was beat up at the Rainbow Lounge," Armstrong said in a telephone interview on Tuesday afternoon.
Armstrong said he had gotten to the bar at about 12:45 a.m. and had only been there about 30 minutes when Fort Worth officers and TABC agents entered the bar and began arresting patrons.
"I looked up and there was this swarm of police coming in. They just kind of rushed in," Armstrong said.
"I saw them making their way through the crowd, and I just kind of smiled at one of the officers and flashed him a ‘peace’ sign," he added. "The next thing I know, he was coming at me. He tackled me to the ground, twisted my arms up really hard behind my back. I just kept saying, ‘What is wrong? Why are you doing this? Why are you touching me?’"
Armstrong said the officer told him he was being arrested for public intoxication, then took him outside and had him sit on the sidewalk until he was placed in the nearby van and taken to the police station. Officers outside, he said, "apparently found it really humorous. There was a lot of smirking and smiling going on."
Armstrong said he was detained at the police station until about noon. After appearing before a judge, where he pleaded not guilty to the public intoxication charge, he was released. He said he walked back to the Rainbow Lounge to retrieve his car — and then drove himself directly to the emergency room at Baylor All-Saints Hospital.
Doctors there diagnosed him with severe bruising and muscle strain in his shoulder and back, he said.
"When the guy tackled me in the bar, I landed on my shoulder. My shoulder and back took all the force of the fall. I was lucky that I didn’t hit my head like [Gibson] did. But I was hurt. I was in a lot of pain," Armstrong said. "I told them at the police station that I was really hurt, but they just ignored me."
Armstrong also said police charged him with public intoxication, even though he was not drunk and they did no field sobriety tests.
"They didn’t ask me for my ID in the bar, they just pulled it out of my pocket later, outside. They never asked me to take a Breathalyzer, which I would have been happy to do, and they didn’t ask me to walk a straight line or stand on one leg or any of those things. They just said, ‘You’re intoxicated,’ and they took me to jail."
Armstrong said that his arrest happened so quickly he didn’t realize what was happening until he was handcuffed and on his way to the police station. "I was attacked. I didn’t do anything. I didn’t touch anybody. They just attacked me," he said. "I always thought a person was innocent until proven guilty. But that sure doesn’t seem to be the case here."
Fort Worth police spokesman R.J. "Pedro" Criado said Tuesday evening that Armstrong and anyone else who believes they were mistreated or who saw what happened at the Rainbow Lounge on Sunday morning should contact the department to give their account. The contact person for the department’s investigation is Capt. Garcia, who can be reached by phone at 817-392-4270.
This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition July 3, 2009.
I wondering. Did anyone bother to read Mr. Armstrong his Miranda rights?
Also just curious, did Mr. Armstrong go to the TABC jail, or was he in the custody of the FWPD?
A) Miranda rights only have to be read if someone is being questioned. Miranda rights warn people that their statements may be used against them. When there is evidence of a crime and no statement is needed, Miranda isn’t read. Stop watching Law and Order; it isn’t reality.
B) There is no such thing as TABC jail. State and local law enforcement agencies use the same jails.
C) Texas law doesn’t require the administration of a field sobriety test, a blood test, or a breathalyzer test to charge someone with PI. For this man to have been picked out in a crowd of more than 100, his behavior would have been what tipped the cops off in the first place. Further, here is what the law states:
Sec. 49.02. PUBLIC INTOXICATION. (a) A person commits an offense if the person appears in a public place while intoxicated to the degree that the person may endanger the person or another.
In the absence of specified tests, visual cues as well as behavioral cues are used. And are held up as valid in court all of the time…if the court didn’t support the use of visual and behavioral cues, this law would have been challenged or amended long ago. It’s a subjective test. If you don’t like that, challenge the legislature. In the meantime, the cops administered the law as written.
Glad, as always, to provide clarification!
except the officers aren’t machines and act on their personal HUMAN impulse. i.e. he might have been having a bad day and decided any behavioral or physical cue was that of an intoxicated person regardless. you know its bogus. lame excuse to put people in jail. wow
You are aware that Texas tends to have some of the highest rates of drunk driving incidents and accidents, correct? As someone that has frequented gay bars since 1983 (when I was 15 years old and being served alcohol – being regularly OVERSERVED alcohol, actually) I know that there is a tendency for the patrons to drink too much and to get out on the roads with unsuspecting and innocent people. Let the police do their jobs and keep everyone else safe. If they were wrong, they will be punished. If you are intoxicated in public, you will be punished. Stop whining about it and accept the fact that you are running the risk of getting arrested if you violate the law. If everyone would take personal responsiblity for their own actions and stop blaming everyone else for everything that happens, this world would be a far better place.
Hey I have frequented the bars here in Ft Worth for several years myself and several times the police have come in, turned off the music and have bullied people. I have never been arrested inside the bar but several people have been told to go outside where they do a sobriety test and are arrested. This has gone for years and is unjust. I dont drive but I do drink in a bar and I rarely see lude behavior. If you dont like gay bars, dont go into them.
That’s horseshit, Pro-boy. You’re talking about people who may not have been drunk at all being arrested -without- justification or proof. A completely subjective arrest criterion is -not- what our legal system is intended to be based on. According to your idea of how it seems that this should work, there’s no reason that -I- shouldn’t be arrested and charged with PI if I happened to be out at a bar. Never mind that I -don’t drink- and have -never- done so. Simply by sitting there, I must be somehow guilty.
Come to think of it, I don’t think I like the way you type.. I think you’re intoxicated so you should be immediately arrested and charged as such. It would be very helpful if you would just go ahead and turn yourself in to the FWPD right now.
I wonder if the Rainbow Lounge has a video security system that was operating during the raid? Wonder if any of the fwdp squad car dash cams recorded anything? Wonder if the Voice, Observer, DMN, or FWST have filed an open records requst?
The police will say/do anything to keep themselves out of trouble. That includes lying, cheating, stealing, beating, mugging, planting false evidence, filing false reports and anything else they can think of to cover their asses. The badge, a longtime symbol of public trust is nothing more than a license to break the law and get away with it, abusing innocent people in the process. That’s how these officers are trained and that’s the way things are going to stay until the public starts holding them accountable.