Texas Cops Raid Gay Bar, Brutalize Patrons, on 40th Anniversary of Stonewall Uprising

Posted by Amanda Terkel, Think Progress at 10:45 AM on June 29, 2009.

Shortly after midnight on Sunday, police raided a gay bar in Fort Worth, TX, and arrested seven customers for public intoxication. (One man was reportedly taken to the hospital "with bleeding in his brain after officers threw him to the ground and used zip-ties to handcuff him.") Police said they were simply conducting an "alcohol beverage code inspection" when several customers made sexual advances toward the officers. However, the owner of the Rainbow Lounge, J.R. Schrock, said that claim was a "lie." The groping of the police officer -- really? We're gay, but we're not dumb," Schrock said. The Dallas Voice heard from Todd Camp, the founder of Q Cinema and former reporter for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, who was at the Rainbow Lounge when the police showed up:

My group and I were sitting on the back patio at a picnic table. Nobody was being wild out there. [The police] came through with flashlights, being loud asking what was going on out here, then asked why everyone was all the sudden being quiet. When one group started up their conversations again, they took one guy away. I left shortly after and as I walked through the front bar there were numerous cops with plastic handcuffs all ready to go. I [left] the bar and they [had] a big van in the parking lot and numerous cars on the street. And just so you know, it wasn’t fire hazard crowded or seedy wild in there. … The worst part is [friends later told me] that [the police] had numerous people face down on the ground outside.

The Rainbow Lounge incident came on the 40th anniversary of the famous Stonewall uprising that sparked the modern LGBT movement, when police also raided a gay bar in New York City. Today, protesters rallied in downtown Forth Worth over the weekend’s raid. (HT: Pam’s House Blend)

Amanda Terkel is Deputy Research Director at the Center for American Progress and serves as Deputy Editor for The Progress Report and ThinkProgress.org at the Center for American Progress.