Police Abuse Widespread in Gay Community

New Amnesty International Study Finds LGBT People of Color and Youth
Most Likely to Suffer; Calls on Police to Improve Training and Accountability

“The police are not here to serve; they are here to get served…every night I’m taken into an alley and given the choice between having sex or going to jail.”
-- Amnesty International interview with a Native American transgender woman, Los Angeles

(New York) – In the most comprehensive report of its kind to date, Amnesty International (AI) reveals that police mistreatment and abuse of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people are widespread nationwide and go largely unchecked due to underreporting and unclear, under-enforced or non-existent policies and procedures.
“Across the country, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people endure the injustices of discrimination, entrapment and verbal abuse as well as brutal beatings and sexual assault at the hands of those responsible for protecting them – the police,” said Dr. William F. Schulz, Executive Director of Amnesty International USA (AIUSA). “Some, including transgender individuals, people of color and the young suffer disproportionately, especially when poverty leaves them vulnerable to homelessness and exploitation and less likely to draw public outcry or official scrutiny. It is a sorry state of affairs when the police misuse their power to inflict suffering rather than prevent it.”
In its 150-plus page report, Stonewalled: police abuse and misconduct against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in the United States, AI focuses on four cities – Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and San Antonio – surveys the 50 largest police departments in the country, as well as Washington, D.C., about LGBT policies and practices, and includes information from several hundred interviews and testimonies. AI’s findings strongly indicate that there is a heightened pattern of misconduct and abuse of transgender individuals and all LGBT people of color, young people, immigrants, the homeless and sex workers by police. At times, the mere perception that someone is gay or lesbian provokes physical or verbal attacks.
The mistreatment and abuse documented in the report includes targeted and discriminatory enforcement of statutes against LGBT people, including so-called “quality of life” and morals regulations; profiling, particularly of transgender women as sex workers; verbal abuse; inappropriate pat-down and strip searches; failure to protect LGBT people in holding cells; inappropriate response or failure to respond to hate crimes or domestic abuse calls; sexual harassment and abuse, including rape; and physical abuse that at times amounts to torture and ill-treatment.
from Amnesty International