A day after six Atlanta police officers were fired for lying about a 2009 raid on a Midtown gay bar, the owner and two patrons who sued the department say they aren’t satisfied.
“My overall reaction is disappointment,” Atlanta Eagle co-owner Robert Kelley said Saturday in an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Channel 2 Action News.
“I’m happy with the fact that some of the police officers lost their jobs, and I’m happy that some of them were suspended,” Kelly said. “What I don’t understand is how some of them can get a letter of reprimand for doing the exact same thing that the other officers did … destroying federal evidence.”
John Curran, who was among the patrons who sued police and the City of Atlanta, could find only reserved gratification in Friday’s news.
“I’m cautiously optimistic that the mayor and the chief are doing the right thing,” Curran said. “I’m not sure it’s enough, yet. Knowing that the officers destroyed evidence; that’s hard to make peace with.”
A 343-page report release late last month detailed how 16 officers lied or destroyed evidence when questioned about the Sept. 10, 2009 raid on the bar.
In addition to the six fired, nine were disciplined -- including two who were previously fired for unrelated lies -- and three have hearings next week.
But 10 of the officers lied, the report said, an infraction that typically leads to termination because those officers can no longer testify.
Dan Grossman, Curran’s attorney, pointed to those police officers who lied but weren't dismissed when he said the department would have a problem should those untruthful officers be kept on.
“I don’t think they should be fired as punishment,” Grossman said. “But you can’t be an effective witness. No jury is ever going to believe a word you say.”
Following a tip that men were having sex in the bar while others watched, 24 officers on the vice unit and now-defunct Red Dog squad embarked upon the Eagle on the 2009 night.
Eight men, including Curran and Geoff Calhoun, were arrested only to see charges lodged against them dropped. The eight filed a federal lawsuit that city taxpayers paid $1 million to settle.
Calhoun said he was troubled that Mayor Kasim Reed’s office didn't quickly address the issue the raid created, not beginning the city’s three-month inquest until over a year into his tenure as Atlanta’s mayor.
“It went on longer than it needed to,” Calhoun said.
Kelley complained that, although the incident happened at the end of former Mayor Shirley Franklin’s tenure, Reed seemed unwilling to respond to those who were affected by the raid.
“To this day, the mayor has never offered to come in and speak to any of us,” Kelley said. “He is forming an opinion on something he knows on paperwork only. He knows nothing about the emotional value that everybody went through in that bar.”
The employees of the bar didn't sue the city, and Kelley is frustrated that he is losing money to keep the bar open, while some of the officers involved in the raid only received written reprimands.
“I’m losing all of it so that I can keep 20 people employed,” he said. “I feel like I’ve been punished for doing absolutely nothing wrong, while these people are getting a little letter stuffed in their file and saying everything’s OK.”
Calhoun said it was important that those involved in the lawsuit continue to hold the city’s feet to the fire when it comes to police respecting citizens, no matter what their color, religion or sexual orientation.
“We just have to see it through and hold the city’s leaders accountable for their actions,” he said.
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