The Stonewall weekend police raid at Fort Worth’s Rainbow Lounge, which resulted in a man, Chad Gibson, receiving a brain injury from the brutality exacted by “law enforcement” has turned into a perfect example of homophobia as a defense. The police chief, Jeff Halstead, has not only bought into the officer’s questionable reasons for the violence — allegations that a bar patron fondled them or made sexual gestures at them, something witnesses deny strongly, but he’s proud to release a statement like this:

Monday, police chief Jeff Halstead said the officers’ actions are being investigated. However, he also said that officers that entered the bar during the scheduled inspection were touched inappropriately.

“You’re touched and advanced in certain ways by people inside the bar, that’s offensive,” he said. “I’m happy with the restraint used when they were contacted like that.”

News 8 talked with council member Joel Burns shortly after he visited Gibson in the hospital Monday afternoon.

“It’s my hope that the fact that this is a gay bar and the violence that happened there are not in any way tied – obviously as someone who loves Fort Worth [and] as someone who is gay – I don’t want those two things to be connected,” he said.

Neither the TABC nor Fort Worth police revealed why the bar was selected for what police called a bar check. But, Halstead said the checks always result from either citizen or law enforcement concerns. The bar’s owner questioned that and pointed out the Rainbow Lounge has been open for less than two weeks.

Meanwhile, Gibson is suffering from brain injury.

Gibson’s mother, Kelly Carter, called it heartbreaking.”He’s got bruises here on his head,” Carter said. “He’s got [them] all down his shoulder. He’s got a ring around his wrist where they had tied him.”

As Dan Savage notes, this is another form of gay panic.

Allow me to translate the chief’s comments: “Them faggots in that thar bar touched mah officers and now they’re complainin’ about some rough stuff and one little ol’ faggot with a brain injury? Those perverts should be grateful they’re alive.”

This is a classic example of the Gay Panic Defense. In the very recent past all a straight man who brutally murdered a gay man had to say was, “He made a pass at me!”, and the jury would ignore the evidence and let the murderer off. The Gay Panic Defense doesn’t fly in many courts of law these days but it still has currency in the court of public opinion. And the chief of police in Forth Worth, a major U.S. city, is attempting to use the Gay Panic Defense to convince the citizens of Fort Worth to ignore the evidence-to ignore photographic evidence and credible eyewitness accounts-and let his officers off.

You have to watch the WFAA report.

Related:

* Stonewall commemoration at Fort Worth, TX gay club turns into police raid