They recommend Fort Worth amend the city’s insurance policy in order to implement diversity training for law enforcement and city officials.

Other recommendations include extending the city’s nondiscrimination ordinance to include gender expression.

They also suggest:

Extending domestic partner benefits, shared pensions and family leave for gay and lesbian city employees.

Including a company’s record on domestic partner benefits when considering city tax breaks.

Including sex-change surgery in city health insurance coverage.

Posting nondiscrimination language on job notices, including a letter to police recruits.

Establishing support groups for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender employees.

Holding educational fairs and using public events and media to increase awareness of the city’s anti-discrimination ordinance.

Pushing for state and federal anti-discrimination laws.

The Star Telegram said the city council will vote on one recommendation next week, but it will take time before considering other reforms.

Also, the Dallas-Fort Worth Local News reported this week that the Fort Worth police will announce on Thursday that no officers will be fired as a result of the June raid.

The officers have been faulted for not writing a timely report on the June 28 raid of the Rainbow Lounge, but the department concludes that officers did not use excessive force and none of the officers will be fired.

The angry citizens stood on the steps to protest the Sept. 10 undercover police raid at the gay Atlanta Eagle Club. Eight people were arrested that night, including the owner, and charged with providing adult entertainment without a permit.

According to Towelroad, a total of 62 patrons were handcuffed, searched illegally, and forced onto the ground, where they stayed for close to two hours.

Towel Road also reported some of the complaints last week:

“One man said officers grabbed patrons who didn’t immediately lie down by the neck and forced them to the ground. The man said he was kicked in the ribs while lying down. ‘Then I heard laughing and giggling and saying this is more fun than raiding niggers with crack. They also told us to shut the fuck up unless we were spoken too [sic].’ The man said he heard one person told that if he spoke again he would be hit by a chair. He also reported that one officer ’said to everyone in general that all you all do is flash your asses and show your cocks.’”

Other witnesses reported that the police uttered anti-gay slurs to those they searched.

I’m coming late to this, but here is a question: when is the Atlanta Police Department going to start firing people? As most of you know on September 10 there was a police raid at the Atlanta Eagle. According to authorities they invaded the bar because there were complaints of sexual activity. The tips were sent to the mayor’s office and Crime Stoppers. Why anyone would leave a tip of a crime at the office of the mayor is a tad bit sketchy, and Georgia Equality wants some answers from Mayor Shirley Franklin.The police are going to have to come up with answers also because the complaints filed by bar patrons—no one was arrested—show police officers who have no idea how to deal with the public. In the grievances officers are high-fiving each other like a they just scored a touchdown, loudly proclaiming how they are not fans of gays or gay sexuality.

The most bizarre charge is the detention of an Atlanta Eagle employee. He lives above the bar, wasn’t working the night of the raid, but the police pounded on his door anyway.

“He opened the door to two cops who asked if anyone was having sex there. They asked why there was a bed and he said it was because he lives there. He was made to come downstairs and was arrested with the other employees. He recalled hearing comments like ‘You people are despicable.’”

So having a bed in an apartment is now despicable. Glad that was straightened out.

The owners of the Atlanta Eagle are not going into the good night quietly. Here is their Facebook page and there is a rally this week-end. If you are in Atlanta throw them your support.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll repeat it: police misconduct, no matter who it happens to, is of supreme importance to gays and lesbians.

Protestors have frequently been speaking out about the questionable raid that resulted in sending Gibson to the hospital for seven days with head injuries. The incident occurred on June 28 when two TABC and seven Fort Worth police officers raided the newly opened Rainbow Lounge nightclub. This is the first time Gibson has spoken about his arrest.

According to witnesses, Gibson was manhandled by officers and slammed to the ground, even though they were unprovoked. Police have constructed a different story, saying an intoxicated Gibson grabbed an officer’s groin.

Gibson finally broke his silence last night to WFAA-TV in Fort Worth. He told a WFAA reporter that he wants the officers involved in the raid to be prosecuted, saying the response by the city of Fort Worth has been a cover up.

“They have blamed it on me, that I was drunk [and] that I hit my head,” he said. “I groped the officer. I did this. I did that.  You know what, no … Accept responsibility.”

Gibson is still fearful of a blood clot located behind his right eye.

“I’m scared that something might happen,” Gibson said. “It might start bleeding.”

The incident is currently being investigated by Forth Worth police.

Read the full WFAA-TV story and watch Gibson’s interview here.

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.

The fundraiser was being held at the home of lesbian couple Shari Barman and Jane Stratton when deputies showed up in response to a noise complaint.

Barman, 60, was arrested and jailed on suspicion of battery on a peace officer, and resisting, delaying and obstructing a peace officer. The host was arrested by Deputy Marshall Abbott after she refused to give him her birth date so he could file a noise complaint.

According to Sgt. Thomas Yancey of the Encinitas police station said that Barman tried to walk away from Abbott after he made the request, and he grabbed Abbott, then began using pepper spray on guests at the party after they pulled Barman away from him.

“He was pepper-spraying the faces of anyone who tried to talk to him,” Busby said. “People were stunned. It was something that none of us has experienced.”

Busby said she plans to meet with the Sheriff’s Department to find out why the event occurred and find out who made what she claims was a false noise complaint. Police received a call at 9:33 PM from a man saying that a loudspeaker from the party was keeping him awake.

Barman said that a man on the property behind her house had made “disparaging remarks” about Busby and gay people during the party, but Busby says the reception was not loud like the noise complaint claimed.

“It was a quiet home reception, disrupted by a vulgar person shouting obscenities from behind the bushes,” Busby said.

Read the full Sign on San Diego story here.