TABC Releases Rainbow Lounge Report

A few weeks ago, the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission (TABC) and the Ft. Worth Police Department conducted an conducted an ill-conceived and inept raid on the Rainbow Lounge -- a gay bar that had only been open for a short time. The raid resulted in serious head injuries to at least one bar patron and accusations of misconduct on the part of law enforcement authorities.

Both the TABCand the Ft. Worth police say the bar was not targeted because it caters to gays. Personally, I find that hard to believe since the bar had only been open for a very short time and there were no complaints regarding law violations by the bar employees or its owners.

On Thursday, the TABC released a 32-page internal affairs investigation regarding the incident. The report alleges that TABC agent Christopher Aller committed eight violations of agency policy and agent Jason Chapman committed seven violations. Among the violations were participating in a police operation without approval, being dressed in unapproved attire, failure to follow bar inspection procedures, failure to report the use of force and failure to report the injury of a bar patron.

The TABC says disciplinary action is pending against the two agents. The report also accuses their supervisor, Sgt. Terry Parsons, of four violations although he was not involved in the raid. Sgt. Parsons has since resigned from the TABC. A second report regarding the use of force is currently pending.

Also pending is a report by the Ft. Worth Police Department. It is not known when that report will be released, but Chief Halstead said, "The Fort Worth Police Department understands that patrons of the Rainbow Lounge and the community expect a report in August. Therefore, we have asked for time on the August 18 pre-council agenda to provide City Council, patrons of Rainbow Lounge and the community a progress report of our investigation."

The bar is in the State House district of Rep. Lon Burnam. Rep. Burnam said, "When I started in this, I didn’t know what my goal was, but I knew someone was in the hospital and something went wrong. At this point, I feel good about the administrative [TABC] personnel in Austin, but I feel the employees in the field went Rambo and that needs to be addressed....There were so many violations that one could readily assert that they had no business walking through the door."

I think Rep. Burnam is right. The authorities probably had no business doing the very poorly-conducted raid. I hope the TABC and the Ft. Worth police will make things right very soon -- and issue an apology.

(The picture above is of injured club patron, Chad Gibson.)