Police Raid of Gay Club Results in Lawsuit

On Tuesday, the gay rights group Lambda Legal named 48 Atlanta police officers in a lawsuit alleging that 19 patrons in a local gay club were illegally searched and detained in September.

The suit alleges that the Atlanta Police Department, led by chief Richard Pennington, dispatched about 30 officers to the Atlanta Eagle, a gay night club on September 10, expecting to find acts of public sex, drugs and illegal weapons, CNN reports.

Though no patrons were charged with any crime, court documents indicate that the bar's visitors were targets of anti-gay slurs, were forced to lay in broken glass, and one was forced to lie on the floor even though he had injured his back in the Iraq War.

"I was in the bar drinking beer, playing a video game, and I was dehumanized and humiliated and laid on the floor for no reason," one plaintiff, Geoffrey Calhoun, told the news source.

According to Greg Nevins, supervising attorney for Lambda Legal, the plaintiffs are charging that the Atlanta Police Department violated their constitutional rights, committed false imprisonment, assault, battery and trespassing.

The suit seeks compensatory damages and requests a jury trial.

The FBI reported that there were 7,163 hate crimes in 2005, of which 14.2 percent were based on sexual orientation.