ALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO - The July 1 raid on an Albuquerque gym that caters to a gay clientele has sparked some anger locally, but now the outrage has gone international.More than a dozen armed state agents and Albuquerque police officers launched the 10 p.m. raid on Pride Gym, a private men's club at 3rd and Hannett St. NW, looking for alleged liquor violations, and forced the 50 or so people in the club -- some of whom were nude or were wearing only towels -- to be handcuffed and lie on the floor while the lawmen searched the place, according to a copyright story in Saturday's Albuquerque Journal.
Some of those present told news outlets after the raid that the officers used "inappropriate force and offensive language," saying they were "bullied" and "humiliated," the Journal reported.
Greg Grannan, an aerobics teacher at the gym who was not present during the raid, told the Journal he was upset by the incident, calling it "purely patriarchal homophobic harassment" and that the officers went "way overboard."
A gay news Web site, gay.com, has posted a story titled "ACLU Probes N.M. Gay-Gym Raid," which quotes Peter Simonson, executive director of the New Mexico American Civil Liberties Union, saying his preliminary research shows the raid was "extremely aggressive and reckless."
"Our concern is the policy of cracking down on alcohol violations is giving police a pretext to target businesses they don't like," Simonson told gay.com. "There is a strong sense in the LGBT (lesbian-gay-bisexual-transgender) community that (law enforcement) was targeting gays and that it feels a little like a witch hunt."
One of those who said he was present during the raid -- a 57-year-old gay man visiting from Miami Beach named "Ronald," who asked that his last name not be used -- told gay.com that one man who was wearing just a leather harness and a jockstrap was taken into a separate room by a female officer who took pictures with a digital camera.
"We saw about 15 or 20 flashes coming from there and heard lots of laughter," Ronald claimed. "They (the officers) were having a good old time. It was like the gay Abu Ghraib."
That line was picked up by pinknews.co.uk -- the Web site of what claims to be "Europe's largest gay news organisation" -- in a story headlined: "New Mexico Police Raid `Like the Gay Abu Ghraib'."
Peter Olson, spokesman for the Department of Public Safety's Special Investigations Division, which coordinated the raid, said at the time, "We did not conduct this search warrant any differently than we would any other search warrant."
And Jim Plagens, SID deputy director, acknowledged to the Journal that the club patrons were put in flexible nylon restraints and told to lie on the floor until it could be determined they were not involved in any illegal activity, were not carrying weapons or did not pose a safety risk to anyone.
But Plagens said the raid was conducted no differently from one that might be done on the Fraternal Order of Police.
"We conducted ourselves in such a manner as to not cause any undue embarrassment or humiliation to the patrons who were walking around with towels around them," Plagens told the Journal.
from The Albuquerque Journal
No comments:
Post a Comment