The Atlanta Eagle police raid was a police raid targeting the Atlanta Eagle, a gay bar in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. The raid occurred on September 10, 2009, due to anonymous tips alleging that illegal drug use and sex was occurring at the bar. Several dozen officers were involved in the raid, including members of the Atlanta Police Department's vice squad and the "Red Dog Unit", a SWAT-like unit typically used in high drug use areas. None of the 62 bar patrons that night were arrested, although eight employees were. Seven of these employees were either found not guilty or had charges dropped against them, while one was not present at the trials and had a bench warrant issued against him.
During the raid, bar patrons and employees were subject to anti-gay slurs, derogatory language, and both threats of and actual physical violence. Several lawsuits were later filed on behalf of patrons, alleging that their constitutional rights had been violated by the police. In the resulting court cases, which lasted until 2012, the city of Atlanta paid out over $1 million in settlements to the victims and instituted changes to police policies designed to prevent a similar situation from happening. Several involved officers were either reprimanded or fired and the Red Dog Unit was disbanded and replaced with another unit. Additionally, Atlanta chief of police Richard Pennington, already under pressure, resigned shortly after the raid. In 2015, the city was subject to further legal action after the police were found to have reverted some of the court-ordered changes they had been required to make following the trials.
The raid is one of several police raids on LGBT venues and has drawn comparisons to the 1969 police raid on the Stonewall Inn which caused the Stonewall riots, a pivotal moment in LGBT history.
Police raid On Thursday September 10, 2009, at approximately 11:30 p.m., police officers, including several plain-clothes police officers, entered the bar and began making arrests. At the time, there were 62 patrons at the bar. While sources initially varied with regards to how many officers were involved, a later report by a citizen review board stated that 24 officers were involved in the initial raid, composed of members of the Atlanta Police Department's Vice Squad and the Red Dog Unit, a SWAT-like unit used in areas with high drug use. According to the lead investigator present at the bar during the event, the unit had been called in as backup for safety reasons following the start of the raid. A later lawsuit claimed that, in total, 48 officers were present at the Eagle the night of the raid. At the same time, a line of police cars (including three police vans) blocked the exit from the parking lot. According to several patrons, all staff members, dancers, and anyone wearing underwear were handcuffed, and almost everyone in the building was searched for drugs and asked to show identification. Background checks were also performed by the police. According to a bar patron present during the raid, everyone in the building was told to get on the ground with their faces down, and everyone was searched at least once, with many people searched twice. The patron claimed that the police were acting in an "incredibly derogatory and insulting" manner towards the bar patrons. Several individuals who asked questions to the officers were told to "shut the fuck up" and threatened with physical violence. Multiple sources claimed that the police used abusive language and homophobic slurs towards the patrons, including "faggots" and "queers". Witnesses additionally heard an officer say, "Raiding a gay bar is fun, we should do it every week". Some patrons also alleged that they were kicked and shoved by police officers and suffered cuts from broken glass on the floor.
Between 11:30 p.m. and midnight, patrons exited the building one at a time. At around 11:50 p.m., police requested all people in the parking lot to leave and unblocked the parking lot exit. According to an eyewitness, one officer stated, while leaving the parking lot, "This is gonna keep happening if we keep getting complaints from the community." No patrons were charged with any crime, but eight employees of the Eagle were arrested for "providing adult entertainment without a city permit". According to the arresting officers, four of the employees had been dancing in underwear. Robby Kelley, a co-owner of the Eagle, was among those arrested.
Cause of the raid A day following the raid, an article in the Seattle-based alternative newspaper The Stranger reported that the raid occurred based on a tip someone had sent to Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin's office several weeks prior that claimed that illicit drug use was happening at the Eagle. No drugs were found as part of the search, however. Several days later, the online magazine Queerty claimed that the raid was not due to drug-use allegations, but instead was due to allegations of public sex happening in the building, with the raid caused because of undercover investigators' accounts of gay sex occurring in the building. The article nonetheless stated that no-one during the raid was caught "in flagrante". A later report stated that the raid was caused by two anonymous complaints lodged to the mayor's office alleging illegal drug use and sex on the premises. In a 2010 investigation into the raid, several officers stated that the reason for the searches was due to suspicions that some patrons may have been armed. According to the officers, undercover investigators had previously entered the bar with concealed guns, leading them to believe others in the bar may also have had concealed weapons.
Aftermath On September 13, several hundred people gathered in the bar's parking lot to protest the raid. The following day, numerous patrons filed official complaints with the Office of Professional Standards of the Atlanta Police Department (APD). That same day, Atlanta Chief of Police Richard Pennington and several other police commanders held a press conference addressing the raid where they emphasized that the officers involved did nothing wrong. By September 15, numerous local politicians had commented on the raid, with Georgia State Senator Kasim Reed (who at the time was campaigning for the Atlanta mayoralty) and Atlanta City Council President Lisa Borders calling for an investigation into the incident. Speaking to a reporter shortly after the raid, Mayor Franklin stated, "If there are any allegations about misconduct it's our intention to investigate them and take the appropriate action. I believe that every person who lives or visits Atlanta should be treated fairly and justly." Following their arrest, the eight employees pleaded not guilty, and two city council candidates contacted a judge who set bail for them, sparing them from spending a weekend in jail. A lawyer who was retained to defend the bar stated the following: On September 19, approximately 100 people protested the raid outside the Atlanta City Hall. Several days later, on September 22, the Atlanta Pride Committee announced that APD's LGBT liaison officer Dani Lee Harris would serve as a grand marshal for that year's Atlanta Pride. The appointment spurred significant backlash from members of Atlanta's LGBT community, and in an effort to quell this, the committee additionally named the staff and patrons of the Eagle as co-marshals.
In the following months, multiple publications covering the incident drew comparisons between it and the 1969 Stonewall riots, a pivotal moment in the LGBT community caused by a police raid on the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York City. A 2017 article in The Advocate included the raid in a list of notorious police raids on gay bars, alongside the raid on the Stonewall Inn and the Black Cat Tavern raid, among others.
Lawsuit
On November 24, 2009, lead attorney Dan Grossman, along with LGBT rights group Lambda Legal and the Southern Center for Human Rights, filed a federal lawsuit against the APD on behalf of 19 patrons who were at the Eagle during the raid, naming Atlanta Chief of Police Richard Pennington and 48 other officers who were present during the raid as defendants. The suit, titled Calhoun v. Pennington, alleged that the constitutional rights of the patrons had been violated by the police, who had used excessive force and lacked reasonable suspicion or probable cause for the raid. Additionally, the lawsuit alleged individual officers of committing "false imprisonment, assault, battery and trespassing". The suit was filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia and requested a jury trial. The lawsuit also stated that of the 20 to 30 officers dispatched to the bar, several had been members of the Red Dog Unit. The unit members were wearing black paramilitary-like clothing and were not readily identifiable as police officers, causing some patrons to fear that they were criminals or violent gay bashers. The suit also alleged that patrons who asked questions during the raid were threatened with physical harm and violence, and some were forced to remain inside the Eagle for some time after being searched. The same day that the lawsuit was filed, Pennington announced his resignation as chief of police. At the time of his resignation, he and the APD were also under scrutiny for the shooting of Kathryn Johnston. Following his resignation, George N. Turner was chosen as his replacement.
On March 15 of the following year, the discovery period of the pre-trial began. Two days later, the lawsuit was slightly amended, with the number of officers named reduced from 48 to 35. That same month, on March 11, the eight arrested employees were tried in municipal court, with three found not guilty and four having the charges against them dropped. One employee was not present at the trial and a bench warrant was issued for him.
Citizen review board On June 10, 2010, a citizen review board voted to recommend punishments against two APD officers who had arrested David Shepherd, an assistant manager for the Eagle who, at the time of the raid, was off duty and in his upstairs apartment. On July 22, Reed (who by this time was now mayor of Atlanta) attended a town hall meeting organized by councilmember Alex Wan to talk about recent anti-gay crimes that had taken place in the city. According to The Georgia Voice, the mayor and the attorney representing the Eagle had a "testy exchange" regarding the lawsuit. The following month, Reed announced that an LGBT advisory board within the APD would be formed in order to address issues between the police department and the LGBT community. This advisory board later held its first meeting on October 1, 2010.