Major Jeff Glazier of the Atlanta Police Department speaks with Atlanta Eagle attorney Dan Grossman following a recent federal court hearing on the Atlanta Eagle raid.
On May 5, Batten ordered the city to train its 2,000 officers on all these SOPs within 90 days that was to start immediately. The attorneys who represent the Atlanta Eagle plaintiffs are Dan Grossman, Gerald Weber of the Southern Center for Human Rights, and Greg Nevins of Lambda Legal. However, these reforms have not taken place, even though the city was ordered to enact them by a federal judge in the original order in 2011 and again in 2013, according to a scathing motion for contempt that was filed March 17. requiring the city of Atlanta to conduct mandatory in-person training for all police officers every two years regarding Fourth Amendment issues and the safe use of firearms.requiring the APD to rule on citizen complaints of police misconduct within 180 days and.requiring uniformed officers to always wear clearly visible name tags and identify themselves when asked.prohibiting officers from interfering with the public’s right to take photographs and videotape and make audio recordings of police officers and activity.documenting warrantless detentions, frisks and searches.“I’m admitting portions of what we were supposed to do we did not do,” Godfrey told Batten.Īs part of that settlement, the city acknowledged it violated the patrons’ constitutional rights and promised to implement court-ordered reforms as part of the APD’s standard operating procedure (SOP), including:
“We wanted to help the city of Atlanta and not just the gay community.”īut in a May 5 hearing before federal Judge Timothy Batten on a motion for contempt filed by Atlanta Eagle attorneys, City Attorney Robert Godfrey acknowledged the city has failed to properly train police as was mandated as part of the city’s settlement with the plaintiffs. “We said from the beginning that what we wanted was not about money,” said Richard Ramey, owner of the Atlanta Eagle.
Mayor Kasim Reed also apologized to the plaintiffs, the court ruled the raid was unconstitutional, and the patrons said they wanted the city to promise to train officers properly on such actions as search and seizure so as to avoid similar raids in the future. A promise by the city of Atlanta to “vigorously” defend against a December contempt motion claiming the police department ignored a federal court order to properly train officers following the unconstitutional 2009 raid on Midtown gay bar Atlanta Eagle morphed into a meek mea culpa before a federal judge this month.Īnd the owner of the bar says the city’s ongoing defiance of the court order after some six years is “nothing more than a slap in the face of the gay community.”Ītlanta Eagle bar patrons sued the city in federal court after the raid and claimed their constitutional rights were violated in December 2010 the city agreed to settle with the plaintiffs for approximately $1.2 million.