Saturday, September 19, 2009
News Photo of the Day: Raid, Raid Go Away
Posted by Joeff Davis @joeffly on Sat, Sep 19, 2009 at 9:11 PM
Nearly 100 demonstrators braved the pouring rain this afternoon to rally at City Hall in protest of the Atlanta Police Department's controversial Sept. 10 raid of gay bar Atlanta Eagle. Nearly a dozen people spoke out against the bust and called for an independent citizen police review board and more accountability from police and government officials. “The mayor needs to explain what happened,” Jeff Graham of LGBT advocacy group Georgia Equality said. "And we need to make sure the next mayor does not let this type of abuse happen again." Justin Ziegler, president of the Atlanta Executive Network, encouraged the crowd to “go to your elected officials and demand answers.” Officer Dani Lynn Harris, the APD's LGBT liaison, told the crowd that, when it came to police matters, “you have an ear with me.” In what felt like the tensest moment of the rally Harris defended the Red Dog unit who helped conduct the raid as a “good unit" and said that Chief Richard Pennington — whose leadership was the subject of controversy even before the questionable bust — had been her “biggest supporter“ as LGBT police liaison. She was met by shouts from the crowd of “when’s Pennington going?" Sex columnist and Huffington Post blogger Michael Alvear added some levity to the rally, joking that he would rather be water boarded then have to lie face down on the floor of the Eagle. (More than 60 patrons were reportedly ordered to lie on the floor during the raid.) Alvear said that the police thought that the possibility of a “hand job was more dangerous to the city then the reality of home invasions.” He also said the raid was motivated by “a deep fear and hatred of gay people.”
(Photo by Joeff Davis)
Comments (3)
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GA Equality doth protest too much, in the following sense. They endorsed Lisa without engaging their brains. Lisa has done nada to get Pennington the heck out of town - he's been clearly incompetent and demoralizing to the cops for years - and she has uttered nary a peep about police accountability, an issue well before the Eagle. Kasim, OTOH, says unequivocally that he'll give subpoena power to the police review board and wants immediate answers on what happened at the Eagle and why the APD raided. Lisa and Mary equivocate. It's amazing how folks are unable to see their own interests.
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The "amazing" thing here is how you've focused your comment on a point that neither the article or this protest are even about. Why don't you mayoral candidate staffers/supporters pile on the hatefest for each other on articles that actually deal with the mayoral race? This has nothing to do with your agenda, so back the hell off.
@karsh, so hot under the collar? The idea of democracy, is to vote in better leaders when things go astray. The gay protest and Loaf's coverage of it had to do with City Hall, currently the subject of a once every 8 year election; with the APD and Pennington, who serve under the mayor who will be elected in November; with the citizen review board that Lisa has been stiffing yea these several years in her endless pander to the current mayor and to the cops. The connection between the protest and the November choice could not be more obvious. Kasim on this issue sounds like a break from Atlanta-as-usual. He made the specific pledge of subpoena power for the citizen review board and talked tough about sorting out APD when he spoke at the Inman school forum this week. Anyone, including the Eagle-shocked, who thinks APD needs to be more accountable should be interested in that.
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