I've said as much before and I'll say it again. Law enforcement needs stricter background checks for bigotry, and actions like this are reprehensible and cannot be tolerated at any level.How could something like this happen in Martin Luther King's home town?
The following occurred about a mile away from my home in Atlanta, Georgia at 11:30 p.m. on Thursday, September 10, 2009.
Mark Danack was watching the football game at his favorite bar, The Eagle, when he heard somebody yell, "HIT THE GROUND!" He thought a fight had broken out. The lights switched on and up to 30 cops were yelling, screaming and ordering everyone to the ground. The police had raided the bar.
For what?
"Shut the f**k up!" a cop yelled at one of the bar patrons who asked why they were being forced to lay face down on the grubby floors.
An acquaintance saw the police shove an 80 year-old man to the ground because he was moving too slowly.
Why?
"No questions! Do what you're told or we'll arrest you!" The officers threatened jail time to anybody asking why they were being held against their will.
The search and seizures began. Everything in everyone's pockets was taken away.
Why?
"None of your G-D business! Get back on the floor and shut the hell up!" Driver's licenses were taken and put through a laptop screening.
What are you looking for?
"I said SHUT THE F**K UP!" Three paddy wagons were waiting outside.
Nick Koperski was enraged. He knew he had done nothing wrong. Yet there he was, lying on the floor, face down, his pockets emptied. He had it better than some of the others, like Du-wan Ray, one of the bar's managers. Ray was handcuffed on the back deck.
Why are you doing this?
"I hate queers," a cop said. Other officers -- some plain-clothed, some uniformed -- walked around the bar demanding to know who was in the military, threatening to report them to their commanding officers.
"This is a lot more fun than raiding niggers with crack!" Du-Wayne Ray heard one white officer say this to another; other cops were high-fiving each other.
For almost two hours, Mark Danack, Nick Koperski, and sixty other gay men were forced to lay face down on the bar's filthy floors. The drivers license screening revealed nothing.
Sixty two men and the cops didn't find a suspended license, a criminal prior, nothing. Not even a parking ticket.
The search and seizure uncovered nothing. No drugs. Not even a joint.
Finally, the men were ordered to leave but without their cell phones, wallets and other personal belongings.
Not a single man was arrested.
Or given an apology.
Or given a reason for why they were held against their will.
Or how they could get their personal possessions back.
Police departments cannot tolerate any kind of racial or sexual discrimination, because while an officer might not act on it like the officers in the article, it can impede a police investigation if an officer will allow these kinds of prejudices to influence their decisions.
I hope the victims in the article sue the hell out of the police department, get a settlement, and then get the hell out of an area where behavior like that is tolerated.
Hell, assuming the report Sith read is accurate (I'm not saying it isn't) and sexual acts were being performed by people at the club, even on a regular basis, shouldn't there be some form of dealing with this other than full on raid or at least steps taken before a raid? I can only imagine what something like that costs to perform. Also, I am assuming they use active duty officers for this type of thing, meaning that patrols would suffer as a result, and that more serious crimes (ie violent) could potentially go unstopped/unpunished while the officers are tied up doing this, or am I completely in error on this line of thinking? This of course isn't even taking into account any kind of potential discrminination issues, which it would seem there is a a higher chance of considering the groups involved and the part of the country it happened in, especially if the eyewitness recollection mentioned in the article is accurate.
