Rainbow Lounge: Fort Worth’s Stonewall?

Gee, thanks Fort Worth police. You just made our city look like a buch of close minded idiots. Think of all the potential tourism dollars that will now NOT be spent in Fort Worth by D.I.N.K.S.

word on the stree is that the bar patrons thought the cops were male strippers coming in to do a striptease… boy were they wrong… lay off the vodka

Hey, Eddie….how about YOU lay off the vodka. I don’t know which street you are referring to, but you may need to check yourself. Many people were traumatized by this event and one man lay in ICU with head injuries. So climb back into that closet and crack your jokes with someone as insensitive as yourself.

Lets recap again.

1) TABC and FW PD raided a gay bar, ostensibly for having drunk patrons, but did NOT bring breathalyzers. And refused to perform them when patrons asked. So what was the purpose of arresting people for being drunk if the cases were going to be thrown out of court? Was ANYONE read their Miranda rights (see below)? Was ANYONE administered a breath test at any point during their custody?

2) TABC/FWPD told a patron upon entry that their probable cause was a tip from a disgruntled former employee. Even though the bar had been open all of ONE WEEK. An investigation should be made into the process by which this bar was targeted. Did some neighbors with buddies at TABC not want the ‘queer bar’ to reopen? Hmmm.

3) Arrests were arbitrary. A female patron, even though she told the police that she was drunk was not arrested. Gay men were apparently the only ones arrested.

4) The TABC was apparently not following its protocol in the raid. When will we get the names of the TABC officers involved in this fiasco? And when will they be fired for breaking protocol? The state should be investigating.

5) The police made the extrememly offensive assertion that the Gay men in the bar were grabbing their crotches. Assertion not validated by any of the patrons. Or the security cameras in the bar.

6) The police now claim that Mr. Gibson was the person who did the crotch grabbing. Are they going to claim ‘Gay Panic’ as an excuse?

7) Mr. Gibson was apparently not arrested for assaulting police officers because he was ’so drunk that he was throwing up all over the place’ per the police chief. So if I throw up, I can go assault police officers and not be charged? Wow, didn’t know that one. That cracked skull and internal bleeding in his brain had nothing to do with the vomiting apparently.

8) Per the incredible police chief, Mr. Gibson apparently fell and hit his head, thus supposedly causing the potentially life threatening head injury. And video or pics of him slipping and falling? Other than with 6 grown brutal cops throwing him to the ground?

9) Leaving Mr. Gibson aside for a brief moment, lets move on to Mr. Anderson, who claims that he was arrested for being drunk and denied a sobriety test and not read his miranda rights.

Now the Police Chief wants us to STFU and wait for him to whitewash this with his Internal Affairs Department. How many openly Gay men on this commission? Seeing as the head of the ‘thin blue line’ in FW has already opined that the victim was a ‘crotch grabber’ who ‘slipped and fell’ and that his officers used ‘restraint’, you’ll have to do a bit better than that.

If I ever find myself on a jury in FW, I’ll take anything said by the ‘thin blue line’ in FW with a huge grain of salt. I see nothing but brutality, unprofessionalism, and incredible and offensive statements by the FW PD and its’ chief.

I think the District Attorney’s office and/or a Federal Grand Jury is a more appropriate venue for any investigation.

This incident is like a visible lesion. A sign of a sub-dermal cancer that is endemic of FWPD’s intolerance of residents’ alternative sexual orientation. The Chief himself is to blame for letting this cancer grow unchecked to the point that it manifested itself in a planned raid scheduled to coincide on the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall rebellion.

I don’t live in FW but I hope they demand the Chief’s resignation, the firing of all bad cops involved in this travesty of law enforcement, the establishment of a GLBT community liaison like we have in Dallas, and proper screening of intolerant Police Academy applicants among other necessary reforms.

This breaks my heart and makes me so very angry at the same time. It’s so obvious that we once again got targeted, and no amount of attempted white-washing by the FWPD is going to erase that fact. Tom in Lazybrook lays it out very clearly. Back in the mid-70’s I used to live in Denton and partied a lot in both Big D and Ft. Worth, as well as Queen’s Point at Lake Dallas. This never happened then. We rose up and DEMANDED respect back in 1969. We need to do it again and NOT take this s**t!

The Fort Worth Police Officers who participated in this bar check included the following:

Officer K. Gober, #3656, Officer J. Ricks, #3484, Officer M. Marquez, #3655, Officer J. Jenson, #3731, Officer J. Back, #3863, Officer J. Moss, #3722 and Sergeant Morris.

I decided to check out what the blogs were saying about this episode and the hyperbole amazes me… misquoting the chief… on one blog (daily kos i think) he was quoted as saying “them fags had it coming” another blog provided a medical dispatch that the guy with the concussion “might not make it”

the reality is is a manufactured tale propogated propaged by folks with an axe to grind…

…and this guy Marty posts the badge numbers of the officers… what’s that about? is he trying to “shame” them?

yawn

and this julie with her “we’re not going to take it” attitude reminds me of a bad dee snider twisted sister video from the 80s…

thanks julie… now i have that song stuck in my head

You do not have special privileges, ‘tribe’ members! That was not
the only bar inspected that night! I’m afraid you’ll have to deal with these late night intrusions by the cops just like the rest of us! And yes, if you grab one by the crotch you’ll have to deal with a broken skull, which you’ll deserve!
Everyone is well aware of how gays lie and twist facts to protect each other and
advance their political agenda, and we’re well beyond sick of it! This was just the police doing their job!
Thank you FWPD, for doing it well!

@Eddie. Talk about misquoting. If you read the article it was an interpretation of what the chief said and in no way was attributed as a quote. And Chad now has a brain clot in the brain. He is not out of trouble yet.

I’ve lived in the Dallas/Fort Worth area all of my life (48 years) and one of my specialties in the area is public intox. Fort Worth does not have to give you a breath test or blood test for P.I. so stop whining about it. The T.A.B.C. has being doing these checks for quite some time now and I’ve never agreed with them but I am an absolute angel when the officeres are in the club and I’ve never seen anything short of a drunken asshole taken away. There are other gay establishments in the DFW area, ask some of them if they have had these absolutely devastating raids, One of the oldest in the are was called the 651 cub it’s now called the 1851club or something like that. Call them up for a history lesson. Not a single person that was in the RAINBOW that night is man enough to say “Yeah I did it” You can not make me believe that no one acted up!
Every time I go to my Doctors office I look across the street at a gay bar called “The Stampede” just a few blocks from the Rainbow, haven’t heard of them being harrased, as a matter of fact i drive by three gay bars on my way to my Doctors office (two thumbs up to BEST FRIENDS (go there people) and with just a little rerouting could pass by at least five. Wanna call me a hater? HIV got one of my gay friends and I have his ashes in a beautiful piece of indian pottery. R.I.P. Jerry Ayers he would probably say “it’s a just a bunch of sissies”.

I think the gays are lying and trying to exaggerate this incident in order to gain public sympathy and support for their cause. This has been their mode of operation for a long time. A propaganda rallying of the troops. I have been around some of these people and I have NO respect for them. They are lude, disrespectful and liers

They’ve been trying to get public sympathy for their cause for years. Remember the movie Philadelphia that won all those academy awards? The thing is they want people to think their lifestyle is valid & worthy of all kinds of special civil rights when its not. Creating a lifestyle by putting a penis into an anus for poop sex is not natural and should not get special rights. We don’t need them here, we don’t want them here – they already have San Francisco, Miami, San Diego & Orlando…they need to get the hell out.

I don’t feel public sympathy is what anyone is trying to get here. I just went to the Rainbow Lounge this last Wednesday with some friends 3 of which were straight, I had been there several times when it was a different name, (Hotshots), We were there to celebrate our 4 year anniversy as that was where I met my partner. To have “NO respect for them”, is to have no respect for yourself or anyone else. The stigma that all gay citizens are sex-crazed horny people is a shame, sure there are exceptions that make asses of themselves, but commen sense allows you to avoid them. Just because you drive down Rosedale doesn’t mean you are looking to pick up a hooker, let’s get real. I have been to many ‘straight’ bars and have seen many people performing lewd acts in public,(dry humping on the dance floor, PDA that is rated X and the singled out drunk girl among the circle of men waiting to see how far she will go). Let’s not judge all by the few that spoil the pot. A gay bar should be a place where people can meet and feel safe to share an evening with their partner of choice or friends and not be harrassed.

I just happened to see a show on the history channel the other night and it had pictures and told the story of the stonewall riot and to compare the TABC INSPECTION to the stonewall RAID is a fucking joke. I have a picture of Chad Gibson that I pulled from the Star telegram and it’s after they moved his hancuffs up front after he fell and bumped his head. He is sitting with a goofy grin on his face with a scrape to the side of his head, heaven forbid he almost slice his thumb off with a box cutter like I did or read end a car on a motorcycle like I also did. These limp wristed twinks at the Rainbow do the gay community a disservice and should be ashamed of themselves, STONEWALL MY ASS! When the TABC shows up for an INSPECTION turn the lights up, the music down and treat them with respect as the y have to deal with a bunch of disrespectful drunks for a living….. think about it you retards, they have a hard job and people like the ones at the Rainbow do not make their jobs any easier.
I’m straight and if I went to the RAINBOW and punched someone in the face for grabbing my ass I would be branded a gay basher while the other party denied doing it, once again STONEWALL MY ASS!