Just got an e-mail from “Robert H” who said he was at the Rainbow Longe last night when the police arrived with “a paddy wagon … looking for touble.”
He said he and his friends were sitting on the patio and “nobody was being wild out there” when the police “came through with flashlights being loud” and “took one guy away.”
He said he left shortly thereafter and at the front door “numerous cops were there with plastic handcuffs all ready to go” and that “it wasn’t fire hazard crowded or seedy wild” in the bar.
He said friends called him later and that they were harassed in the bar and that the straight girl in their group “who was nowhere near drunk who got grabbed by the arm, but the worst part is they said they [the cops] had numerous people face down on the ground outside.”
He wrote: “It felt so very Stonewall, but without the standing up for ourselves.”
I have a call in to the police department public information office right now, waiting on a call back. I’ll let you know more when I know more.
The raid at Fort Worth’s new gay bar the Rainbow Lounge really took place last night and some did exactly what the police wanted them to do… leave. This is absolutely unacceptable. I can not believe that on the eve of the 40th anniversary of STONEWALL that the fort worth police will show up with paddy wagon and take people at random and arrest them. If Robert H had stayed last night he would have seen anywhere from 15 to 20 people arrest mostly for public intoxication. Fort worth can not legally shut down the bar so they are harassing the bars patrons, we must put a stop to this!!
Lots of people will be showing their pride today in Dallas and participating in the Million Man March and that is great, but what happened last night in Fort Worth is proof that we have got to do more than simply march down the strip in Dallas’ “gayberhood”. We need to do like our brothers and sisters did 40 years ago and PROTEST where the harassment and injustice is happening. I am not saying lets riot in the streets of Fort Worth but I am saying lets take the Million Man March to Fort Worth and make our Voice heard.
Stop The Madness
Now THIS is more like what I expected to hear someone saying about this! That’s the problem these days is that people FEAR the police because they are given free reign to brutalize anyone who resists in any way. When THAT sort of action happens and goes unanswered it happens again and again. What are we waiting for people? Are we waiting for the first GLBT citizens to be herded off into concentration camps to “keep us in line?”
Do folks here even know that there were over 40 gay bars in Berlin alone when Hitler started rounding gays up? Do you know that gay concentration camps stayed up and running for 7 years after Germany was liberated? Do we really have to repeat our history to learn from it. This can’t be allowed to just pass by unprotested.
I just do not understand what is happening these days. I have several friends who are law enforcement officers and they are fine, upstanding officers who do a wonderful job….and then we see articles like this, where officers are simply harassing the general public for no rhyme or reason whatsoever. It is really getting serious when people are given a job (and right) to harass and abuse people (whether gay or straight, black or white) with no actual justification at all. It really makes me want to just crawl into a corner of my home and stay there…although what good would that do? Honestly, it is getting to the point where I do not trust anyone with a “badge” and they are exactly the people we are SUPPOSED to trust.
My brother is in the ICU right now with a head injury because of last night’s events. I really hope that this issue gets the proper attention from the appropriate city officials.
Kristy,
I hope that your brother is all right.
My heart goes out to everyone who was harrassed.
I cannot believe this is happening in 2009. I live in Atlanta and support my gay brethren in Dallas/Ft Worth. I wish I was there to join your protest of this injustice.
kristy i hope your brother is ok. this should have NEVER happened. would you mind relating how his injuries occurred?
I have said for years that we need to take back pride from being a big party and make it into what it was supposed to be A PROTEST MARCH! Pride wasn’t meant to be a party it was meant to be a protest march with everyone from our community (Lesbian, Gay, Bi, Trans, questioning, Leather, Bear, Drag) if we don’t take back pride and make it into protest marches that effect and affect change we won’t see change. Instead of having pride to make a profit have pride to make progress. We need to stop the internal fighting between the drag/leather/bear/”main-stream” LGBTQ communities and start fighting back against this discrimanatory behavior by those in authority. Remember you ellect these people or the people that appoint them. Remember that you can do more than walk down the street when allowed you can walk into their offices and say “no more”. You can picket out side their offices and say “no more” Make pride back into a protest march yes it can be a more beautiful protest march (we are the GLBTQ community after all) but it needs to be a protest march not just a party! We can go back to party mode after we have EQUALITY!
Kristy, please let us know more about your brother, there are alot of folks and media at the bar right now, if you don’t mind I will pass on the info to them…….Please help us so this might never happen again……Jeff
There are only a few hundred people at the protest right now…please get out there and show your support….its time for Fort Worth to speak up
My wife is a cop here in Austin and it is very sad that people are are thinking they are not to be trusted. Her and i both have lived through this ongoing prejudice( even in our own community)since the early 80’s. Our hearts go out to those whom were singled out. Cops are people,some great and some shouldn’t carry a badge.
I am very interested to hear why this raid was conducted. It sounds like nothing out of the ordinary was going on at the bar. My thoughts are with the injured.
i’m looking for an update on this but i can’t find one, nor is there an fwpd statement yet…is that correct? and what is the story on kristry’s brother in icu? you are in our thoughts and hearts tonight.
Don’tlet the P. D. get away with this!!! This is so wrong. Go get criminals not gay and gay friendly people. We have to stand up against this in a BIG way.
Tomorrow when you go to work remember what has happen. Don’t be afraid of telling people how you fell and who you are. They get away with things like this becuase so many us are still in hiding. I know it is not easy to be out in the work force in today’s world but it is the only way we are going to make a change. ONE STRONG COMMUNITY EQUALS ONE LOUD VOICE!!!
Cops may only be human beings (well, maybe some of them) but ABUSE OF POWER SHOULD COME AS NO SURPRISE! Damn the authoritarian society that oppresses us because of who we are for profit!!! Cops unconditionally enforce sexist, homophobic, and racist laws mostly effecting the lower middle class and the impoverished. Damn the capitalist system that would produce the incentive for bosses to deny equal benefits to GLBT working class families!
And damn the democrats who tried to monopolize the crowd’s activity when their own president elect won’t recognize the necessity of equal rights – someone who should know better than to deny equal rights to anyone. Someone who promised he would.
“America is just the country that shows how all the written guarantees in the world for freedom are no protection against tyranny and oppression of the worst kind. There the politician has come to be looked upon as the very scum of society.â€
Peter Kropotkin
Keep fighting, my queer friends! YOU CAN AND WILL WIN THIS WAR! BE PERSISTENT AND PARTICIPATE!
I find it funny that police raided this club on the 40th anniversary. I find it amazing that the police would even be up on gay rights history and be aware that Stonewall existed. I think we are giving them too much credit. There is no way a single one of those cops knew it was our day.
The other problem I have with all of it is that we are claiming that “its not fair and that they singled gays out” but if Fort Worth PD and TABC do these checks for drunks all the time, and this is the first time we have heard of it happening in a gay bar, wouldn’t that lead to believe that they are trying to be fair by including us in this. Where is Lulac standing up for the cops claiming that “yeah, the cops inspected somewhere other than a Hispanic bar that night”.
People really get that you cannot drink and drive. People cannot grasp the idea of not being drunk in public…even if your not driving. I wish I had been at this bar that night. I drink 2 beers then I am done. They would have been very bored by me if they even talked to me…of course I am not Drama, and I am not trying to exploit an incident for my cause. Wasn’t the parade on Sunday already planned for the Stonewall Anniversary? Tell me your not exploiting the incident when the same parade that we had permits to do, turns into a “Texas Gay Bar Raid March”?
If anything needs changed it is the laws on public intoxication. I saw one link where TABC and Irving PD went through this same thing with “white” bars 2 or three years ago. None of the officers got sued, because the were enforcing the laws as written. Same with the Stonewall cops. 40 years ago sodomy was enforceable. Wrong to arrest for kissing another of the same sex, of course, but 40 years ago that was the law. YOU want change, have the Texas Legislature actually do something and change the PI law and outdated Alcohol laws. Sue the officers ? …never will fly in this instance.