Six officers were fired, the elite Red Dog unit was permanently disbanded, and the City setlled a Federal lawsuit for more than $1 million. Unlike in Fort Worth, however, a five-year follow-up in Atlanta did not show positive changes. District Judge found the City in contempt of court for not complying with orders in the 2011 Eagle settlement.
“Over five years after the Atlanta Police Department’s inexcusable conduct in the Atlanta Eagle that we are still in court dragging the APD towards more competent and safe policing,” noted Greg Nevins, Lambda Legal Counsel. What was different about raids in the 2000s was the outrage they provoked in the mainstream press and the fact that gay patrons did not expect to be going to jail just for being in a gay bar.
But for any reader of the gay press, police raids had never ended and are part of a long and continuous history of violence at gay bars that are actively commemorated on their anniversaries. Earlier this year, for example, headlines read “South Florida’s Last Big Gay Bar Raids Happened 25 Years Ago.” Broward County Sherriff Nick Navarro brought media, visiting dignitaries, and his wife to witness a raid on the gay clubs Copa and Club 21 in Fort Lauderdale when “100 armed officers, masked drug agents and the U.S.
