By having a homosexual couple. Say something to the press. How do you feel about being here today . I feel it is beautiful. Its fantastic. How many years have you been a homosexual . I was born homosexual. It is beautiful. Has the new movement given you added pride or incentive . Yes. I was sorry not to see though there was not some politician or something here with us today. I think he should have made it a point to be here today as well as possibly some of the gay Movement Organizers themselves. At least they might have been here but they didnt speak out to us and they should have. Also i think this should have been the United States flag at the beginning of the flag which i didnt see but i think people were very well behaved, very well mannered. I think the police respected us. And i think it was a showing that we are really making it. Because if two homosexuals can live together and thrive and be constructive rather than destructive to each other and themselves without legal bonds, without children, without the sanction of the great society, then they can demonstrate to heterosexuals they need not be so concerned with their property and their marriage and divorce laws. You think that youre happier now that youve realized exactly where your feelings lie . Indeed. I am just sorry that it took so long. I am sorry i spent so many years in the closet. I mean it finally comes down to finding one other person to love and be loved by first lady influence and image on American History tv examines the private lives and the public roles of the nations first ladies through interviews with top historians. Tonight we look at the first two first ladies, Martha Washington and abigail adams. Watch first ladies influence and image tonight at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on American History tv on cspan 3. The president , from public affairs. Available now in paperback and e book. Presents biographies of every president organized by their ranking by noted historians from best to worst. And features perspectives into the lives of our nations chief executives and leadership styles. Visit our website, cspan. Org the president s to learn more about each president and historians featured and order your copy today wherever books and ebooks are sold. Up next on American History tv a discussion on the 1959 police raid on the Stonewall Inn in new york city and how it sparked the gay rights movement. This is from a National Law Enforcement museum in washington, d. C. It is my pleasure and honor to be back with you and back as we stream as well looking back on 50 years. Where we were 50 years ago at the stonewall riots and how far weve come. The changes that have been made and the changes still to come. Before we get started id like to introduce our esteemed panel if we can starting with david carter the author of stonewall, the riots that sparked the gay revolution. The basis for American Experience the film stonewall uprising which won a peabody award. Also with us today is detective Brian Downing president of the Gay Officers Action League goal of new york which is addressing the needs and issues and concerns of the Lgbt Community. Also on hand with us today is lieutenant bret parson, district native. How many years on the force . 26. 26 years. And he manages you should know the departments lesbian, gay, transsexual, transgender liaison here in d. C. And mr. Prescott, journalist, novelist, screenwriter as well and columnist for salon so thank you all for taking part in this today. I look forward to learning a lot and looking back with you through your eyes and perspectives on where we were 50 years ago. Its kind of hard to believe. David, id like to start with you if we can. What was new york like . What was america like for gay, lesbian, transgender citizens before the stonewall riots . What was it like for the Lgbt Community . Well, its really counterintuitive because there is a common tendency at least in this country to assume that the further we go back in history generally the worse things are actually in the whole history, in the entirety of u. S. History, the 60s and 50s were probably the very worst time for lgbt people. There had been a period of liberalization in the 1920s. We know the 1920s was a generally liberal period. But with the Great Depression comingkjpr along, that seemed begin a clamp down on, ill just use the term gay people as an umbrella term, gay people, and then after the war, we entered the, what we call the red scare. And this i think was the main reason there was so much more repression after world war ii. So for example in new york city the height of arrests to gay men actually occurred in 1966, where at that time you had on average a hundred homosexual men being arrested in new york city every week. So, you know, in the 1960s were a period of, you know, we think a time of expanding liberty, openness. It was really opposite for our people. And the another big force making that happen was the use of psychiatry. Siegemund freud, his view of homosexuality was negative but not very negative. In other words he saw the he certainly didnt think it was a severe pathology. And american was the first country to really embrace freud. When the freudian approach, the psychology was embraced by this country, american psychologists very much under the influence of the military in world war ii, they it was the american psychiatrist who really intended to really tended to pathologyize homosexuality severely. You could be put in a Mental Institution versus i mean, that could be imposed upon you. And there people had, men were castrated, lobotomies performed on them, shock therapy, and other kinds of treatments that were meant to change them from being homosexual to heterosexual or make them just asexual. And just the laws kept on multiplying all together from one state, from one institution to another. So the way the our number one historian of homosexuality in america from a legal point of view, the way he characterized it was by the 1950s and 1960s gay people really lived in a state of suffocation. It was a terrible time. I want to go back to that. The day of the raids and the riots. You were actually at Stonewall Inn, is that right . Take us back what it was like to be there. Well, the way it was accidental. I was i had just graduated from west point believe it or not. And i was spending my free, going into the army leave, in new york. I was walking from the loft i was renting to two doors down from the stonewall. And i turned the corner off waverly street on to christopher street and there it was right in front of me. They were busting the stonewall. A couple police cars pulled up on the street and probably half an hour, an hour before they were starting to bring out people in cuffs and put them in the police cars. And the crowd had gathered across the street and they were watching. Some of the people across the street had gotten out of the stonewall as the cops came in, either out the back door or around the cops and out the front door or somehow. And then the word spread what was going on on christopher street. And christopher street was the heart and soul of the Gay Community in new york. And there were a lot of gay bars and places that gay people had dinner and so forth right nearby. The cops just like going to the paddy wag ons or cars and didnt want to be recognized. People had jobs and they thought theyd lose their jobs or would be exposed to their wives if they were married or whatever. And thats what the police were used to. Well, they busted the stonewall and the stonewall is known for serving under age people. It had a sound system in the back room and there was dancing and it was kind of a wild place. The people they busted at the stonewall werent like that. They didnt have jobs. They didnt have anything to lose. A lot of them were 17, 18 years old. When they came out of the bar they were posing and waving to their friends and calling out and saying, you know, come down and can you get my bail . And acting like it was, you know, there was nothing to it. Theyd been busted before. Didnt bother them. And the cops didnt like it. They didnt have that fear so many had before. No. They didnt behave like frightened gay people and the cops didnt like it and the cops didnt like them standing and posing and waving and so the cops started pushing them with their night sticks and shoving them roughly in the cars and the crowd started reacting to it and yelling at the cops and throwing pennies at first and calling them pigs. It sort of went south from there. I mean, right after i got there was when all the throwing and so forth started. This went on through the night and then was it the next night where you had hundreds if not thousands come back . Yes. The next night was the night the Tactical Patrol force was sent in. There were hundreds on the street if not a couple thousand. And it went on for on friday night it didnt go on for real long because the bust took place. They tried to get them in the cars. When the gay people got angry and started throwing stuff at the cops the cops retreated, went inside the stonewall. I was outside. That was when they broke the front window, threw things through the window. Started a fire. Took a parking meter and used it to ram the door. That sort of thing. And then the cops, reinforcements came from the 6th precinct and scattered the crowd and the cops came back out and, you know, within a couple of hours it was over. But saturday night went on for hours. Arent you brian, i wao ask you because its in the news, your commissioner, commissioner oneill issued a apology on behalf of the nypd for the raids. Give us some insight into the apology and goal . What was the goal and how do you view the apology . I take the apology for what it is, the apology. Im not thinking much behind it for a number of different reasons, mainly because it was a moment that nobody thought would ever happen. And i think if you know anything about commissioner oneill, its who i know quite well, hes probably the first humanitarian Police Commissioner weve had in new york city. Not this mold of a rock star Police Commissioner, we had him there for 12 years. Thats an eternity for a new york city Police Commissioner. These are big giant media personalities, and the commissioner oneill kind of calls it as he sees it. He was a cop his whole career, and i think hes the only cup commissioner in the last few years capable to bringing himself to apologize or acknowledge a role in our transgression,s or our mess ups. He also issued an apology to the rape victim two years ago with some sentences there directed at the Lgbtq Community. Im not here as his ambassador, but he does lean on my organization heavily for advice. He keeps me on my staff and my role in the Police Department, he also has the former leader of the organization as a lgbtq liaison. Hes interested and wants to know the we forward. He wants to know how the community feels. Sometimes i wish that our community would be more engaging. I wont get into the specifics of the meetings, thats not the present goal. I think sometimes other communities it seems are more willing to go in and kind of speak, and speak clearly. There are a little bit more organized, it just seems that we can never come to an agreement on anything and that is sometimes troubling. Lets talk about our community, Greater Washington if we can for a minute. I want to ask you, we came off a parade that d. C. Was very involved in, a festival next day, hundreds of thousands showed up. You have seen the demographics in your hometown washington d. C. Change here, youve seen acceptance change over the decades. Talk a little bit about your role in the liaison and what you think . I think the first thing that Everybody Knows here is that washington d. C. Is not any different from new york city aside from that its massive and has a lot more people. New york city in 1969 was the same as washington d. C. In terms of values, common practices, we had a moral division, we were cracking down on bars and arresting people for the same types of offense is that you talk about hundreds of men were being arrested for. Our hands are not clean here in washington d. C. , while it was a commissioner oneill who may have apologized on the half of nypd, when he did that i think that he was apologizing as a leader of a lot enforcement, because nypd is a leader around the world. He said this is not the way that this should be handled, this is not the way that anyone should be treated ever, weve come a long way. Here in washington d. C. Despite whatever the National Politics are, it doesnt matter whos an office, weve always been a liberal and open city for people to live and work in. Weve had a human rights activist since that in 77 which has included gender expression, gender identity. Weve had openly lgbt members of our city council, and we have one of the most progressive groups in our gay and lesbian activist alliance. Going as far back as the 1970s, those groups immediately after stonewall started to work not just here in washington d. C. But the nationally to try to change things. Washington d. C. Became a bit of a laboratory for many of the things that have spread throughout the United States and the world. One of those that we are proud of is the emergency liaison, its the name back, then we changed it to be the lgbtq liaison unit to be more inclusive. What we did in 1998, 1999, we recognize that while Community Policing works all over the world, robert peel created it back in london. The idea of placing officers in certain communities is very good for accountability but sometimes you have to police and manage differently. Thats what we do. We look at communities demographically. We have a lgbtq commission, i have one of our officers working in the Jewish Community, asian community, deaf and hard of hearing community. Its not that were doing the same work as other officers, but were focusing on certain communities that have a shared concern, sheer traits, whether it be communication, history of abuse like the Lgbtq Community has had over the years. So not if a crisis occurs but when it occurs like happened on saturday at our pride parade, we have relationships and people know that they can count upon us and they recognize us, hopefully we can calm peoples fears. We talk about acceptance of residents and the people that you work with and serve, what about people on the force who are openly gay and now who can be years ago . How important is that, and when did it start that they were welcome and embraced . How long has it been . I dont, know im waiting for it. You made a face just so you know. Poker face. No i think the trajectory of queer people in society and a lot enforcement in the criminal Justice System is the same. I dont think that under any circumstances i would say that lgbtq people are at home yet in this nation, and because we have shows on tv with gay characters and things like that, thats not the measure of home for me. I would say that first of all, so the organization stemmed from charlie outdid himself in 1981, you had a key rights bill before city council, now your ordinance here in 1977 included gay people. Gender expression, gender identity. Gender a density and gender expression was added later. I have my experts here making sure i give the right information. Your a year ahead of us, in 81 there is a contentious hearing in the city council chamber. I think it was the Vice President or president who issued a strong worded contribution in an editorial, we cant have queer cops, theres no such thing as gay cops, etc. I have this viral testimony, so now who is going to testify next but a new York City Police activist . Now they are brewing when he is introduced, he steps in front of the microphone and he says not only am i proud to be a new York City Police officer, but im proud to be a gay man. From people that i know in the chamber that day, its never been louder than it was in that moment, in 1981. So we fast forward a few months and the organization has been founded. The first meeting took place in st. Josephs, church in granite village. They met in protection of other cops, because nobody wanted this meeting to happen. There was a bomb threat called into charlies home, and even going further than that there was always a threat to the meetings these men met in secrecy very often. We go now for almost 15 years or 14 years i think, the lawsuit was filed by tommy jeans, edgar rodriguez, and they were represented by two attorneys, the executive director. This is 96 and it was settled in 97. For 15 years they wanted absolutely nothing to do with us. Since, then every Single Initiative the nypd has had for lgbtq people has been geared by goal individually, or geared by goal as members of the Police Department kind of jointly. So we marked for the first time in uniform in 1977. It took until 2002 for the gay officers to be fully accepted and what they refer to at least in the nypd, where more than a nypd organization we represent awful time criminal justice employees in the interest of the community. Were talking about please state, federal, its up the committees until 2002 until the president was able to sit in on meetings with other president s of their recognized fraternal organizations. So were not really talking about ancient history here. The discrimination that we used to see, and we used to get reports of wouldbe things like a locker would be turned upside down. Personal property was destroyed. Hate speech was used. Now i see different discrimination incidents, or what gets reported to me. I find that oftentimes our members have lewis desirable assignments outside of commands whether it be at the precinct or transit level. If you work a steady sector, if you work a steady sector you have a partner, so lets say brett was my partner and i work with him every day, i find a lot of times especially male officers, and we can have a conversation about the difference between being a lesbian and gay Police Officer, we can talk about that later if you want. We see that these guys dont have steady partners, theyre often assigned to sit on prisoners or go to the hospital, as opposed to having a traditional control assignment. When there is a detail opened up in the precinct, lets say youre a good cop, a hard worker, you come in and do your job, you have good evaluations, so if theres a temporary open because someone is out a long term sick, or somebody cant come to work because theyre on some other kind of leave or vacation or whatever the case may be, theres something going on that they need some before they will pull the career cup. But when the position is open and the detail fulltime, is that the guy that gets the spot . You know. So that is the discrimination that we see today. Mind you the situation with the executives, i talked to commissioner oneill a few minutes ago, i cant ask for a better law commissioner to work for, the chief of department, chief of patrol all on board. Its the structures and human barriers below. I dont think that were 100 all on the force, or in the country, i think we have a lot of work to do in both places. Im curious, roughly, i will ask for metropolitan police as well, numbers wise how many gay officers are on your force and your department as well . I said roughly. Internalized homophobia is still a very real thing for cops, and i think that everybody wants to be part of a team. Everybody wants to be part of that winning team but at what expense to become part of that team . The nypd doesnt even track so, Sexual Orientation or anything like that. For the First Time Ever at my urgent they are doing focus groups to gauge the way that queer people feel inside the department. I would go to meetings all the time and they would show us data that suggests that a large number of African American cops league after 20 years. We think about why is that . We dont even know. Our membership varies, as far as the nypd we get maybe 100 fulltime, 150 fulltime non retired, active members per year. Thats an incredibly low number for 150,000 person agency. We think that its because people dont want to make other people uncomfortable. Give me five minutes with any cop and i can pull it out of them. Its because hes a detective. Its because they think that they are doing something good for whatever, for the job, the conversations, you have a conversation in the locker room or break room, whatever the case might be. The experience is like this, were constantly exposing our Sexual Orientation wherever we go, regardless of whether or not you realize it. If i were to say that i was going to go to the movies this weekend with my boyfriend, i dont have a boyfriend but whatever the case may be. In there its almost like the air gets sucked out of the room, its like we get it he is gay. If you make another reference its like why is he always talking about it. Youre just not used to hearing in, so there are a lot of loaded issues with that. Its still taking place. Also when you look at Corporate America versus a police culture, its very different. Youre talking about new york city. Law enforcement is a conservative profession. Uber masculine in nature and very slow to change. Very different from Corporate America and many ways. Here in washington d. C. Maybe 50 people that i can name as openly gay, and thats in a rolodex back here, never disclosed to anyone. There are still situations even in the job that i am in where people dont know that i am gay. They dont ask, and when it comes up in a conversation that i have a life partner or something that discusses my Sexual Orientation there is a look of shock. Straight people dont have to deal with that the. Theres another reason though that brian touched upon, here for the most part a lot of the key cops dont feel the need to go to a goal or liaison unit for support, because its a very comfortable space to work and be gay, so for many of them while theyre not out they are very comfortable in who they are and they consider themselves out. So the definition of who is out and who is it is difficult in itself. There is a bounce of that going on. The thing that most concerns me that ive been dealing with, i was elected president , i started in 2016. What concerns me the most is that im sure that everyone knows that new york is known for affordable realist eight. We are big on that. We have a lot of affordable housing. We see a trajectory of People Living at home longer than they have, i could be wrong about this, maybe at any point in history, people are at home until theyre 35, 36 years old. I have a lot of mail cops that are being terrorized by their families, by their parents, and we have these counseling sessions almost in my apartment. I know when the phone rings and its a certain person and its a holiday i know they want to know what im going to be back from my sisters or brothers place. Are you going to be around later and went to stop by . I know they want to get out of the toxicity. This is a job with a lot of responsibility, a lot of power, a lot of stress. I really worry about a lot of these guys. I had a really good scare last summer when somebody posted something on facebook and was off to the races, mobilization of people, cups at the parents house. Luckily we were able to find and get to him and get him the help that he needed. Some stonewall 50 years ago, david for your book you interviewed the deputy with a morals division. Talk to me about his perspective when you talked to him about the raids and riots. That is a big subject because although i covered it in my book, this book hasnt really gotten out to the common in history or common perception of history. So seymour pine was a Police Officer who had a strong reputation for being honest. I think what was happening was because of the commission and the other things happening in the late sixties, the nypd was under a great deal of scrutiny for corruption and other problems. I think that is why he was moved against his wishes from brooklyn to manhattan and charged with the morals police. Im unsure how that transfer took place but anyway in the spring of 69, and soon after that he was cut into a meeting with his superior officer. Its not part of the commonly known history, the Commanding Officer told seymour pine that the nypd received a inquiry that there was a bond surfacing onto the street that they wanted nypd to investigate. They found that they were not counterfeit but stolen, they found out that they were stolen from wall street from a man that was under pressure. One of the main figures at the Stonewall Inn was a career criminal by the name of ed murphy. A National Range was busted in the mid sixties, the head of the medical association, an admiral in the navy in this committed suicide. He was held on bond but didnt go to jail, held on 2 million dollars, how did he get bail . He had the goods on j edgar hoover. J edgar hoover was likely blackmailed by ed murphy. He used stonewall, the mafia had a apartment on the second floor where they ran eight prostitution ring, they used stone ors to get information from the clients. When the police investigated it and found out that this was centered around stonewall seymour pine tried to shut it down. The problem is that there was this big secret, only they knew about that part of the raid. Even their men, men and women from their squad didnt know that they were rating to bust a blackmail ring. That was the reason for the raid. The different layers behind it. They were busting a blackmail ranked. They got into the apartment, took their pictures, threaten them saying well show it to your wife or boss. They went in there with an actual motive, it may have been the only gave barr bust in history. All the rest of them was because the mob wasnt paying off adequately, or the people in a bar. All the problems in the Police Department with regards to people having poor attitudes towards lgbtq have long routes. They passed laws about it. With respect to gave ours, the laws they passed where that gay people cant own a bar because they cant get a liquors license because there is a morals a law. So the mobs opened up and get paid off the cops. You have an underground economy of bars serving gay people, by the way they are overcharging, gouging them and so forth. Then the cops bust them because the mobs to pay them off on time, or lets just shake up some gay people. This comes out of laws that were passed by the public, by the voters that voted the politicians who passed the laws. Lets you have the police that treat people of color differently, especially if youre gay. s by the time you get that and mix it altogethers then you get what its known as the stonewall riot. They have helmets and these shields on, all of that stuff its. The was typically, in 1968, its the Democratic National convention, they people were on the streets, they might have been on the street blocking it but you can move people along the street, you cant move people along the street and expect them to cooperate when you put your face shields down and start prodding them with your night stick. How long did it take, im curious because you are there until the approach towards gave bars by police changed . Did it take a few years . There is a couple of things there. There was the change in the new york city laws, but also a change in the new york states, the way they regulated bars through the Liquor License. They finally gave a liquor listens to the first gave or that was owned by gay people in 1973. As it happens i stumbled into the stonewall riot in june the 7th 1969, i was working in 73. I want to do a story on the mob having all of these restaurants in the South Village and all the mob meetings taking place. Also this guy came to her and said we want to open up the ballroom, a cabaret down by broadway. She called me and introduced me to the sky and said what can we do a story about this. I said nothing is going to happen, its not the new york times, its the village voice. We can do a story about how they never bust these places, and hold meetings with the mob. I went around, i knew when the mob was, i wrote down these license plate numbers. Mary had a cop she knew and ran the plates, and we figured out who is meeting at all these restaurants. New york city wont issue a Liquor License to these eight or ten upstanding gay stood isnts, but they are giving them to these mobsters. So mary took the story to the commissioner, and the commissioner said this is the guy thats doing it. He went on a monday and said this one is on wednesday unless you give the Liquor License. If you give the Liquor License then it wont run. That broke the law, jim and then next thing you know 16th street got one and i didnt pay for drinks for quite awhile. At no point were you afraid when you took down these license plates and do this . They didnt see me doing. This is being videotaped, theyre watching now. What im saying though is that once gay people started owning gay bars, then the mob wasnt involved, then they didnt have a reason to bust them because they werent getting a pay out. Gay bars started to get Liquor Licenses and legitimized, and it happened over a period of time. At the same time things were happening, like people were working towards giving people the right to serve in the military. That change things and then gay people were working towards the right to marry. That started to change things. This all happened over the last 50 years, which is quite extraordinary when you think about it. Its extraordinary to me because i was there the night that was really the rosa parks moment. That was the night that gay people who said we are not going to be in the back of the bus, they said we are not going to have our birth busted. We wont put up with it. I thought i was looking at a key person, the dress, the cups were so incompetent that they would line up and chase these gay people down the street, they would run around and come up behind the cops and form a cup line and go we are the stonewall girls. The cops see that and they start to chase them that. Way i ended up teaching a class on how not to do braid control based on this riot. They give me a theater for carson and i taught italians one after another, i set of a huge black forward and dramatic, and drew eras with where the cops are a blue arrow with where the gay people arent all that stuff. I taught how not to controller riot to a whole division. Which was an experience all in itself. That was one of the problems of Law Enforcement. In that how they treat if you treat people as a none. They will behave like an oven. I want to talk about that later. But first i want to ask you a little bit more about your liaison units. The competent cops of today, and what you guys do in terms of outreach with gay communities and straight, for that matter. I am not competent. That is not one of my gay gay traits. Struck. What has changed now is that we have an understanding, first of all, that this community exists. That was step one. Unfortunately, it still exists in some parts of the country. If i go to a chief of police or lieutenant and i say, who are your Lgbt Community leaders . We do not have that here. If youve got a community where you do not even think you have lgbt cutie people, do you think you are treating them with dignity and respect . That is not happening. Step one was to have our leaders. Not just Community Leaders but our Law Enforcement leaders to acknowledge that this community exists. That they have rights, and that they have the right to speak up when they are not treated properly. That was step one. Step two changing culture within the Police Department. Ryan has spoken about how slow that is. We use we still have homophobes in Law Enforcement, racists, misogynist. I dont know that we will ever get rid of that, as long as human beings are allowed to be Police Officers, but what we are doing more and more of, as we are exposing Police Officers to anyone of a number of cultures, the lgbtq, been one of many, but who are they . Because how do they engage in our lives . What is a respectful way to address someone . What do the laws with regard to the activities they engage in . What are their rights . Making sure that Police Officers understand that there are no different than any other community. If we violate what we train you to do, then we are not going to protect you. There is not a thin blue line when it comes to that type of misconduct and disrespect, and treating people in unconstitutional way. Lastly, we are pretty proud in washington, d. C. We are actually using Police Officers who are members of the community and allies to engage where the community feel safe. That is a little bit different then basic Community Policing. You throw up a tent, you invite everybody for hot dogs and maybe go to a parade and sing kumbaya together. That is Community Policing. We go to tough places where the community is safe. They know this is their space. We are saying, we are here with you. We are here to listen to you. Eventually, it becomes instead of, oh my gosh the cops are here, what is wrong . Its more like, oh, the cops are here. Thats jim, thats nicole. When you change that dynamic and people actually welcome you as Police Officers into their community and acknowledge that you are the member of the community, that is where you can do a better job. It is all about preparing for that crisis and trauma in the community. Cooperation, things go more smoothly when that crisis occurs. How long does it take to build that kind of report or trust within certain communities . It takes a long time. Everything that he just said is true and i dont want to repeat any of that but yes, there is some kind of, i dont know what it is, but theres this thing where people are just afraid to engage with, when i say our community, we are men. Whenever you hear me say our community, im not talking about the police. I just want everybody to be clear on that. With our community, because my first real awe, shock moment, as part of the Police Department, occurred the morning of the nightclub. The shooting. I had just come from the Detective Bureau. This is when the commissioner oneill wins the chief of department. A month into his office, he had pulled me out of the Detective Bureau and to work for him. A lot of things went through my mind when the call started coming very early. People were telling me to turn on the tv. The first thing that came through my mind is, oh my god we are going to respond to this. I did not mean to orlando, florida. This type of city, that new york city is, is that we respond to every incident locally. It does not matter if it happens somewhere else in the country, it doesnt matter if it happens somewhere else in the world. Lets say lets use the Jewish Community. A good example of this. If we have a casual tea incident or terrorist attack in a synagogue in brussels like we had in pittsburgh on halloween. It was halloween, right . A couple of days before or after. Right around halloween . October. The Jewish Community knows that we are coming. Yeah they know that there is going to be a police car outside the synagogue. I know that they can expect to see high visibility patrols with what we call a hercules team, which is a squad of emergency services, officers with heavy weaponry. A canine officer highway intel. We can move these people around as we need to over the course of the day based upon intelligence. The Jewish Community knows and appreciate it. I was having a heart attack, because i was like, oh my god we are coming, and this community has never seen this. I called my lieutenant. The same morning, we had the puerto rican parade which was going on. It was Massive Police detail in new york city and i was going to assist with that. My role as chief office, i called the lieutenant and he said, just go do whatever you need to do. Just sign in, get the car and get the hell out there. My first stop was at the Lgbtq Community center on 13th street in manhattan. I just walked up to the desk. Im dress like this. I had a tie on when im out at work. Im a little more casual for you all today. I walked in and i just said, im a detective with the Police Department. We need to speak who to who ever is in charge. I know its sunday morning but you can you get somebody on the phone for me . Five minutes later in the back room, we were on a Conference Call with the chief operating officer. Senators rob wheeler. I had never met him the four. I had never done any kind of outreach before. I was just running goal, which is like an independent organization. We were watchdog. But now im in this role. Im working for the chief and the department. I told this guy, i said, first of all, let me ask you if you want the security. If you tell me know, the other part of that as it is going to come anyway. Ive always been a little bit of an outside the box thinker. I said why dont you do me a favor. Why dont you put an email out to everybody in your subscriber list saying that the Police Department is going to be outside for a few weeks, so we know it is going on. And the rest of the day, going to brunch. We like branch. Its a big thing with us. Going and meeting with nightlife people. Yuck over the next few days, i was getting calls on myself phone, on my work phone and personal phone. It was like i was peddling some contraband. People were like, are you the detective that could get as some security over here . I got your number from someone. They said you could help them get because people wanted the protection. They felt better, and it was even because you know, at the discomfort of some of their clients, to some of the service providers, but that is where Real Partnership has to exist, where there has to be trust. You cant just show up and give out key rings at a pride march and expect that everybody is going to love the police. We are nobodys friends. Im a realist. And we calls the police. You know what im saying . Just because they have extra tickets to the ball game. Nobody calls the police because there is a couple of beers left and the cooler after the barbecue, or theres full left over. Do you want to bring it back to the precinct . What do we get called for . Horrible, terrible things, where people are not at their best. Nick maybe, to a large extent, our history has not been the best at responding to some of these incidents and situations. I think to an extent, that still goes on, but i do think kvetched that in the last five years, i think i finally see Law Enforcement, at least the executives i work with, they want to get out ahead of things. They want the input. They do not want, we are the police and we know what we are doing. If that is your mindset, good luck. You will not have a very long tenure as a Law Enforcement executive these days. We have to think about what we are not thinking about. Because we have to engage. Because we started a neighborhood coordination officer program in new york now. Back every sector or precincts are broken down into sectors. Two cups work there to do absolutely talk him, for hours they are required to do half of their shift as non committed radio time, where they are out there going to do businesses in their sector and they are supposed to go meet with Community Leaders. They have email addresses, cellphones, people know they can call in them. It is really changing the conversation out there. Look thats encouraging, and on that encouraging note we want to pause and take some questions from you folks. We have a couple of microphones. Any questions from the panelists . Can you hear me . I heard that there were some different experiences being a lesbian officer versus a gay officer. Could you speak on those experiences as your officers report to you . Its i think we still live in a society where we sexualize womens. If you will be paired up with a lesbian Police Officer, its guys minds go wild. Im so good maybe i can get her. I will have her and the girlfriend. Its this mind set, we still perceive gay man as weak, its a feminine it, not able to handle themselves. There are people that will test you. Its you know carl, a detective in the Police Impersonation unit, a very serious unit because first of all that is a felony, when you impersonate a Police Officer you commit a crime. Its the first thing he said when he got to the office was do you know how to fight . I dont think we ask those questions of our lesbian. Officers as a side we still sexualize women. I think misogyny still exists in a Law Enforcement. Its openly lesbian women are valued more highly than openly gay men in the department unfortunately its, because openly gay men are considered weak. These are stereotypes. We have lesbian look lipstick lesbians and but. Teaching people to break through the stereotypes is toughs. You spoke a little bit about whats your story presenting the story about the mob persuasions as a way to persuade gay people to own clubs. Its how do you feel that the publics desire for these stories in the media has changed its . Or the medias desires for presenting these stories over the years has changed its . Its changed its. Theres a story in the New York Post like that and daily news like thats. I think now there is a story its this big about the Police Commissioner. The Police Commissioner apologizing about stonewall. There have been big stories about the stonewalls anniversary, maybe the 50th anniversary coming up and all the gay pride parades, that is something. And there have been millions of stories about gays in the military, millions of stories about gays not being able to get married. Gay people to a large extent have way entered the mainstream compared to where they were in 1969. Someone was asking me recently, what is the big difference between then and now. The big difference that stonewall made was everybody who was in the riots in stonewall was out, they were on the street, they looked gay, they were in a gay riot. They were out. After stonewall more and more people came out. Its as more and people started coming out they realize my cousin is, game that couple is gay, they live together, they are a family and they love each other. So its it affected communities, families, relationships at work. It has made everything better including coverage in the media. It has made what you see on tv better. Right here. Hi, during the sixties when there was a lot of heavy policing i heard that the police had a lot of knowledge about the take community and under the radar bars. Its it seems like there was a connection and a lot of Institutional Knowledge about the Gay Community. Do you think because the policing efforts targeted at the Gay Community has, is there a way to preserve that without going into the seam policing tactics . That was directed towards me . Its im sorry, i missed the gist of your question. When there was heavy policing there was more knowledge about the gay communities by various departments. When the policing dies down, does the knowledge go down as well, if so how do you please how do you preserve the policing . . I dont think that the police had, theres a lot of policing in the Gay Community back in the sixties. Except the rest of them. I think perhaps we are talking about is more how to attract game in. We have an idea of how damon dressed when they were out to socialize with other game in, to meet sexual partners. They would take their best looking Police Officers, dress them in tight pants, some kind of game in dress in those areas. That is really not a knowledge of gay culture nasa, or even a game mentality. I think with the ive been involved in Law Enforcement, Law Enforcement has been learning bit by bit this other institution that the society is also been learning. Whether its military, business, church, schools. That is my impression. Does that answer your question . Yes it does. If i could also, there is this wonderful thing out there called the internet now. Perhaps youve heard of it. As big as we are in Police Officers, they know how to use it. What i mean by that is, sometimes, in spite of a lack of training or lack of experience, they have personal lives and interests. They are exploring Everything Else the society is exploring. We are also doing a much better job at educating Police Officers about the communities we serve. I think that has gotten better. Events like stonewall wake people up. They cause people to move in a better direction and progress to be made. I do not know that some of my colleagues i travel all over the world to train cops on lgbtqs. I am always surprised about people who dont know what the differences between bisexuality and a transgender individual. They do not even know with the term inter sexuality is. Some of you are going, i dont know either. We are trying to train more and more cops, but they are just like everybody else. We were talking to someone representing new york city and someone representing washington, d. C. You say travel the country. Im curious about with the lgbt dq community and small town alabama or other parts of the country how they are treated by the police. Are they even on police radar . You talked about years ago, he entrapment. Does that kind of things still happen in other parts of the country that is allowed to happen in new york or d. C. . I will tell you a quick story. It must have been about 14 years ago. My pager went off. I had a pager back then. It was an area code from north carolina. I called it back and it was a deputy. I swear to god, his name was bubble something. From north carolina. He was a deputy sheriff. He was investigating a he she murder in a metropolitan area and carrot south carolina. He had learned about my work from the newspaper. He said lieutenant, you need to call this guy because youre not making any progress on this he she murder. When it comes to a transgender individual, he did not know what that meant. We figured out he was talking about a transgender female who was murdered. I said tell me something, where did this occur. He told me. Is that anywhere near your strength transgender stroll . I can hear the ocean. He paused. He said what is that, sir . I said, where it is transgender prostitution happen . He said, we dont have that here. Not in our town. I went online. I googled that area for transgender prostitution in that city. Didnt take me too long. How about you know where that . Is there was a pause. He said sir, that is where the Police Station is. I said good. You do not have far to go. What i want you to do is on the day of the week the murder happen, go out that night about the same time, and all those people wandering around that you see there, Start Talking to them about this murder. Three days later he called me and he said, he closed the case. Just because he became aware that a community existed and how is the best way to engage. Them that is where we are. In some parts of the country, they do not even acknowledge that gay people exist. They could not tell you that they have been lgbt dq community center. Just think when we talk about training. Training is far reaching for a goal because, one of the things i have been reading over recently. This is the settlement from when the gay officers actually sued the new York City Police department and 1996. One of the things that came out of the settlement was, goal was given the ability to train Police Officers and lgbtq sensitivity and awareness. Its looked like a different many Different Things over the few years. I mentioned carl before because he is a gift to my agency. Before carl became a cop at 30 something years old, before that, he was an accomplished social worker. He was the director Client Services in new york city. He worked with david jeff in. He brings on this real world activists experience and education to the pd. When he got involved with goal, he kind of rethe curriculum. Its very impressive. We do not go in to do training with cops and go over we do not spend a lot of times on the definitions. We do not spend a lot of time on the history. We really do two things. I think that we want people to take away from it is one, we give them a little bit of our personal coming out stories. We are cops training cops. They can see that all these issues have affected the people that are standing in front of them, giving them a block of instructions. You have someone like anna who was taken out of her house in high school for being a lesbian. She put herself through high school. Her mother would not give her Financial Aid paperwork for college. She put herself through college. She took the police test. She was a police cadet. She is now a new York City Police sergeant. You give a cop a story about you that hey, listen, i went through all this crap, so this is very real. We have cops that were involved in house and bubble, that came up through house and ball, so that is amazing in and of itself. The other part of what we do is we are doing implicit bias training before that was even a thing. We want the recruits, especially, to understand where your ideas come from. Where you have been bombarded with messages since you were a child. Society tells you, what is preferred. Fair and impartial policing, when we talk about implicit bias. We put the Police Recruits and scenarios. We will say, everybody and here is going to police fairly and impartially, right . All the hands go up. Big smiling green faces. Yes we are going to do the fair and impartial police. We graduate them now. We take an officer. We tell him tonight, you have this post. Your sergeant told you that there has been a high propensity of robberies in this area. We want to keep people moving. It is inside of a club district. We do not want cars stopping. There is no standing sign so there is no reason for a car to be stopping or parking there anyway. Keep the area clear. Okay. So we tell the cop that in the alleyway, there is a vehicle parked. It does not have its lights on but it is running. The car the cop goes up to the vehicle and conducts an investigation. Lo and behold, he finds a man receiving oral sex from a woman. We ask him, what if you got . Then we get a little bit of a chuckle. Cops engage a little bit. What you actually have is a penal lot misdemeanor in the state of new york. You have a misdemeanor situation, but you kind of ask them, what are they really going to do . You have some of them raise their hands. They say im going to lock them up. Im going to let them go. We play with this a little bit. You even get some that are honest. I know what youre going to do. Youre going to text the cop and tell him, youre never going to believe what is going on right now. Thats what youre going to do, right . Everybody is laughing, having a good time. And you graduate the cops again. I say, put them in the exact same scenario. I say, now you come across that same car in the alleyway and it is a man getting oral sex from a man. What have you got . The air gets sucked right out of the room. They dont know what the heck they have. Everybody just says, they will be fair and impartial. Every hand went up, every face was greening. We were seeing teeth. I said listen, if a guy is getting lucky and win scenario, and the guy is getting lucky in the other scenario, being a fair and impartial Police Officer is taking the same action no matter what the Sexual Orientation is, no matter what the race, color somebodys skin is, no matter what their religion are. We want them to understand where their ideas are coming from. What i also want you to understand is when you wear that uniform, you are representing me, you are representing brett, and you are representing a couple million other honest people that have a tremendous amount of integrity, and are reeling to sacrifice their lives for this job. In the name of other people. Whatever conversations you may have at your dinner table, or whatever joke you may tell after church with your friends at the bar or whatever it is the heck you go, when you put on that uniform and you put that shield on your chest, you better treat everybody the same, because you have to be the police for everybody, not just the people that look like you. Not just the people that come from new york, ethnic or religious background or whatever the case may be. You have to be the police for everybody and you have to treat them fairly and impartially. That is what gay officer stands for. Thank you for the insights that you shared with us today. We cannot thank you enough for taking us back and telling us how much progress we have made over the decades. It has been fascinating to hear your stories and what has been done on the front lines. Anybody else have questions before we wrap up . Go ahead sir. Hopefully it is for brett. Sergeant brett, can you tell us a little bit how it got started in washington and how other cities around the country, have they followed the lead one thing is training, but to have the same kind of institutionalization that we had with the sea . Thank you for the question. Here in washington d. C. , we did not have the same struggle that new york had, in that it did not take lawsuits and really forcefully pushing our way into this. Our community worked with our Police Department and our leadership to support the idea, that the Lgbt Community, back then it was called the gay and lesbian liaison unit, deserve to have officers that were familiar enough for the community and were able to engage Community Members and a safe space and safe way, that the chief of police back then, Charles Ramsey in 1999 said yes, it started in one of our small police district. It wasnt a gave or hood read back then. Charles ramsey realized quickly that this is something that should not be confined to just one police district. We expanded it citywide we are, what we believe is one of the only fulltime police unit, meaning not just the liaison officer, but multiple officers working fulltime in the community. Three parts of the mission, outreach, the usual Community Policing stuff. Going to events. Going to pry festivals. Going to meetings. Singing kumbaya. Training and education. An important thing that brian mentioned. Not just training and educating Police Officers, because that is really important. We have to get them to understand that there are certain tools they need to engage Community Members. But another part of our training and education is going in the opposite direction. Training you as Community Members about what you should expect from us. About when our jobs are, what