Women allege that cops beat them while shouting anti-gay slurs.
In the early hours of May 17, police officers from the 77th Precinct in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn allegedly beat two lesbians outside the IFE Lounge, located at the corner of Nostrand and Atlantic Avenues in Bedford-Stuyvesant.
Jeannette Grey, 31, and Tiffany Jimenez, 19, were attending a lesbian party at the club and had stepped outside when police showed up to quell a fight in front of the bar. Though they were not involved, they said cops threw them on the ground and beat them with nightsticks while shouting anti-lesbian epithets and taunts.
Jimenez, a petite woman, said in a statement that after cops demanded that she lay face down on the street, “one cop put his knee on my leg and back and he was at least 200 pounds, maybe more, and I’m small. They put me in the cop car [with] no shoes, no nothing.”
A witness, Delores Crawford, told News12 Brooklyn that “they had their knees in her, beating her with sticks.”
Grey said several officers called her a “bitch-ass dyke” and subdued her with nightsticks though she did not put up a fight. “I immediately relaxed my body and put my arms up where they could see I wasn’t resisting. I screamed at the top of my lungs for someone to hit record on their camera,” she said.
Both women were taken into custody and brought to the 77th Precinct. Grey was charged with disorderly conduct (a violation) and criminal trespass (a misdemeanor). Jimenez was charged with disorderly conduct and obstruction of governmental administration, also a misdemeanor. At some point during the incident, Grey was taken to a nearby hospital for treatment of her injuries. Some news outlets reported that Jimenez had also been admitted to a hospital because she was intoxicated. But Ejeris Dixon, program coordinator with the Audre Lorde Project, an LGBT social justice organization, told the Blade that Jimenez never went to a hospital for any reason.
After the incident, Grey sent out an e-mail describing the beatings and asking witnesses to come forward with cell phone camera photos or videos. It is not clear if anyone has presented evidence, but Andrea Ritchie, a social justice attorney and director of the Sex Workers Project of the Urban Justice Center, is representing Grey’s and Jimenez’s legal interests.
On Saturday, about 200 people rallied against police brutality outside the 77th Precinct at a protest organized by GLOBE/Make the Road NY and Safe OUTside the System (S.O.S.) Collective of the Audre Lorde Project. Both groups vowed to support Grey and Jimenez, call attention to the problem of police misconduct against the LGBT community and present a list of demands for justice.
Officers from the NYPD’s Department of Community Affairs were present to keep people inside a pen on the sidewalk. Any officers that were inside the fortress-like Precinct were unresponsive.
City Council member Letitia James advocated a dialogue between the NYPD and LGBT community of color to avoid further conflict. “What the NYPD needs to understand is that the world is diverse, and everyone—no matter your race, your creed, your sexuality—should be treated with respect,” she said to rousing cheers.
James demanded an apology from the officers involved and that Kings County District Attorney Charles Hynes drop the charges against the women. She also called for an internal NYPD investigation into the allegations.
Acknowledging that not all police officers are anti-gay, Grey encouraged people to channel their outrage productively. “It’s wrong of me to say that all cops are barbaric, just as it’s wrong for them to think we all need to be handled in this manner. Speaking to the cops of the 77thPrecinct, I know that not all cops believe in this type of behavior. And it’s the good cops we need now,” Grey said.
The protest concluded with the organizers’ list of demands. Among them, they urged Governor David Paterson to appoint an independent prosecutor for cases of police violence in New York, and pushed the City Council to introduce legislation enhancing the powers of the Civilian Complaint Review Board so it has the authority to enact practical change.
Later that day, news outlets reported that the NYPD was investigating the women’s claims but no further comment was given. Police had not spoken directly to the organizers of the protest by press time.
“With the rally, we hoped to accomplish a few things: that the police officers involved get punished and fired, and to set an example showing that police are not above the law. They enforce it,” said Tannavionne Cintron, an organizer with GLOBE.
“These aren’t made-up incidents; this isn’t something random that happens once. [Anti-gay attacks] occur quite often and go unreported,” Cintron said.