HPD's Trans Cop

The Houston Police Department has had a long and rocky history at times with the TBLG community.

They have come a long way from the days where harassment was the norm under Chief Herman Short and it took a lawsuit by a transwoman to stop it to transpeople now becoming a part of HPD.

This is a 2009 KHOU-TV interview with Sqt. Julia Oliver, who has the distinction of being the Houston Police Department's first trans police officer.

Yes, There's One Memphis Police Officer Who Respects Our Humanity

With all the notoriety that former Memphis Police Dept officer Bridges McRae brought upon the department with his jailhouse beatdown of the late Duanna Johnson, and the lack of progress toward arresting the perpetrators who murdered Ebony Whitaker and Duanna Johnson, it stands to reason that most trans people in and outside the city of Memphis have a negative view about the MPD.

Well, thanks to Bianca Phillips of the Memphis Flyer, I stumbled across this story while doing some web surfing on another topic.

It's refreshing to note that there are MPD officers that do interpret 'to serve and protect the citizens of Memphis' means ALL the residents of the city.

The TLC reality show Police Women of Memphis recently aired an episode called 'Rock Your Fuschia Hair' that showed Officer Joy Johnson exhibiting precisely that attitude.




She came to the aid of two transwomen who were minding their own business sitting on their porch until they were harassed by neighborhood boys. One of the transwomen called the police, and Officer Johnson was the person who responded to the call.

Before arriving on the scene, she tells the cameraperson riding with her, "If you are a good person, you should always be treated with respect."

The segment of the show I'm discussing starts about the 5:30 mark. Enjoy.

Officer Johnson, you are a good person as well. Thank you for not only the job that you do as an MPD officer, but making the point that we transpeople need to be treated with respect as well.

African-American Transwoman Suing DC Police For Civil Rights Violations

People are learning the not so nice details about what happened to Autumn Sandeen after she was arrested during an April 30 anti-DADT protest in DC.

Thanks to Queen Emily at Questioning Transphobia we have new information about another case of Po-Po's Gone Wild and harassing a transwoman while under arrest.

Patti Shaw's case was originally talked about in an Amnesty International report 'Stonewalled', detailing the police abuse that LGBT people face.

Now the 44 year old African-American post operative transwoman is suing the District of Columbia, the U.S. Attorney General and the U.S. Marshal's Service, for $10 million, alleging civil rights violations, assault, battery, negligence and infliction of emotional distress in that 2003 case.

Patti's story starts after her purse came up missing and she phoned in a report to the DC Police. She found the purse after filing the report, but ironically was robbed of that purse while taking her dogs out for a walk that evening.

When the DC police finally responded and Shaw told her story, a detective asked her rude questions. Shaw says that several days later, the detective told her "that he did not believe her story and he said that he was going to issue a warrant for her arrest for making a false report to a police officer."

According to Shaw, she was told by the officer to turn herself in to the 6th Precinct "within a couple days or she would be arrested."

Shaw stated she complied with the request and reported to the precinct at 4 AM. When the officers on duty learned her old male name during the intake process, they ignored her legally changed ID identifying her as female and sent her into the men's prison.

During the intake process, Shaw says she was searched by a male marshal in the view of other marshals who made transphobic jokes and used incorrect pronouns about her breasts.

One marshal commenting about Shaw's breasts stated, "those must be implants, because hormones don't make breasts stand up so perky like that."

Another marshal according to Shaw stated about her breasts, "He's the best I've ever seen."

Her nightmare was only beginning. It got worse after she was sent to the holding facility and had to interact with cis male prisoners.

Shaw said that "Several of the men in the holding facility touched her inappropriately, verbally harassed and propositioned her, threatened to punch her if she did not show her breasts and shook their penises at her.

When she asked to be taken to another location to urinate, Shaw was forced "to urinate in a cup in full view of the men in the holding facility."

She says she suffered physical and emotional damages, including stress, anxiety and depression. She's seeking with the help of her attorney Karl-Henri Gauvin $5 million in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive damages.

I'm extremely interested in finding out how this police abuse case transpires. Because like Queen Emily, I'm wondering why was she even arrested in the first place unless somebody wanted to inappropriately flex some police power and jack with Shaw for whatever transphobic reason.

H/T Questioning Transphobia

What Else Is New?- Black Transpeople Getting Harassed By New Orleans Po-Po's

TransGriot Note: Black transpeople getting harassed by the po-po's is nothing new as witnessed by the lawsuit recently filed by the ACLU against the Newark Police department and the late Duanna Johnson's beatdown in Memphis.

Here's a truthout story forwarded by Stephanie Stevens about my New Orleans transsisters complaints of NOPD harassment.

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Transgender Community in New Orleans Claims Police Harassment

Saturday 24 April 2010

by: Jordan Flaherty, t r u t h o u t | Report


New Orleans' black and transgender community members and advocates complain of rampant and systemic harassment and discrimination from the city's police force, including sexual violence and arrest without cause. Activists hope that public outrage at recent revelations of widespread police violence and corruption offer an opportunity to make changes in police behavior and practice.

On a recent weekday evening, a group of transgender women met in the Midcity offices of Brotherhood Incorporated, an organization that provides health care and fights the spread of HIV and AIDS in low-income black communities. When the conversation turned to the police, the mood in the room turned to outrage as each woman had a story of harassment and abuse. Tyra Fields, a health worker who facilitated the meeting, told a story of being arrested without cause one night as she walked into a gay bar. "They never give us a reason they are arresting us," she said, explaining that being black and transgendered is often enough reason for arrest, generally on prostitution-related charges.

A young and soft-spoken transgendered woman named Keyasia told a story of being persecuted by police who followed her as she walked down the street, rushed into her apartment and arrested her in her own home. "Within the last four or five months, I've been to jail eight or nine times," said Keyasia. "All for something I didn't do. Because I'm a homosexual, that means I'm a prostitute in their eyes." Expressing the frustration in the room, she added, "I want to go to the French Quarter and hang out and have cocktails just like everyone else. Why can't I?"

Diamond Morgan, another of the women, said she has faced a pattern of harassment from police that begins, she said, "Once they discover my transgender status." She said she has been arrested and sexually assaulted by police and by employees of Orleans Parish Prison, who are part of New Orleans Office of Criminal Sheriff. She details her own personal experience of assault and those of friends, adding that Orleans Parish Prison is a site that many women she knows speaks of as especially abusive. She said that sexual assault of transgender women is common at the jail and other women in the room agree.

Tracy Brassfield, a transgender sex worker activist also attending the meeting, has dedicated herself to fighting against discrimination. Originally from Florida, Brassfield moved to New Orleans because she fell in love with the city. "But when I got here," she said, "I started running into problems with the police." These problems included what Brassfield calls deliberate harassment from officers who she said are targeting black transgender women not because of any crime they've committed, but just because of who they are. "They say, you're transgendered, you're a fag, you're a punk, you're going to jail," she said.

Brassfield decided to fight back and organize: "I was raised in an activist family," she said. "I know my civil rights." She has contacted local social justice and legal advocacy organizations such as Women With A Vision, Critical Resistance, the ACLU of Louisiana and the Orleans Public Defenders, seeking allies in her struggle. She has also reached out in the community of transgender women. "My thing is put it out there, get it exposed," she explained. "This is not just about me, this is about everyone."

Patterns of Violence

Both local and national attention is currently being directed on the New Orleans Police Department (NOPD). In recent months, the city has been rocked by revelations of police murder and cover-ups, with the justice department and FBI investigating at least eight separate cases, and signs that the federal government is headed toward a takeover of the department. Mayor-elect Mitch Landrieu is engaged in a national search for a new police chief, telling reporters that the department needs "a complete culture change."

Although the current federal investigations have not looked into police treatment of the black and transgender community, advocates hope that the justice department will also look into these complaints.

Members of the city's larger gay community complain about unwarranted arrests and a criminalization of sexuality, with police specifically targeting bars in the gay community. "If a gay man wants consensual sex, the undercover officer lies and said money was offered," said John Rawls, a gay civil rights attorney who has spent decades in New Orleans fighting on these issues.

Advocates and community members also said that once gay men and transgender women are arrested for offering sex, they are more likely than others arrested in similar circumstances to be charged with a "crime against nature," a felony charge. The law, which dates back to 1805, makes it a crime against nature to engage in "unnatural copulation" - a term New Orleans police and the district attorney's office have interpreted to mean soliciting for anal or oral sex. Those who are convicted under this law are issued longer jail sentences and forced to register as sex offenders. They must also carry a driver's license with the label "sex offender" printed on it. The women's health care organization Women With A Vision has recently formed a coalition with several advocacy and legal organizations to attempt to fight this use of the sex offender law.

Stories of Abuse

Wendi Cooper, a black and transgender health care worker, was charged under the law almost ten years ago. Although Cooper only tried prostitution very briefly and has not tried it again since her arrest, she still faces harassment from the police. She is frequently stopped, and when they run her ID through the system and find out about the prostitution charge, they threaten to arrest her again, or, sometimes, she alleged, they demand sex.

"Police will see that I been to jail for the charge," she said. "And then they'll try to have me, forcefully, sexually ... One I had sex with, because I didn't want to go to jail."

Thinking about her experiences with police over the years, Cooper got quiet. "Sometimes I just wanna do something out the ordinary and just expose it, you know?" She sighed. "They hurt me, you know? And I just hope they do something about it."

In response to the allegations of abuse, NOPD spokesman Bob Young responded, "Persons are charged according to the crime they commit." He encouraged anyone with complaints to come file them with the department, adding, "the NOPD has not received any complaints against plain clothes officers assigned to the vice squad."

The New Orleans Office of Criminal Sheriff did not respond to requests for comment. However, a September 2009 report from the US Department of Justice (DOJ) found that, "conditions at OPP violate the constitutional rights of inmates." The DOJ went on to report; "Inmates confined at OPP are not adequately protected from harm, including physical harm from excessive use of force by staff." And documented "a pattern and practice of unnecessary and inappropriate use of force by OPP correctional officers." This included "several examples where OPP officers openly engaged in abusive and retaliatory conduct, which resulted in serious injuries to prisoners. In some instances, the investigation found, the officers' conduct was so flagrant it clearly constituted calculated abuse."

Abuse Starts at a Young Age

Wesley Ware, a youth advocate at Juvenile Justice Project of Louisiana, said that harassment against those who are perceived as gay or gender noncomforming begins at a young age and can include hostility from their parents, fellow students and often from school staff. According to Ware, this leads many of these youths to bring weapons to school to defend themselves. "Gay and bisexual boys and young men are four times more likely to carry a weapon to school," he said. "Of homeless youth, 50 percent identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender. Of kids in youth detention, 13 percent are LGBT." Ware adds that many of these youth face an unsympathetic court, including judges who think that they will help "cure" gay youth by sending them to juvenile detention. "Ninety-nine percent of the kids in youth detention in New Orleans are black," added Ware. "So obviously what we're talking about is youth of color."

"This community is facing systemic discrimination in pretty much every system they deal with," said Emily Nepon, a staff member of the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, a legal organization that fights for transgender racial and economic justice. According to Nepon, women in this community deal with intersecting forms of oppression. "High levels of employment discrimination, housing discrimination, overpolicing, profiling that leads to higher incarceration rates and higher levels of abuse within prisons."

Mayor-elect Mitch Landrieu calls criminal justice one of his signature issues. But will he be willing or able to try to change the culture of the New Orleans police? Advocates say change will not come easy. "You can do a million police trainings," added Nepon. "But in general, that doesn't have an impact on rampant police homophobia."

Many advocates believe federal oversight can make a difference in these patterns of police abuse. They are also pressing for an end to the use of the crime against nature statute, as well as a general shift from charging people with nonviolent offenses. Attorney John Rawls, who is generally supportive of current Orleans Parish District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro, believes the DA understands that the current use of the sex offender statute invites discrimination.

However, added Rawls, it will be hard to get his office to stop charging people under the statute. "People who hold powerful offices have many motives and one of them is they love being powerful," he said. "Prosecutors get their power from criminal statutes. The more statutes they have, the more ways they can prosecute someone, the more power they have." If activists are going to challenge this power, they will need to utilize the current public outrage for far-reaching reforms, said Rawls.

Back at the meeting at the Brotherhood Incorporated offices, Brassfield urged women to stand up and fight back. "We need to document," she said. "What you want to do is illustrate a pattern of harassment and abuse." She handed out fliers and phone numbers for Women With A Vision, Critical Resistance and a sympathetic lawyer. "We have to look out for each other," she said. "I want to organize, just what we're doing now. The girls got to stick together."


© 2010 truthout

Yes, There Are Black Mounties

Living Single is one of my favorite shows. One of my favorite episodes was broadcast in its third season and entitled 'Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow... Dammit.'

Overton takes the gang to the Jones family cabin in Canada for what he thinks will be a old fashioned Christmas similar to the idyllic ones he had in his childhood.

He not only finds that things have radically changed in the town since he was a kid, it's now a tourist mecca. The trip is turning into a nightmare for Overton as his cherished Santa suit gets accidentally washed and turned pink by Synclaire and he destroys the gingerbread house when he accidentally sits on it.,

He also keeps running into and getting ticketed by an overzealous Constable Robeson.

When the gang first meets Cst. Robeson, they stare at the brother in the Mountie uniform as he wearily replies, "Yes, there are Black mounties."

So watching that episode again drove me to ponder the question, who was the first Black member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police?

The first Black Mountie was Constable Hartley Gosline from Saint John's, New Brunswick.

As the first African Canadian recruit, he didn't have it easy. As documented in the Cpl. Craig Smith book You Better Be White by Six A.M: The African-Canadian Experience in the RCMP, Smith recounts an incident from early in Gosline's training.

He was the only Black in a lineup of young white men, and his drill corporal noted it as he marched in for morning parade.

The drill corporal looked over his troop, stopped in front of him and said: ‘Gosline, you stick out. You make your troop look bad and you better be white by 6 a.m. the next morning.’ "

After graduation from the RCMP Training academy in Regina, SK in 1969 he was posted to New Glasgow, Nova Scotia. Cst. Gosline was later transferred to the Dartmouth detachment and other locations during his career including the Security Service Division (now CSIS) in Toronto, as well as postings in both Jasper and Edmonton, Alberta. Cst. Gosline left the force in 1978 and currently resides in New Brunswick.

In 1970, the first mountie from Nova Scotia joined in RCMP in Yarmouth resident Clarence Bodden. When it comes to Black Canadian representation in the RCMP, Nova Scotia is the runaway leader with over 40 officers hailing from that province.

Women joined the RCMP ranks in 1973, but it wasn't until 1992 that Christine MacDonald became the first Black female recruit.

If you're wondering who the highest ranking African Canadians are in the RCMP, it's Ted Upshaw, who was promoted to the rank of Inspector in 1999. He was followed by Craig Gibson in 2001.

Today, out of the 17,000 members of the RCMP, 225 of them are African descended Canadians. They are blazing a historic path that they hope future generations of African Canadians will follow.

Erie, PA Cop Joking About Murdered Man

If you wonder why the African-American and other minority communities have the negative attitudes about the po-po's we do, peep this video of an Erie, PA cop making jokey-jokes about a just-murdered man and mocking the man's grieving mother.

"We're looking at it like, 'One less drug dealer to deal with,'" the Erie, PA, police officer says. "Cool." The murder victim, described as a loving father, had no history of drug violations, according to news reports.

The NAACP isn't laughing.

There are too many police offices who have attitudes like this toward the communities they are patrolling. Those attitudes can have deadly consequences for the people living in those neighborhoods and lead to outrages like the New Year's Day shooting of unarmed Oscar Grant by transit police in Oakland; the police shooting of Robert Tolan on his front lawn in Bellaire, Texas; and the questionable death of high school football player Billie Joe Johnson, killed in what was described as a "routine traffic stop" in Lucedale, Mississippi.

Bigots with badges exacerbate the problems of racial profiling, the high rate of unsolved murders in African American communities, police brutality and other forms of unequal justice for African Americans and Latinos.

There are two bills that have been filed to provide long-needed regulation of harsh and careless police actions throughout the United States called the End Racial Profiling Act and the Law Enforcement Trust and Integrity Act. The NAACP is asking that you e-mail your congressperson and ask them to co-sponsor these acts.

The NAACP is also asking people to e-mail Erie, PA mayor Joe Sinnott and ask him to order an immediate independent investigation into the practices and policies of the Erie police department and to establish an independent civilian review board to investigate citizen complaints.

Introducing T-COPS International

When I was in Washington DC back in 2000 for the IFGE convention, we got a group of people together to hang out at a local Arlington, VA restaurant. I had a blast meeting and hanging out with Sheriff Tony Barreto-Neto, who was head of the organization TOPS (Transgender Officers Protect and Serve) at the time.

Well, for various reasons TOPS disbanded, but in 2002 a new organization arose to take its place called T-COPS International. (Transgender Community of Police and Sheriffs)

Transpeople and law enforcement is nothing new. I met Lt. Stephan Thorne back in 1999, and there has been a long list of officers and numerous stories about transpeople who have transitioned while members of various police departments in the States and around the world.

They have had mixed success as well. Some like Lt. Thorne have had long, distinguished and trouble free careers with the San Francisco PD, while others like Sgt. Philecia Barnes in Cincinnati have had to fight tooth and nail and litigate just to stay employed in the jobs they love.

In addition to its Yahoo discussion list and a pending application for 501c3 non profit tax status, T-COPS International acts as a peer support group for its members involved in various areas of law enforcement.

T-COPS International will help the transgender community as a whole if they are successful in terms of getting the word out that 'transgender police officer' isn't an oxymoron. Hopefully T-COPS will evolve to not only continue to be a powerful voice against police misconduct directed at transgender people, but take a leading role in education efforts amongst their fellow officers about transgender issues.

Hopefully that will begin to break down the wall of mistrust building between the transgender community and law enforcement personnel, and help their fellow officers understand that 'protect and serve the public' means all citizens.

'Officer Friendly' Ain't So Friendly To Transpeople Of Color

One of the things that you grow up with as a person of color in the US is that when it comes to the police, the smiling countenance of 'Officer Friendly' we see in our elementary schools when we are children doesn't translate out in the real world.

As soon as we are old enough, that myth gets busted by our parents and extended family. We are told the long, sad history of police 'patrol and control' tactics in POC communities, see thanks to civil rights era video that the police were the enforcers of Jim Crow segregation and hear snippets of the in house racist police chatter thanks to monitored radio broadcasts.

Note that one of the reasons for the 1966 formation of the Black Panther Party For Self-Defense was weariness about police brutality in the Bay Area.

In many cases POC's try to live our lives so that we have minimum interface time with white-dominated police departments and their officers who live in rural areas or exurbs far from the 'hoods they protect and serve. We know that an encounter with the police from questioning to a simple traffic stop can end in death or injury for an African-American be they male or female.

Add 'transgender' to that mix and it gets ugly in a hurry.

We know that the late Duanna Johnson's beat down by the Memphis Po-Po's last year was caught on tape, but she isn't the only transperson of color who has faced less than civil treatment at the hands of police officers.

In January 2007 former San Antonio Police Sgt. Dean Gutierrez was convicted and sentenced to 24 years in federal prison for civil rights violations and raping Latina transwoman Starlight Bernal on June 10, 2005.

After almost seven years, the Philadelphia Police Department still hasn't come up with any straight answers as to how African-American transwoman Nizah Morris died of a head injury after being given a courtesy ride by them after a December 22, 2002 Christmas party at a Philadelphia bar.

New York transactivist Mariah Lopez was arrested by the NYPD April 24, 2005 while she was waiting at a bus stop for a bus for 'loitering'. During her intake process she was catcalled, had her genitals and breasts “accidentally” brushed against and was examined medically in the correctional facility in front of 20 male officers.

Bear in mind also that the root cause of the Stonewall Riot in New York jumped off by transgender POC's 40 years ago was peeps getting sick of taking police harassment.

The Amnesty International report Stonewalled: Police Abuse and Misconduct Against Lesbian, Gay and Transgender People in the U.S. adds an exclamation point to the less than warm and fuzzy feelings that many transpeople of color have towards the po-po's.

While we know that not all police officers exhibit this behavior and believe that to serve and protect includes ALL citizens, there are still enough that don't to make us extremely aware of the fact that when it comes to transpeople of color, 'Officer Friendly' ain't so friendly.

SFPD's Stephan Thorne Gets Promoted

As I mentioned in another post, I met then Sgt. Stephan Thorne during the 1999 Creating Change when it was held in Oakland and had a wonderful conversation with him.

I was ecstatic to find out that the 24 year veteran of the San Francisco Police Department was recently promoted to lieutenant.

In gaining his promotion, he also made history. He is the highest-ranking out transgender law enforcement official in the country, according to San Francisco Police Commission President Theresa Sparks, who is also transgender. Thorne is one of the top-ranked LGBT officers in the SFPD.

Thorne has been a police officer for 28 years, and stated to the Bay Area Reporter's Seth Hemmelgarn that he's honored and excited about the promotion not just for himself, but also for others.

"This is a really significant step, and a really validating experience personally for me, but also for all other transgender people," he said.

Sparks said she thinks Thorne's promotion from sergeant is well deserved.

"What's really gratifying is Stephan Thorne was promoted in spite of being transgender, not because he's transgender ... he was promoted on merit as opposed to anything else."

Sparks said Thorne is "a gentleman" and "really an excellent role model for our community." She said there are also two transgender patrol officers on the force.

Thorne, who transitioned in 1994 amid quite a bit of publicity, said he identifies as queer but is in a long-term relationship with a woman, Michiko Bailey. The two have five children between them from previous relationships, and four grandchildren.

Thorne doesn't yet know where he'll be stationed. First, he has to go through two weeks of training. Police lieutenants typically manage other personnel.

"I'm proud on behalf of my community, and also acutely aware of the shoulders I'm standing upon of all the people that have come before me and done such hard and incredible work to move forward with equal rights for all of us," Thorne said.

Openly gay Supervisor Bevan Dufty said he's worked with Thorne over many years.

"I think that he embodies the professionalism and commitment to public service that we want to see in the SFPD leadership," Dufty said.

Dufty said he's heard from many members of the police department about Thorne's promotion.

"People really regard him as eminently qualified," Dufty added.

Let me add my congratulations to Stephan as well for his historic promotion. He's a quality guy and the San Francisco PD is definitely lucky to have him as part of their force.