Jul 10, 2009  |  By: Lou Chibbaro Jr.  | COMMENTS     

A federal prosecutor in Texas has agreed to review the results of an ongoing internal investigation by the Fort Worth Police Department into allegations that officers used excessive force during a June 28 police raid on a gay bar.

Seven men were arrested on public intoxication charges and at least two were seriously injured in an action that police initially called a routine alcoholic beverage inspection at the Rainbow Lounge, a Fort Worth gay club.

The action by police and agents with the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission triggered an uproar among gays in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, with many noting that the raid took place on the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall riots in New York City, a development credited with starting the modern LGBT rights movement.

One of the men arrested during the Rainbow Lounge raid was released this week from a hospital after suffering a head injury that led to a blood clot in his brain, according to witnesses and members of the man’s family.

Witnesses said 26-year-old Chad Gibson, a computer technician from the nearby town of Euless, was thrown head-first into a wall and knocked to the floor by officers and TABC agents, who later accused him of grabbing the groin of one of the agents.

Upon his release from the hospital this week, Gibson told television news stations he neither groped nor provoked any of the officers or agents.

“I was at the bar buying drinks for my friends,” he told KTVT-TV. “The next thing I remember is waking up in the ICU,” he said, referring to his stay at the intensive care unit at a Forth Worth hospital.

Rainbow Lounge manager Randy Norman, who spoke with the Blade, and other witnesses who gave statements to the local gay newspaper Dallas Voice, backed up Gibson’s statement, saying police threw him into a wall and knocked him to the floor for no apparent reason.

Gay activist and former journalist Todd Camp, who witnessed the raid, said another patron at the bar suffered broken ribs and a third received a broken thumb at the hands of officers who arrested them, the New York Times reported.

In statements issued last week, police and TABC officials said they made arrests on public intoxication charges at two straight bars on the same night that they arrested patrons of the Rainbow Lounge.

At the request of Fort Worth Mayor Mike Moncrief, the head of the United States Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Texas has agreed to review the findings of an internal investigation into the incident by both Forth Worth police and the TABC, an independent state agency that monitors establishments that serve alcoholic beverages.

Cathy Colvin, a spokesperson for Acting U.S. Attorney James Jacks, told the Blade Jacks would begin his review upon the completion of the police and TABC investigations of the incident. She said FBI agents stationed in the Dallas-Fort Worth area would likely assist Jacks in his review of the incident.

“We’re continuing to monitor the case,” she said. “As a matter of protocol, we would send the case to the Department of Justice for a civil rights review.”

Fort Worth Police Chief Jeffrey Halstead issued a statement last week saying the fact that the raid took place on the 40th anniversary of Stonewall was a coincidence.

Halstead initially told the media that at least two Rainbow Lounge patrons were charged with public intoxication after they made “sexually explicit movements” toward police officers. In his statement, he said a third patron, who was later identified as Gibson, “assaulted the TABC agent by grabbing the TABC agent’s groin.”

Rainbow Lounge manager Norman called Halstead’s assertion about sexually explicit movements and Gibson’s alleged groping of the agent “a lie and a slur” against the gay community.

As reports from witnesses contradicting the initial police statement surfaced over the next several days, Halstead announced he had ordered an investigation into the actions of his officers by the department’s internal affairs division. He also announced he had suspended joint police operations with agents of TABC.

TABC Administrator Alan Steen announced that he had placed two of his agents involved in the raid on “desk duty” while the TABC conducted its own internal investigation into the incident.



Lou Chibbaro Jr. can be reached at lchibbaro@washblade.com.