TABC Hires Resource Center for Diversity Training
October 30, 2009 by Gay Agenda News Team · Leave a Comment
In response to the Rainbow Lounge raid, the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission announced Thursday, Oct. 29 that the agency has hired Resource Center Dallas to provide LGBT diversity training to all of its roughly 700 employees throughout the state.
The training, set to begin next week with two sessions in Grand Prairie, will reportedly make TABC the first state agency in Texas to undertake such an initiative.
According to a contract obtained by Dallas Voice, TABC will pay Resource Center $14,212 to conduct a total of 24 two-hour sessions in 11 locations — from Austin to Amarillo to McAllen — over the next seven months. The training will reach 300 certified peace officers and approximately 400 civilians, TABC said.
“It’s an opportunity to really educate and have an open discussion with them about our community so they can learn to have a more inclusive workplace and to have solid relations with the LGBT community,” said Cece Cox, an associate executive director at the Resource Center who will help facilitate the training. “That’s what this is about, trust between TABC and the LGBT community — and awareness. I think understanding each other is the key to avoiding unfortunate incidents. It can’t eliminate them, but it sure can put a dent in it.”
TABC Fires 3 Over Raid at Rainbow Lounge
August 28, 2009 by James Hipps · Leave a Comment
The Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission has fired two of the agents and a supervisor who were involved in the raid at the Rainbow Lounge, a gay bar in Fort Worth which left one bar patron with a serious head injury.
The TABC released a statement today confirming that agent Christopher Aller and agent trainee Jason Chapman were both fired.
The two agent’s supervisor, Sgt. Terry Parsons, wasn’t at the bar the night of the raid but also was fired, effective Sept. 2.
Two other commission officials, Lt. Gene Anderson and Capt. Robert Cloud also were disciplined as a result of the raid.
In Light of TABC Report, Raid at Fort Worth Gay Bar Looks Uglier
August 10, 2009 by Gay Agenda News Team · Leave a Comment
The Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission allows that its agents committed more than a half-dozen potentially fireable offenses during the June raid on a Cowtown gay bar – and the agency hasn’t even addressed the part about how one patron got his noggin busted.
This is not looking good for anybody who still maintains that the joint TABC-Fort Worth police operation was all about protecting and serving.
Instead, the findings to date lend credence to the unhappy suspicion that a bunch of geeked-up lawmen thought it might be good fun to roust a bunch of gay people.
Maybe I’m wrong. I tend to react with initial skepticism when people claim to have been targeted because they’re minorities or gay or immigrants or what-have-you. Hey, it’s 2009!
Report Cites Violations in Raid of Texas Gay Bar
August 8, 2009 by Gay Agenda News Team · Leave a Comment
Two Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission agents who took part in a June police raid on a gay bar failed to report they used force when arresting a patron or that he suffered a serious head injury, according to a report released Thursday.
Agent Christopher Aller and agent trainee Jason Chapman also are accused of participating in the June 28 raid without their supervisor’s approval, disrupting the business during the raid and wearing improper attire in the beverage commission report obtained by The Associated Press under the Texas Open Records Act.
Read the entire post at: Chron.com
City Council Requests Federal Investigation
July 23, 2009 by Gay Agenda News Team · Leave a Comment
The Fort Worth City Council has asked for a federal investigation to be made into the June police raid at the Rainbow Lounge gay bar. This would be the fourth inquiry made into the bar raid that sent one man to the hospital with a brain injury.
Council members explained that the federal investigation would reaffirm information found from inquiries made by the Fort Worth police department.
“We want to be able to assure people that this is a thorough and accurate investigation, and that’s part of the reason we’re taking the actions here,” City Council member Joel Burns said.
Two investigations have been made by the Fort Worth Police Department into the incident. The Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission is also investigating two of their officers involved in the raid.
The request for a federal investigation came several hours before Fort Worth officials released personal records for five of the seven officers involved in the raid. The records showed that Officer Jason R. Ricks, one of the officers involved in the raid, has had a history of misconduct.
Ricks has been arrested in the past by New Braunfels police after he punched a bus driver in the face in July of 2006. Ricks was off duty and had been drinking for a couple hours when the fight occurred. Ricks was disciplined several other times during 2006.
Captain W.A. Read, one of Ricks’s supervisors, wrote in a September 2006 letter that Ricks had “shown a history of poor decisions and bad judgment” and added that another lieutenant “has put forth a valid argument that Officer Ricks does not show the maturity level that is required of a Fort Worth police officer.”
Mayor Mike Moncrief supports the City Council’s request for a federal investigation as well as the Fort Worth Police Department.
“I am very pleased with the way the Police Department’s investigation is progressing,” he said. “I continue to be very confident in Chief [Jeff] Halstead and our department that they will resolve this issue in an open, timely and unbiased manner.”
