Atlanta has hired a former U.S. attorney and his law firm to investigate the way the city’s law department and the police department handled a federal lawsuit filed by patrons of a Midtown gay bar that was raided in 2009.
Joe Whitley, the top federal prosecutor for North Georgia 1990 through 1993, and about nine other lawyers have been interviewing police officers, internal affairs investigators and other APD officials as well as civilians for about three months. The city has until June 8 to satisfy all aspects in the agreement reached last December.
“It’s part of the overall settlement,” Mayor Kasim Reed told Channel 2 Action News. “What we didn’t want to do was to let the issues that were raised regarding police misconduct and other matters simply die.”
Reed said he wanted a third party, Whitley, to look at the matter “so we know the truth.”
The botched Sept. 10, 2009 raid on the Atlanta Eagle bar has been expensive for taxpayers and it led to the disbanding of a much-heralded drug unit, RED DOG, that focused on the street-level market. Questions also have been raised about the credibility of the police department’s and the City Law Department’s handling of the matter.
Whitley declined to comment on the progress of the investigation other than to tell The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that he had been working closely with the attorney who filed the case, Dan Grossman.
The mayor said the scope of the investigation was broad and Whitley and the other lawyers could “look at any issues” related to the Eagle case.
Members of APD’s vice and RED DOG units stormed into the bar on a Thursday night in 2009, ordering patrons and employees to the floor. Some said they were forced to lie on their stomachs in spilled beer for an hour while officers peppered them with anti-homosexual comments.
Eight people were arrested that night and charged with violating city ordinances involving licensing. The police said they raided the bar because they suspected men were engaging in sex with each other while others watched.
But a municipal court judge later dismissed the cases against three of them and prosecutors dropped the charges against the remaining five.
Thomas Hays, who was in the bar that night, said he was still answering questions that he first answered just days after the raid almost three years ago. Waiting to be questioned by private practice lawyers Wednesday afternoon, Hays called the review the “new old investigation. ... I'm answering the same questions over and over.”
The settlement required the city to pay the defendants more than $1 million, including legal costs. The city also is paying for the Whitley investigation.
“It’s going to be very expensive for the taxpayers,“ Grossman said.
Some of the issues that were raised after the suit was filed and could be part of the Whitley review include:
-- The time APD’s Office of Professional Standards investigation has taken. The internal affairs case remains open, but the settlement says it must be completed by June 8.
-- Allegations that officers deleted emails and text messages even though a federal judge had ordered them turned over to Grossman.
-- Complaints from the Citizen Review Board that officers refused to cooperate with the CRB’s investigation of complaints about the raid.
-- Records that show undercover officers drank heavily at the bar before they participated in the raid. The city paid for those drinks.
-- The City Law Department decision to decline an offer to settle the matter in February 2010. That offer to settle the case included an apology, retraining officers and changes in police, but it did not include any money. The agreement that was reached included all that was requested in February 2010, but it also called for taxpayers to spend $1.025 million.
“When the investigation is concluded, I want to read the report and I want to implement whatever reforms are needed to make sure that what happened at the Eagle never happens in the city of Atlanta again,” Reed said.
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