Amid a community uproar over the raid of a Midtown gay bar, Atlanta Police Chief Richard Pennington said Monday that undercover vice officers had been to the club on two prior occasions and observed illegal activity there.
The police raid on Thursday at Atlanta Eagle on Ponce de Leon Avenue led to the arrests of eight employees on improper permit charges. They entered not guilty pleas Monday.
During the raid, 62 patrons were ordered facedown on the bar’s floor, some for more than an hour. The customers were searched illegally and some were taunted with anti-gay slurs by some of the officers, the bar’s co-owner said.
According to police records, undercover vice officers had been to the club and witnessed men having sex while other patrons watched. The department received its first complaints in May and sent officers there undercover before the Sept. 10 raid, Pennington said.
Police records show that initial complaints alleged there were drugs being sold on Atlanta Eagle premises and that patrons engaged in open sex acts.
At a press conference, Pennington said he takes seriously allegations of police misconduct. He also expressed regret that Danni Lynn Harris, the department’s liason with the gay and lesbian community, had not been notified of the raid.
“She should have been invited,” Pennington said. If she had been there, the chief said, any inappropriate behavior by the officers could have been curtailed.
“This is very unfortunate this incident occurred,” Pennington said. “I’m sorry for what happened.”
Pennington said each complaint will be thoroughly investigated. If an officer is found to have acted inappropriately, “we will take appropriate action.”
Pennington said no search warrant was served and that patrons were “frisked” for the officers’ safety. Nine undercover officers and a dozen uniformed officers participated in the raid. The team arrived with three jail vans and employed members of the Red Dog unit, typically used in drug investigations, to assist with the arrests.
Garrett McLendon, 43, said patrons were not frisked, they were illegally searched.
McLendon said he found himself laying in glass from a beer bottle that had fallen on the floor. When he asked if he could move, an officer shouted an expletive at him, McLendon said.
McLendon said officers grabbed the prone customers by the back of their pants and turned them over and rifled through their pockets. “Still, as I look back at it, it’s hard to believe,” he said.
The raid began last Thursday after 11 p.m. when police officers entered the bar and told everyone to lie facedown on the floor.
For the next couple of hours, police went through the patrons’ pockets, apparently looking for narcotics, said Alan Begner, Atlanta Eagle’s lawyer. The officers also took everyone’s identification and ran background checks on them. One by one, the customers were allowed to leave, Begner said, noting no drugs or illegal contraband were found during the searches.
“What happened to the customers was an assault,” Begner said. “They were not free to go. There was no suspicion any of them had committed a crime. This is unbelievable.”
Begner also said some of the bar’s customers said they had been subjected to anti-gay slurs by some of the officers.
On Monday, at least 10 of the bar’s patrons and employees went to APD’s Office of Professional Standards to lodge complaints about the way they were treated by the officers conducting the raid.
“This is all about the way my patrons were being treated,” said Atlanta Eagle co-owner Richard Ramey. “They were completely humiliated. It was unjustified for them to be treated that way.”
Atlanta Eagle, located on Ponce de Leon Avenue in Midtown, is one of Atlanta’s oldest gay bars, founded more than 23 years ago. It remains open. A rally opposing the raid was held Sunday at the bar’s parking lot.
Atlanta mayoral candidates, including state Sen. Kasim Reed and city countil president Lisa Borders, have called for an investigation of the incident. City councilwoman Mary Norwood questioned whether this was the best use of police resources. Jesse Spikes, an attorney, said harassing people and treating them unfairly is not something the APD should be doing.
Steve Gower of the Midtown Ponce Security Alliance said he had not received reports or observed anything suggesting that crime and disorder in the neighborhood were attributable to Atlanta Eagle.
“From what we can tell, the staff and patrons of that establishment have enjoyed their evenings quite peacefully,” Gower said in a statement. “We have never observed otherwise, and nobody has ever reported to us otherwise.”
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