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Fort Worth Police Chief: That Faggot Had It Coming
Posted by Dan Savage on Tue, Jun 30, 2009 at
4:18 PM
Most residents of Fort Worth have never even seen the inside of a gay bar.
Fort Worth's police chief Jeff Halstead is counting on that fact—counting on the
average person's ignorance about gay bars and certain stereotypes about gay
men—to get a half a dozen Forth Worth police officers off the hook for
conducting a violent raid on a Forth Worth gay bar, the Rainbow Lounge, late
last Saturday night. Seven men were arrested during the raid, which took place
on the 40th anniversary of the raid on the Stonewall Inn that kick-started the
modern gay rights movement, and one of those men—Chad Gibson—remains in
intensive care with a brain injury. Gibson may not survive.
The officers who raided the Rainbow Lounge claim that the men in the bar made
"advances" on them—and Forth Worth's police chief is backing them up:
Monday, police chief Jeff Halstead said the officers' actions are
being investigated. However, he also said that officers that entered the bar
during the scheduled inspection were touched inappropriately.
"You're touched and advanced in certain ways by people
inside the bar, that's offensive," he said. "I'm happy with the
restraint used when they were contacted like that."
Allow me to translate the chief's comments: "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."
This is a classic example of the Gay Panic Defense. In the very recent past
all a straight man who brutally murdered a gay man had to say was, "He made a
pass at me!", and the jury would ignore the evidence and let the murderer off.
The Gay Panic Defense doesn't fly in many courts of law these days but it still
has currency in the court of public opinion. And the chief of police in Forth
Worth, a major U.S. city, is attempting to use the Gay Panic Defense to convince
the citizens of Fort Worth to ignore the evidence—to ignore photographic
evidence and credible eyewitness accounts—and let his officers
off.
And you'll never guess who the police are accusing of being the groper:
Chad Gibson, the one man arrested at the Rainbow Lounge who
can't defend himself and may never be able to give his side of the story. But
another person at the bar witnessed Gibson's arrest:
"They were hyped up. They were loaded for bear," said Todd Camp, a
veteran journalist who was there celebrating his birthday with friends. "They
were just randomly grabbing people, telling them they were drunk."
Camp told me he has been in bars during TABC/police "checks" before, "and it
was never anything like this." Usually, he said, officers discreetly walk
through, looking for anybody who has had too much. This was different. "They
were shoving patrons," Camp said, "asking, 'How much have you had to
drink?'"
...
"[Gibson] was taken down hard," said Camp, with "four or five" officers
wrestling him to the floor inside the club. Cellphone photos shot by patrons and
posted to blogs show a person being held facedown by officers in a short hallway
inside the club, then show a dent in the wall where his head was apparently
banged.
The police claim that Gibson wasn't injured when those four or five cops
slammed him to the floor of the bar, but after his arrest, when, drunk and
handcuffed, Gibson somehow fell and hit his head on the pavement outside the
bar.
All of this is bullshit.
I've been in a million gay bars. I've been in gay bars on multiple occasions
when the police came in to check everyone's IDs and make sure no minors were
being served. Gay men don't grope police officers when they enter gay
bars. I find it inconceivable that the gay men drinking in the Rainbow
Lounge in Fort Worth responded to a raid by attempting to grope the police
officers. This "they groped us!" shit is a lie. As the owner of the bar, J.R.
Schrock, put it at the protest the night after the raid:
"The groping of the police officer—really? We're gay, but
we're not dumb," Schrock said to the crowd that gathered at the bar
Sunday afternoon. "That is a lie, and I am appalled by it."
Jeff Halstead can't be allowed to use the Gay Panic Defense. His officers
weren't groped, no one was "touched and advanced." Homophobic cops raided a gay
bar, roughed up the patrons, and a young man is in the hospital and may die.
Some will say that this was just an ill-timed raid on a gay bar in Texas, of
all places, one that got out of control. So what's the big deal? But this is
exactly the kind of state-sponsored violence that gays and lesbians fought back
against at Stonewall 40 years ago. Gay men all over the country are
going to have to speak up and defend the patrons of the Rainbow Lounge. We can't
allow the chief of police in Fort Worth to use the Gay Panic Defense or exploit
stereotypes about gay men—so sexually reckless that they can't even keep their
hands off cops during a raid!—to get away with violating the civil rights of gay
men in Fort Worth or murdering Chad Gibson.
UPDATE: More on Chad Gibson's condition:
Chad Gibson, the 26-year-old Fort Worth resident who wound
up in John Peter Smith Hospital in the intensive care unit after a law
enforcement raid on a gay bar over the weekend, remains in danger with a blood
clot on his brain. Dallas Voice senior editor Tammye Nash reports on the
newspaper's blog, Instant Tea, that Gibson's sister, Kristy Morgan, told her a
CAT scan had revealed the blood clot has quit growing, but it is still
considered a life-threatening situation. Until the clot dissolves, there is a
danger that the clot could break off and cause severe brain damage or death. A
rupture of the clot could also start bleeding again.
The blood clot could take from six months to two years to dissolve, according
to the update. Gibson, shown in a picture from facebook.com, will likely remain
in the hospital for the rest of the week and will be referred to a neurosurgeon
for follow-up treatment. Surgery is reportedly not being considered at this
time.
Discussion is under way about the establishment of a medical fund to assist
Gibson. His hospital bill will undoubtedly be enormous, and it is unlikely that
he will ever recover any of those medical expenses from the City of Fort Worth.
Police officers and other government employees are protected by state law from
liability in any legal action that arises in connection with the performance of
their official duties, unless they are involved in misconduct or broke
laws.
UPDATE 2: Someone needs to put this follow-up question to
Fort Worth's police chief:
If Chad Gibson—the 160-pound, 26-year-old gay man that it took five of your
officers to subdue—groped one of your officers, and if it was Gibson's lewd
action that caused your officers to go absolutely apeshit, then surely
Gibson—who is in an intensive care unit and may not survive his injuries—was
charged with assault, right?
Wrong:
Officers then went to the Rainbow Lounge, which had opened about a
week ago. They encountered two drunk people who made "sexually explicit
movements" toward officers and another who grabbed a TABC agent's groin,
according to the police report.
No one was arrested for assault but about half a dozen
people were arrested on charges of public intoxication, according to police
records. Police Chief Jeff Halstead said Gibson was the patron who grabbed at
the agent's groin.
So... Chad Gibson sexually assaulted a Fort Worth police officer and,
according to the Fort Worth's chief of police, Gibson's assault not only
prompted but justified the actions of his officers at the Rainbow Room,
but... Gibson wasn't charged with assault.
Can someone please ask the chief of police to explain how that works?
UPDATE 3: Via Slog commenter jasonzenobia: The Fort Worth
Police Department's email address is fwpdweb@fortworthpd.com and the number for FWPD's internal
affairs office is 817.392.4270. That's the number to call to report officer
misconduct. Joel Burns is the openly gay member of the Fort Worth city council
and he's been all over this. You can reach him at his email is Joel.Burns@fortworthgov.org.
UPDATE 4: I've heard from folks in Fort Worth that Joel
Burns' office is being slammed with furious phone calls and emails about the
raid on the Rainbow Lounge and the assault on Chad Gibson. Burns, however, has
taken action on this and has called for an investigation and is doing everything
an openly-gay elected official is supposed to do in a circumstance like this. If
you're itching to send an outraged emails, Sloggers, I'd urge you to send emails
to the six Fort Worth councilmembers who haven't joined with Burns and two of
his colleagues in calling for a full and independent investigation into the
appalling raid on the Rainbow Lounge.
Councilmember W.B. "Zim"
Zimmerman
817-392-8803
District3@fortworthgov.org
Councilmember Danny Scarth
817-392-8804
District4@fortworthgov.org
Councilmember Frank Moss
817-392-8805
District5@fortworthgov.org
Councilmember Jungus Jordan
817-392-8806
District6@fortworthgov.org
Councilmember Carter Burdette
817-392-8807
District7@fortworthgov.org
And send an email to the mayor, Mike Moncreif, who has yet to make a
statement:
Mayor Mike Moncrief
817-392-6118
mike.moncrief@fortworthgov.org