365gay.com/12.13.2010/Lisa Neff
A study published in the journal, Pediatrics, reports that lesbian, gay and bisexual adolescents are 40 times more likely than their straight peers to be punished by schools, law enforcement agencies and courts.
“Non-heterosexual youth suffer disproportionate educational and criminal-justice punishments that are not explained by greater engagement in illegal or transgressive behaviors,” the Yale University report concluded.
The punishments come as suspensions, expulsions, arrests and convictions and Police stops.
LGB youth were 50 percent more likely than straight youth to report being stopped and questioned by a police Officer, according to the study based on a survey of 15,000 middle and high school students.
That LGB youth are singled out for punishment — with or without provocation — might help us understand why harassment and bullying goes unreported and unabated in schools.
LGB youth must think: Why should I trust my principal? Can I trust the police officer whose partner harassed me in the park last week? Will the dean give me detention when I didn’t start the fight, but only acted in self-defense?
The Pediatrics study suggests that those sworn and hired to protect LGB youth in fact contribute to or cause victimization.
An analysis involving LGB adults probably would yield similar findings. Some things don’t change for us with graduation from high school.
Two lawsuits help illustrate the point, one recently settled by the city of Atlanta and one pending against Miami Beach.
In the settled case, which cost the city of Atlanta a million dollars, police raiding the Atlanta Eagle gay bar forced patrons to lie on the floor, some in spilled beer and broken glass. Patrons were searched and then detained while police conducted background checks, all the while hurling anti-gay slurs, according to Lambda Legal attorneys.
You won’t read about such activity at an Atlanta Hooters, but police raids occur too often at gay bars in U.S. cities large and small.
And new on the court docket is a federal case in Miami Beach against the city and two Police Officers who allegedly arrested a gay man in retaliation for his reporting a police assault against another gay man.
The American Civil Liberties Union filed the suit on behalf of Harold Strickland, who was in Flamingo Park in March 2009 when he saw two Miami Beach police officers kicking and punching a handcuffed man.
Strickland called 911 to report the assault but. As he was making the Samaritan’s emergency call, he was arrested for “loitering and prowling.”
In the recorded 911 call on his cell phone, Strickland sounded nervous but secure at the start. He told the dispatcher he was walking along when he saw two undercover police officers chase after a man. When the officers caught the man, they handcuffed him and pushed him to the ground.
Strickland told the dispatcher that one officer kicked the man in the head as if kicking a football.
“They were punching the guy,” Strickland continued. “And the guy was scared.… You could hear him…”
“I don’t know what they’re doing… It was very inappropriate,” he added.
Late in the 911 call, Strickland asked the dispatcher if she wanted him to walk back to the scene to describe the police vehicle.
She said yes, if he felt secure. Strickland said he did, after all, the police were present.
But when he returned, he was confronted by the two police officers. His cell phone was still carrying the 911 call, and Strickland told the dispatcher, “Now they’re coming after me.”
Seconds later, the call ended.
An arrest report said the officers read Strickland his “Miranda” rights and then took him into custody because “he could not dispel officer’s alarm for the safety and property of persons in the area.”
The record suggests that if Strickland alarmed officers, it’s because he witnessed police misconduct. So they punished him to cover their crime.
