Atlanta Progressive News

(APN) ATLANTA — Councilman Michael Julian Bond (Post 1-at-large), who was sworn in today and previously served on Council, plans to introduce a resolution at today’s first Full Council meeting seeking to ask the court to review dropping the charges against the staff and dancers at the Atlanta Eagle, and also seeks to offer an apology from the City Council. The meeting will take place at 4pm.

Specifically, the resolution asks the Court to review dropping the charges in light of alleged civil and human rights violations on the part of the Atlanta Police Department and Red Dog Unit.

It also would issue an official apology on behalf of the City Council to the patrons and the employees who were subject to the police raid.

Councilman Bond first decided to introduce the resolution after meeting with Robby Kelley, the co-owner of the bar, and discussing what happened. Incidentally, the Councilman and his sister also participated in karaoke at the bar that evening, singing several songs.

Atlanta Progressive News worked directly with the Councilman’s office over the last two days while the legislation was being drafted, to answer questions and provide information about the publication’s previous, ongoing coverage of the Eagle raid.

The resolution would only need eight votes to pass, and as a personal paper would not necessarily need to go to Committee.

If Council approved the resolution, the Mayor could veto it or do nothing. If the Mayor vetoed it, the Council would still have the opportunity to overrule.

Atlanta Progressive News broke the news early morning on September 11, 2009, that Atlanta Police Department had raided the Atlanta Eagle, a gay leather bar in Midtown.

At around 11:30 pm on September 10, more than two dozen Atlanta Police officers – some in uniform and some undercover in plain clothes – had raided the bar. The police contingent included several officers from the ‘Red Dog’, an aggressive unit which typically deals with drug crimes.

All 62 patrons were told to get on the ground. At least one patron, who is deaf and did not understand what was happening, was physically pushed on the ground. Some were handcuffed. When some patrons asked if they could move because there was broken glass on the ground, they say they were told to “shut the f*ck up”.

No drugs were found in the establishment after all 62 patrons were searched by police, and the raid seems to stem from a tip to the mayor’s office which stated, among other things, that little empty drug bags were found on the ground in the neighborhood.

All Eagle staff members and several men who were dancing in their underwear were arrested. Over three months since the incident, the charges are still pending against the eight who were arrested.

After their arrest, the dancers had learned they were being charged for stripping without a permit and the staff members were being charged for allowing it. However, Eagle co-owners, Robby Kelley and Richard Ramey, told IPS they did not believe the dancers legally qualified as strippers because they were in their underwear.

In any event, according to several sources familiar with bar and club licensing issues, having strippers without a permit usually results in a 1,000-dollar fine for the bar, not the arrest of the dancers and owners.

The following weekend, a protest of some 300 to 500 Atlantans protested at the Eagle Bar. The protest was organized by an ad hoc group called GLBTATL, formed several months ago as a local response to the passage of Proposition 8 banning same-sex marriages in California. According to a recent email from the group, it has since disbanded or gone on hiatus.

APN then reported in October 2009 that the Eagle and individual bar patrons were considering suing the City over alleged mistreatment by the APD and Red Dog.

“I’m absolutely appalled, disgusted,” Eagle co-owner Robby Kelley told APN at the time. “To have not only all the employees arrested and taken to jail for 19 hours without bail being set, to have 62 people laid face down into spilled drinks and broken glass, searched… their drivers licenses [checked], kicked, stepped on, cussed at, called fag, things in that area, it’s something that should have never happened.”

The eight appeared in court on November 03, 2009, and were surprised that the charges were not dropped against any of them. If the charges are not dropped, the case would go forward and the City has said that they will put all 48 police officers on the witness stand to testify that they saw men dancing in their underwear without a permit.

The Eagle patrons then filed a separate suit against the City on November 24, 2009. Dan Grossman, the Southern Center for Human Rights, and Lambda Legal are representing 19 of the 62 patrons who have come forward and decided to take action against the City.

Several bar patrons and staff have also filed complaints with the internal affairs unit at the APD and with the Citizens’ Review Board.

The City, under the Shirley Franklin Administration, said it would have no comment on the lawsuit and Franklin had declined to say very much at all about the raid.

About the author:

Matthew Cardinale is the News Editor of Atlanta Progressive News and is reachable at matthew@atlantaprogressivenews.com.

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