If you visit New York City, don’t do cartwheels in Grand Central Station. The MTA police will beat you down and pen a ticket for disorderly conduct.

Writer Jesse Archer was walking, with a friend, through an empty Grand Central Station and did a cartwheel (jealousy alert: I sort of hate him for being able to do one, but I’ll keep that to myself for now). A few MTA police saw this display of exuberance and were not pleased. They issued him a ticket. Archer admits he let the officers know he was a bit miffed at getting a citation for a gymnastic move in an empty building; he returns to his friend, says something to his pal about the cops with a cuss word involved, and gets tackled by the “offended officers.” They push Archer’s face  on the floor and handcuff him.

Even if you think Archer went too far with his language (and that’s a big if), being tackled, arrested, and put in a holding cell in your underwear, is a tad bit excessive for a cartwheel no?

Can’t wait to see the moral indignation from some of you about this case. Mainly because a lot of you went nutso when I had the nerve to write about some black Harvard prof arrested on his porch. He wasn’t a  member of the tribe and police over reaction is really not the concern of  gays and lesbians, right? “Gates-gate” was a “ghetto news” story, not appropriate for a gay site.

Ask Archer. I’m sure he’ll have a different take.

Put your heads in the sand all you want, but police brutality is a gay issue. Homophobes in blue and street clothes have no problem treating us like we are not citizens.

If you saw Boys Don’t Cry, it’s difficult to forget the scene when Brandon Teena is recounting his rape to the town police. They surround him and the officer asking questions wears the standard shades and talks to Teena as if he is a suspect. The officer’s day has been interrupted and his disdain for Teena can only be missed by those who accept the myth that the police are always your friends.

It should surprise no one that scene came to me when I read about the aftermath of a raid on a Fort Worth, Texas gay bar. On Sunday, the Rainbow Lounge was under siege from Fort Worth police and the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission. These authorities stormed the establishment, as has been reported by bar patrons, and Chad Gibson continues to be in the hospital with a serious brain injury, an injury caused by either the TABC representatives or Fort Worth officers. How does the city’s police chief Jeff Halstead explain harm coming to a guy who had the nerve to think he could go to a bar and drink without being harassed by arms of the state?

“You’re touched and advanced in certain ways by people inside the bar, that’s offensive,” he said. “I’m happy with the restraint used when they were contacted like that.”

I’ll leave the translation of this line to Dan Savage. He does it better than me. By the way: Halstead’s version of what happened to Gibson has been called a bold face lie by many witnesses.

Apparently someone has informed the chief about the big stinking mess that came out of his mouth and now he is all about reconciliation and community dialogue. Says he will appoint a LGBT liaison and have his officers go through training in how to deal with the gay community (I know a police chief who needs to be sitting in the front of that class). There is also an internal investigation and calls for an independent committee to find out what happened that night.

Hopefully Gibson will pull through this and the residents of Fort Worth will continue to keep the heat on a police chief who sees a brain clot as “restraint.”

PS: RIP Karl Malden.

UPDATE: Gibson was injured while in the custody of TABC agents. Two have been assigned to desk duty pending an investigation.

Four of the suits against officer Richard Fiorito were filed this week, The Chicago Tribune reported. The three others were filed in February.

Attorney Jon Erickson told The Tribune that Fiorito made up DUI charges in a scheme to earn extra overtime pay.

Last year, the group Mothers Against Drunk Driving honored Fiorito for making 313 DUI arrests between Jan. 1, 2007, and June 6, 2008.

Two of the charges were dropped by prosecutors.  A jury found a third person not guilty of a DUI charge and in a fourth a judge dismissed a DUI charge, saying Fiorito had no grounds to arrest the plaintiff.

The Tribune reported that the other charges are under review by the prosecutors office and that the city’s Independent Police Review Authority is looking into complaints Fiorito used excessive force and engaged in bias-based verbal abuse.

In one of the lawsuits, filed against Fiorito, the officer is alleged to have grabbed Shawn Rauch by the throat in the police station, shoved him against a wall and called him a slur for gay.

Fiorito has not commented on the lawsuits or the internal investigation.

Michael Mineo says he was attacked Oct. 15 in a subway station. Officer Richard Kern was charged with aggravated sexual abuse and assault; fellow Officers Alex Cruz and Andrew Morales were charged with hindering prosecution and official misconduct for allegedly covering up the crime.

All three pleaded not guilty.

Mineo filed a notice of claim in the first step to filing a lawsuit against the city. He seeks $200 million in damages for permanent and severe injuries.

The city’s Law Department is reviewing the papers.

The threat was among details to emerge as the Brooklyn district attorney announced an indictment charging Officer Richard Kern and two other patrolmen with felonies.

Kern, 25, was charged with aggravated sexual abuse and assault after the Oct. 15 confrontation. Fellow Officers Alex Cruz and Andrew Morales were charged with hindering prosecution and official misconduct for allegedly covering up the crime.

All three pleaded not guilty Tuesday in state Supreme Court in Brooklyn. As Cruz and Morales were released without bail and left the courtroom, accuser Michael Mineo glared at them and clapped sarcastically. Kern left minutes later after posting $15,000 bail.

“I relive this every day. I’m still in pain,” Mineo, a 24-year-old body piercer, said outside the courtroom. “No one should go through this.”

The Associated Press does not usually name people alleging sexual abuse, but Mineo has come forward publicly to detail his ordeal, speaking to the news media and allowing himself to be photographed and captured on video.

Kern’s attorney, John Patten, told reporters that civilian witnesses standing only a few feet away from the officers and Mineo never saw a sex assault. He predicted his client would prevail at trial.

“I represent a very decent young man,” he said.

Lawyers for Cruz and Morales denied their clients were part of a cover-up.

“They don’t even have a paper-thin case. They have no case,” said Cruz’s attorney, Stuart London.

At a news conference earlier Tuesday, prosecutors for the first time confirmed reports of perhaps the strongest piece of evidence against Kern: DNA recovered from the baton matched that of the victim, they said. They also said two officers had given grand jury testimony that supported Mineo’s allegations.

But District Attorney Charles Hynes was at a loss to explain why a skinny police officer who could pass for a teenager would commit a sex crime while on duty in the middle of the day in a busy subway station.

“I can’t deal with a motive,” Hynes said. “I just don’t know.”

In the most detailed narrative to date of the incident, prosecutors said Kern and Morales spotted Mineo outside the subway station smoking marijuana. When they sought to stop him, he fled into the station, jumped a turnstile, ran toward the platform and hurdled another turnstile before he was pinned down, handcuffed near a token booth and searched for drugs, they said.

With Mineo in a “helpless position” with his pants down, Kern took out a retractable baton and shoved it into the victim’s buttocks, said Assistant District Attorney Charles Guria. The baton pierced Mineo’s underwear, tore his rectum and drew blood, the prosecutor said.

To cover his tracks and with the other officers’ knowledge, Kern wrote Mineo “a bogus summons” that was purposely backdated so it would be invalid, then warned him to keep quiet or face a felony, prosecutors said.

Police initially questioned Mineo’s account and allowed the officers to stay on duty. But the case gained momentum in late October after Mineo’s lawyers went public with his allegations and the district attorney launched a grand jury investigation.

If convicted, Kern could face up to 25 years in prison; the others could face up to four years.

Alexander Ruppert claims that officers Vincent Torres and Kent Pemberton beat him and denied him his civil rights solely because of his sexuality in a 2006 altercation.

Ruppert, 37, says he was beaten nearly unconscious while the cops hurled anti-gay remarks at him and then placed him in a holding cell for two days without food or water.

The lawsuit also names the City of Chicago as a defendant.

The lawsuit claims Ruppert was removed by the two officers from the Uptown Lounge following a disturbance and placed in a squad car.

He was not initially charged with any offense and was not handcuffed, court papers say.

The suit says that Ruppert then was driven to deserted area behind a theater where he was beaten while the officers called him a “faggot” and other derogatory remarks.

The cops allegedly stopped the beating when Ruppert told them he had AIDS.

Ruppert was then taken to an area hospital where he received 16 stitches for injuries to his face and head.

The lawsuit says that following the hospital visit, he was taken to the Foster Avenue police station and held for 48 hours without food or water.  The court papers say that Ruppert was forced to drink from a toilet.

He was charged with resisting arrest and aggravated battery against a police officer, and held for a week in the Cook County Jail, until he could make a $50,000 bond.

The felony charges were dropped after Ruppert agreed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor disorderly conduct charge.

Officers Richard Kern, Alex Cruz and Andrew Morales were indicted last week by a grand jury investigating allegations by a tattoo parlor worker that police sodomized him with a piece of police equipment during an arrest, according to a law enforcement official. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the indictment was sealed, declined to detail the charges.

Lawyers for Kern and Cruz said they were told their clients should surrender Tuesday for arraignment on unspecified charges. Calls to an attorney for Morales went unanswered.

The district attorney’s office refused to comment Monday but was expected to officially announce the charges Tuesday.

Kern, who was implicated by another officer as the main assailant, has denied any wrongdoing.

“We don’t know what the people’s proof is, but as far as I’m concerned my client is not guilty,” said Kern’s attorney, John Patten.

Cruz’s lawyer said his client also maintains his innocence. “He never observed any misconduct nor engaged in any misconduct,” said the lawyer, Stuart London.

The accused officers approached Michael Mineo on Oct. 15 outside a subway station because they believed he was smoking marijuana, police said.

When he fled into the station, they and two other uniformed officers wrestled him to the ground face down and handcuffed him.

Mineo, 24, a body piercer at a tattoo parlor, claims that during the struggle his pants were pulled down and one of the officers sodomized him as he screamed out in pain. He has said he believed he was violated with the antenna of a hand-held radio, and that the assailant was Cruz.

But a transit officer called as a grand jury witness early last month testified that he saw Kern wield a baton and put it near Mineo’s buttocks, according the law enforcement official. The transit officer was among the four who helped subdue Mineo, but has not been charged.

After Mineo was given a ticket for disorderly conduct and released, he was hospitalized for several days. Hospital discharge papers reviewed by The Associated Press show that upon arrival, he was diagnosed with “anal assault.”

The district attorney’s office launched the grand jury investigation in late October when the allegations came to light. The officers were placed on desk duty pending the outcome of the case.

The New York Police Department has said other eyewitness accounts don’t support Mineo’s claim he was sodomized. They include that of a transit employee who was called before the grand jury.

The incident has drawn considerable attention, with the Rev. Al Sharpton showing up at Mineo’s hospital bed after he suffered complications from his injuries and was readmitted for several more days.

Police critics have compared the case to that of Abner Louima, who was beaten and sodomized with a broomstick in the bathroom of a police precinct by NYPD officers. But there are many differences between the two cases.

The 1997 case stoked racial tensions in the city, with Louima being black and the officers white. Mineo is white, and the officers are black, white and Hispanic.

Meanwhile, in a separate New York City case, authorities say a 16-year-old boy has been charged with sodomizing a 14-year-old boy with a broomstick.

The Staten Island district attorney’s office says it is not ruling out more arrests.

Authorities said 16-year-old Joseph Lavalle was arraigned Saturday on a charge of aggravated sexual abuse and assault. He was released on his own recognizance and is due for another court appearance next month.

His attorney, Richard Kopacz, was not in his office for comment Monday morning.

Police say the incident occurred last week as the victim, the suspect and several other teens were hanging out together in the backyard of a Staten Island home.

Duanna Johnson was found shot to death in North Memphis just before midnight on Sunday, Nov. 9. There have been no arrests.

Earlier this year, Johnson was arrested on a charge of prostitution. Johnson alleged that while in custody she was beaten and called a “faggot” and “he-she” by officers. Jail video surveillance backed up her claim and showed a police officer brutally abusing her while she was held in the Shelby County Criminal Justice Center.

The video was obtained in June by WMC television. It showed an officer hitting Johnson several times with handcuffs wrapped around his knuckles; another officer holds Johnson’s shoulders as she tries to protect herself.

After being struck repeatedly, Johnson rose up to protect herself, and was maced in response.

Both officers were eventually fired from the department.

“The tragic murder of Duanna Johnson must be fully investigated,” said Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese in a statement.

“The Tennessee Equality Project recently provided much-needed training to employees of the Memphis Police Department on how to be respectful and responsive to the needs of the LGBT community.  Today, we call on the Memphis Police Department to fulfill its renewed commitment to treating transgender people with respect and fairness by thoroughly investigating this horrible crime and ensuring that every measure is taken to bring those responsible to justice.”

Johnson’s murder is the third murder of a transgender person in Memphis since 2006.  Tiffany Berry, a 21-year-old African American transgender woman, was shot and killed Feb. 16, 2006. Ebony Whitaker, a 20-year-old African American transgender woman, was murdered by an unknown assailant and found dead  July 1, 2008.

Tennessee’s hate crimes law does not explicitly cover hate crimes based on gender identity.

The recent rash of violent crimes against transgender people in Memphis further demonstrates the need to enact federal hate crimes legislation that includes sexual orientation and gender identity, Solmonese said.

But what really happened inside that subway station is highly contested, and has led to one of the most explosive allegations of police brutality by the NYPD in recent memory.

Mineo claims four officers assaulted him in horrific fashion, yanking down his pants and sodomizing him with a walkie-talkie antenna so brutally that he was left bleeding. He says the officers then put him into a police car, and, unsure what to do with him, let him go with a minor ticket and told him to keep his mouth shut. He spent the next four days in a hospital.

The police department says Mineo’s claims are greatly exaggerated, denying that he was sodomized and describing the altercation as a “scuffle.” Police officials say that witness accounts back up their claim.

The Brooklyn District Attorney is taking the allegations seriously enough that he convened a special investigative grand jury to decide whether to bring charges against the officers.

“Because it’s a special grand jury, they will only focus on this case,” said Stephen Gillers, a law professor at New York University. “What he’s created is a separate track, solely for this case, that exhibits his agreement that this is serious enough to warrant a concentrated look.”

The grand jury must sift through contradictory and possibly confusing evidence, and legal experts say it could take a few weeks before any decisions are reached.

The evidence will likely include medical reports, scientific tests of the walkie-talkie, and testimony from witnesses and the officers.

Both sides say they have witnesses who either saw the attack or didn’t see it, including a transit worker and his 12-year-old son who said they didn’t witness the alleged sodomy even as Mineo was yelling out that he was being “violated.”

But a law enforcement official confirmed reports Friday that a transit officer involved in the incident has volunteered to speak to prosecutors, and that his account may support Mineo’s.

Prosecutors had not yet spoken to the officer as of Friday. But initial conversations with his lawyer suggest he “backs up the victim,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the grand jury investigation had not been completed.

Hospital discharge papers reviewed by The Associated Press show that upon arrival at Brookdale University Hospital and Medical Center on Oct. 15, Mineo was diagnosed with “anal assault.” The hospital discharge papers from Oct. 19 said Mineo arrived at the hospital complaining he had been assaulted by police with a foreign object.

A second law enforcement official told the AP that a baton and a radio antenna taken from the locker of one of the officers was tested and found Monday to be negative for fecal matter, blood and tissue. Results from DNA tests that could yield more evidence were pending. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing.

Questions have also surrounded the disorderly conduct ticket that the officers issued Mineo.

The ticket shows he had identification on him, but his attorneys say he didn’t. The summons describes the offense as “blocking vehicle and pedestrian traffic causing public alarm and fear,” and doesn’t mention anything about drugs.

In addition, there is at least one outstanding warrant on Mineo – for drinking alcohol in public – that was either ignored or undiscovered by the officers issuing the summons.

The saga has drawn considerable attention, with the Rev. Al Sharpton showing up at Mineo’s hospital bed last weekend after he suffered complications from his injuries.

It has also evoked comparisons to Abner Louima, who was beaten and sodomized with a broomstick in a police precinct by officers in one of the worst cases of brutality in NYPD history.

But there are many differences between the two cases. The 1997 case stoked racial tensions in the city, with Louima being black and the officers white. Mineo is white, and the officers are black, white and Hispanic.

From the beginning, police have made it clear that they welcome a thorough grand jury investigation.

“We are working closely with the district attorney,” Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said Friday. “Our Internal Affairs Bureau people are very much involved in the investigation as it is conducted through the auspices of the grand jury.”

It is unclear what charges the grand jury might be considering. But legal experts said that if the officers are indicted, it will likely be some form of assault, and if Mineo’s story is found to be false, it’s not likely he would face any additional charges.

The officers are still on duty but have been assigned to administrative duties because members of the press were attempting to interview them, police officials said. The fact that the NYPD kept the officers on duty after Mineo came forward signals that they have strong doubts about the allegations.

The case is also being investigated by the police department, but the department must wait until the district attorney’s investigation is completed before interviewing the officers.