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.
Greg Laden's Blog
Evolution, Life Sciences, Science Education, Human Evolution, and Stuff
Learn more about Charles Darwin and his work.
Looking for stuff about birds?
Lean more about lions
An archaeological expedition to the Congo
The Skeptical Search Engine
The contents of Greg Laden's Blog are copyrighted by Greg Laden.
Recent Comments
- Don Parnell on The grey squirrel from a birder's point of view
- Don Parnell on The grey squirrel from a birder's point of view
- Greg Laden on What is Markdown and why use it?
- No one on New Theory of Dinosaur Extinction
- Satish Goda on Fun with the Linux seq command
- Donald Iljazi on What is Markdown and why use it?
- Greg Laden on The grey squirrel from a birder's point of view
- Charles on The grey squirrel from a birder's point of view
- Greg Laden on The grey squirrel from a birder's point of view
- Greg Laden on Seismic Activity at Yellowstone
Search
Profile
Click on "About" for the big picture, and "Archives" for the details.
Recent Posts
- Charles Darwin, Geologist
- Looking for stuff about birds?
- Environmentally Friendly Hard Drive Case
- Charles Darwin February 12, 1809 - April 19, 1882
- Whitney Houston has died
- Lions!
- Changing the rep of Fungi one mushroom-based robot thingie-builder at a time
- More Mississippi Meanderings
- Is climate change a leftist scientific conspiracy to destroy America?
- Oldest Animals Discovered in Namibia
Blogroll
If you don't see yourself on my blogroll, just drop me a line and let me know. I'll add you.*- 10,000 Birds
- Alpha Meme
- a Nadder!
- Angry by Choice
- Armchair Dissident
- (((Billy))) The Atheist
- blogfish
- blogSci
- Blond Nonbeliever
- Blue Lion Blog
- Bug Girl's Blog
- Camels with Hammers
- Catalogue of Oganisms
- Cassandra's Tears
- Class M Planet
- Cocktail Party Physics
- Counter Minds
- Cranky Linguist, The
- Crowded Head, Cozy Bed
- Dead Racist Society
- Deep Sea News
- Dispersal of Darwin
- Divine Afflatus
- Dread Tomato Addiction
- Evil is Underrated
- Evolved and Rational
- Evolving in Kansas
- Evolving Thoughts
- Fellman Studio Blog
- Flying Trilobite
- Further Thoughts
- Hoxful Monsters
- ICBS Everywhere
- Illusory Tenant
- It's Alive!!
- Jafcisa
- Letters from a Broad
- Life Before Death
- Looking For Detachment
- Matharu's Rants and Raves
- Mors dei
- Natural Reckonings
- Nature Blog Network
- Providentia
- Qeyḥ bāḥrī
- Quiche Moraine
- Religion, Sets, and Politics
- Sandwalk
- Sarah Zielinski
- Science Notes
- The Seething Primate
- Skepchick
- Spanish Inquisitor
- Splendid Elles
- Survival Machine
- Synapostasy
- TalkOrigins
- Tangled Up in Blue Guy
- Tetrapod Zoology
- The Flying Trilobite
- The Inoculated Mind
- The Intersection
- The Loom (new)
- The Scientific Activist
- The Unexamined Life..
- The Zone
- Thinking for Free
- Think Progress
- Three Toed Sloth
- Toomanytribbles
- Traumatized by Truth
- Truth Is a Woman
- udreamofjanie
- Uncommon Liberty
- View from the Pond
- Vickie Henderson Art
- When Pigs Fly Returns
- Writer's Daily Grind
Archives
- February 2012
- January 2012
- December 2011
- November 2011
- October 2011
- September 2011
- August 2011
- July 2011
- June 2011
- May 2011
- April 2011
- March 2011
- February 2011
- January 2011
- December 2010
- November 2010
- October 2010
- September 2010
- August 2010
- July 2010
- June 2010
- May 2010
- April 2010
- March 2010
- February 2010
- January 2010
- December 2009
- November 2009
- October 2009
- September 2009
- August 2009
- July 2009
- June 2009
- May 2009
- April 2009
- March 2009
- February 2009
- January 2009
- December 2008
- November 2008
- October 2008
- September 2008
- August 2008
- July 2008
- June 2008
- May 2008
- April 2008
- March 2008
- February 2008
- January 2008
- December 2007
- November 2007
- October 2007
« Have you heard of Charles Darwin? | Main | What is The Survivor's Club? »
Police Chief: "That Faggot Had It Coming"
Category: GLBTA
Posted on: July 1, 2009 8:11 PM, by Greg Laden
TrackBacks
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://scienceblogs.com/mt/pings/113945
Comments
Where is the outrage? These bastards show how cops came to be called pigs.
Posted by: MikeMa | July 1, 2009 8:32 PM
"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."
Even if they did, it is hardly an excuse to send the guy to hospital. Think what would happen to the world if women armed themselves and behaved similarly every time they were groped.
Posted by: sailor | July 1, 2009 8:39 PM
I've known several police officers quite well, and they were all very cool people. Of course, that was primarily over twenty years ago. I've encountered several police officers over the past several years, many of whom were very polite, cordial, and fair. There were others that were confrontational from their first words to me (which, of course, made my adrenalin start pumping). There are a lot of cops out there who simply should not be cops. I think their training and requirements have tapered off in the past few decades.
Posted by: Dan J | July 1, 2009 10:35 PM
This attitude is one of the better arguments for hate crime legislation I've seen. If this is your local law enforcement, what recourse do you have if not the feds?
Posted by: Stephanie Z | July 1, 2009 11:08 PM
I bet the police chief is a raving religious bigot too.
@Dan: there have always been great cops and awful cops (anyone remember Serpico and the NYPD?). I've always suspected that there have been good people with a sense of fairness who actually want to be cops, and then there are the high-school flunkees, bitter that they're not a football/baseball/basketball star, who can't even find employment from a certain clown and who decide they'll join the police force instead because it gives them authority to terrorize all those idiots who didn't recognize their football/baseball/basketball talents - especially those fags, jews, atheists, and immigrants.
Posted by: MadScientist | July 1, 2009 11:18 PM
In the early 70s I was a regular at two gay bars in Chicago. They were a half a block away from each other. One closed at 1:00am and the other at 2:00am, so there was a nightly procession from the first bar to the second. A police officer was often parked on the street between the bars. Every time I passed by the cop would ask me to show him my ID. Every time I did that he would remark how I looked younger that I was and then he would tell me how cute I was and how it was a shame I was alone, etc. The cop was very, very attractive. I was 99% sure he was gay, but that nagging 1% prevented me from doing anything like giving him my phone number or arrange a date. There was still much animosity between the police and the GLBT community. As much as I wanted to get to know him better, I was still afraid of his being physically violent.
It turned out that he was gay. He came out to the other cops and faced a lot of opposition from them.
He died a few years ago of AIDS. He was still on active duty. Normally when an active duty cop died the cops at his station and others would show up en mass at the funeral. At his funeral there was one female cop. It was so sad.
Posted by: wrpd | July 1, 2009 11:35 PM
And let's not forget, MadScientist, that it's the corrupt cops who tend to have all the power and influence.
Posted by: marilove | July 2, 2009 10:40 AM
This attitude is one of the better arguments for hate crime legislation I've seen. If this is your local law enforcement, what recourse do you have if not the feds?
Actually we need a law structure to deal with violent and abusive cops, regardless of whether it's 'hate', greed, corruption, arrogance, intimidation or whatever. Why they commit these offenses is immaterial.
Posted by: jay | July 2, 2009 11:35 AM
And we have a legal structure that handles the corruption. At least one police department has been prosecuted under RICO. RICO won't handle anything that doesn't have a profit motive, however. Hate crimes laws will also handle the crimes that aren't committed by local law enforcement, but which local law enforcement refuses to deal with under the reasoning that the victims "had it coming."
Posted by: Stephanie Z | July 2, 2009 12:11 PM
Way to expose your complete and utter ignorance of the United States Legal System, there, bucko. Can you really be so dense as to think that motive plays no part in criminal proceedings? How fucking stupid are you?
Posted by: stogoe | July 2, 2009 5:12 PM