The Fort Worth City Council this week unanimously passed a resolution calling on the U.S. Attorney’s Office to conduct a complete and independent investigation into the June 28 raid at the Rainbow Lounge.
The council also voted to establish the City Manager’s Diversity Task Force, intended to specifically address LGBT issues.
The votes came Tuesday, July 21, one week after a marathon council meeting that included more than 20 citizens expressing concern over the incident. During the July 14 meeting, each council member voiced support for Mayor Mike Moncrief’s call for the U.S. Attorney’s Office to review results of the Fort Worth Police Department’s two ongoing internal investigations — one by the Internal Affairs Division, and one by the Major Case Squad.
Both Fort Worth PD investigations and a similar investigation under way at the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission are focusing on determining whether officers with the two agencies used excessive force during the raid, and on exactly how Chad Gibson was injured that night.
Gibson, 26, was among the five people arrested for public intoxication during the June 28 raid on the recently opened gay nightclub. He suffered a brain injury during the arrest that left him hospitalized for a week.
Fort Worth police officers and TABC agents said Gibson was injured when he fell on the sidewalk outside the bar because of extreme intoxication. But witnesses inside the bar at the time have said he was injured when officers first pushed him into a wall and then threw him to the floor to handcuff him.
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