FORT WORTH – "Cow Town" is suffering another major blow to its image after city prosecutors decided last week to pursue criminal charges against five men who were arrested in 2009 during a controversial raid of a gay bar on the 40th anniversary of Stonewall.

One of the men, Chad Gibson, suffered a serious head injury, bleeding on the brain, severe bruising and strained muscles while in custody and spent about a week in the hospital - mostly in intensive care.

Gibson and George Armstrong appeared in Fort Worth Municipal Court and were charged with misdemeanors.

Gibson was charged with public intoxication and with assault - for allegedly groping a state agent as he was being arrested.

Armstrong was charged with public intoxication.

Both men rejected a plea deal and asked that their case be set for trial, said Adam Seidel, their attorney. Seidel said he would not be surprised if the case is dropped before the trial begins.

Three other bar patrons have been charged with public intoxication and plan to stand trial.

The raid - which occurred on the Stonewall anniversary - has brought Fort Worth heaps of negative publicity from around the globe. The decision to prosecute the victims is now adding fuel to the fire.

The ugly blow-back
“Late on a balmy Saturday night last June, six Fort Worth cops and two officers from the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission went looking for trouble. They had just raided two Hispanic bars in an industrial stretch of town and nine detainees now sat in the paddy wagon, hands bound with plastic ties. The rest of the city’s bars would soon shut down. It seemed like the night was over, except for the paperwork. Then Sergeant Richard Morris had an idea. ‘Hey,’ he said. ‘Let’s go to the Rainbow Lounge.’ ” -- Mother Jones

“As if the Texan city couldn’t bungle its Stonewall-style attack on the gays even more, prosecutors filed charges against Gibson and another civilian for their actions that night. This is a nightmare for the two men charged. But if their legal bills can tolerate it, it will be a nightmare for Fort Worth Police, the TABC, and their sympathizers.” -- Queerty

“Hasn’t Fort Worth’s image been damaged enough by this raid? Now they’re prosecuting the victims? Despicable.” -- Towleroad

“Good for the two men for refusing a plea deal. This bull---- needs to go to a VERY public trial.” -- Joe.My.God

"So Fort Worth is prosecuting the victims in the Rainbow Lounge Raid? WTF? They might have a nice Opry House, but its (sic) still a hick town!" -- Hardy Haberman on Twitter

"How utterly appalling." -- Vjinks on Twitter

The back story
The raid on June 28, 2009, on the Rainbow Lounge in Fort Worth’s small gay district, started as a simple “bar check,” authorities have said. But things quickly got out of hand.

Numerous witnesses have said that at least seven officers – Fort Worth police and Texas Alcohol Beverage Commission agents – burst into the gay bar at 1 a.m. on a Sunday and began rounding up patrons.

Several patrons were handcuffed with zip ties and lined up on the sidewalk outside. Amid the confusion and noise, witnesses said, some patrons were roughed up by authorities.

One witness, Todd Camp, told the Dallas Voice that he had gone to the bar with friends – straight and gay – to celebrate his birthday.

Camp, founder of Fort Worth’s LGBT film festival Q Cinema, told the newspaper that an officer “shoved me out of the way to grab the guy in front of me” in line at the bar. The officer “told the man, ‘You’re drunk,’” and took him out of the bar, Camp said.

“No one I saw appeared to be highly intoxicated, and the way they were choosing people just appeared to be random harassment,” Camp told the paper. “They were pretty violent in grabbing people, and one guy was shoved to the ground and handcuffed.

“I was absolutely stunned. They are saying this was a routine check by TABC. I have been in plenty of bars before when TABC checks happened, and this was not like anything I have ever seen before,” Camp said.

“People were just grabbed randomly, told they were drunk, spun around, put in handcuffs and taken out.”

The raid drew international attention because it occurred on the 40th anniversary of Stonewall, a police raid on a gay bar in New York City that spurred the gay rights movement.

The internal investigations
The international outcry triggered internal investigations by the TABC and the Fort Worth Police Department. The TABC fired two agents who participated in the raid, citing multiple procedural violations.

Fort Worth Police Chief Jeff Halstead has since apologized repeatedly, saying that his officers had no reason to raid the newly opened bar and were disrespectful and overly aggressive. The sergeant who led the operation and two other officers served short suspensions.

The internal investigations, however, concluded that the officers did not use excessive force.

The Fort Worth review also found that the officers were unaware of that Stonewall anniversary and did not target the Rainbow Lounge because it was a gay bar.

Outcry over whitewashing
Gay civil rights groups were not pleased by the whitewashing investigations by both the police and the TABC and demanded independent investigations.

The Human Rights Campaign was among those who called for a fair and just inquiry into the raid.

"Brutality at the hands of law enforcement is never acceptable and these allegations demonstrate the need for a thorough and impartial investigation," Joe Solmonese, HRC president, said last June. "We applaud the Fort Worth community for seeking answers to these very serious charges."

Now, months later and after an apparently token effort to engage the LGBT community, the city has thumbed its nose at justice by pursuing criminal charges against the bar patrons.

About Fort Worth
"Fort Worth is where the West begins and Dallas where the East peters out," Will Rogers once said.

Although those words were uttered almost a century ago, they still ring true today.

Fort Worth proudly calls itself “Cow Town” for a reason, because real cowboys from West Texas roll into the city every weekend in their highly customized pickups to carouse and boot-scoot in the historic Stockyards. Yet for all the romance it has with the Old West, Fort Worth is also home to world-class art museums and performance halls. Legendary classical pianist Van Cliburn - who is widely believed to be gay and has been sued for palimony - is a permanent resident but remains deeply in the closet like many other LGBT residents in the community.

Additional information

A Facebook discussion group on the Rainbow Lounge Raid. It has 13,266 members.

A New York Times story.

TV interview with Chad Gibson, who was severely injured in the raid.

Another TV interview with Chad Gibson.

Ken Williams is Editor in Chief of SDGLN (and a former resident of the Dallas-Fort Worth area). He can be reached at (877) 727-5446 x713 or ken@sdgln.com.