Cop Walks Into a Bar And...Arrests You. For Having a Drink.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

— By Adam Weinstein

LATE ON A BALMY Saturday night last June, six Fort Worth cops and two officers from the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission went looking for trouble. They had just raided two Hispanic bars in an industrial stretch of town and nine detainees now sat in the paddy wagon (pdf), hands bound with plastic ties. The rest of the city's bars would soon shut down. It seemed like the night was over, except for the paperwork. Then Sergeant Richard Morris had an idea. "Hey," he said. "Let's go to the Rainbow Lounge."

A half-dozen police cruisers, an unmarked sedan, and the prisoner van slid to a stop in front of the Rainbow Lounge, Fort Worth's newest gay club, at about 1:30 a.m. on June 28, 2009—40 years, almost down to the minute, after New York City police raided the Stonewall Inn with billy clubs and bullhorns. Inside the bar, the officers fanned out, grabbing and arresting six patrons for public intoxication. Benjamin Guttery, a 24-year-old Army vet, says an officer told him to put down his drink, then "bulldozed" him through the crowd to the paddy wagon but then let him go. "I'm 6'8", 250 pounds, and I had just finished my second drink," Guttery told a local reporter. "I might have had enough to have a loose tongue, but not a loose walk or anything like that." Another man alleges that he was slammed against a wall, elbowed, and fell on the ground, landing him in intensive care for a week with bleeding in his brain. He was charged with public intoxication and assault.

They say everything's bigger in Texas, and that includes absurdity in law enforcement. Most states and towns have public intoxication laws that allow peace officers to pick up the drunk and disorderly. But in the Lone Star State, the nation's broadest PI law lets cops go virtually anywhere and arrest anyone for drunkenness—even if they're quietly nursing a beer in a bar.

Arrested for drinking in a bar? Sounds like the ultimate catch-22. Since 2006, when Texas overtook California as the state with the most drunk-driving fatalities, cops and a beefed-up task force from the state Alcoholic Beverage Commission have used a 1993 law as a pretext to enter any bar and arrest its patrons on the spot. The public intoxication standard, backed by the Texas-based Mothers Against Drunk Driving, is so broad that you can be arrested on just a police officer's hunch, without being given a Breathalyzer or field sobriety test. State courts have not only upheld the practice but expanded the definition of public intoxication to cover pretty much any situation, says Robert Guest, a criminal defense attorney in Dallas. "Having no standard allows the police to arrest whoever pisses them off and call it PI," he says, adding, "If you have a violent, homophobic, or just an a$shole of a cop and you give him the arbitrary power to arrest anyone for PI, you can expect violent, homophobic, and a$shole-ic behavior."

For some officers, PI has provided a ready-made reason for detaining minorities. A Houston defense attorney, who asks to be unnamed since he specializes in misdemeanors such as PI, puts it this way: "If you're brown and you're around—you're going down." Nick Novello, a 27-year veteran of the Dallas Police Department, blew the whistle on three colleagues who he claims filled their arrest quotas by picking up people, mostly minorities, for PI. "They were illegally arrested," Novello says. "It's an absolute perversion." (Two were removed from the force.)

According to a recent report by sociology and law professors at the University of California-Berkeley, the Dallas suburb of Irving has used "discretionary" public intoxication arrests to fish for undocumented immigrants. After partnering with federal immigration officials in 2006 to check local prisoners' residency status, Irving police increased the number of Latinos they nicked for PI and other Class C misdemeanors by 150 percent, while arrests of whites and African Americans for those offenses fell. The Mexican consul issued an advisory telling migrants to avoid Irving. "In this city, one has to be extra careful," he told a Spanish-language newspaper. "They were clearly choosing to bring more Hispanics into jail," says Aarti Kohli, coauthor of the Berkeley study. But the feds and local officials hailed the PI sweeps as a victory. Immigration "is expanding this program, saying, 'Isn't this great?'" Kohli says. "But the question they're not asking is: How are these people getting put into jail?"

After community activists took to the streets and airwaves, Irving's arrest rate for Hispanics plummeted. (Dallas and Irving are no longer part of the federal program.) In Fort Worth, protests over the Rainbow Lounge raid elicited a quick apology from the police chief and promises to review the PI policy. But the arrests have continued elsewhere, and no one is targeting the public intoxication law itself. Many people don't care, Novello says, "because they can't vicariously experience this injustice." The Houston attorney puts it more bluntly. "As long as police are going out there fvcking with the blacks and the Mexicans, until it hits the people with the power, they won't care."

Adam Weinstein is Mother Jones' new copy editor. Before coming to Mother Jones, he worked at the Wall Street Journal, the Village Voice and the Tallahassee Democrat. His writing has also appeared in the New York Times and on Newsweek.com. A Navy veteran, two-day Jeopardy champion and seasoned ne'er-do-well, he's currently at work on a book about his recession-fueled stint as a military contractor in Iraq. Welcome, Adam!

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Edited February 27, 2010 by Galt's gallstones

[Usui Takumi 1,562]

That's scary!!

[Ban Hammer 14,664]

pi was often used by a town in central texas too, even if you was dwi. difference is the state gets the money if dwi, the city got it if pi. so trip coming out of a club (like one of my soldiers did) and you got pi.

[Obama 2012 1,714]

pi was often used by a town in central texas too, even if you was dwi. difference is the state gets the money if dwi, the city got it if pi. so trip coming out of a club (like one of my soldiers did) and you got pi.

We take PI very seriously in Texas.

They do random checks quite often actually to make sure bars aren't serving to minors and to make sure bars aren't over serving people.

If people are obviously intoxicated, they'll get arrested for PI and the bar will get slapped with a fine usually.

[Niels Bohr 72]

In regards to this case, when did the guys got arrested? When he consumed one once of liquor?

[Obama 2012 1,714]

In regards to this case, when did the guys got arrested? When he consumed one once of liquor?

The arrests took place last June I believe.

Chad Gibson was completely gone and has self-admitted he was thrashed....

[Peikko 1,575]

Does the libertarian approve?

Drunkeness can be a problem of course, drunks can be beligerant and violent, but if it's true that the police arrest people just because they don't 'like the look of them' that is piss poor policing, no matter what else you might think about it.

[Obama 2012 1,714]

Does the libertarian approve?

Drunkeness can be a problem of course, drunks can be beligerant and violent, but if it's true that the police arrest people just because they don't 'like the look of them' that is piss poor policing, no matter what else you might think about it.

It's not about that at all and Fort Worth is actually one of the most 'progressive' cities in the state of Texas... even more so than Dallas.

The only reason why this was made into a big deal was it was on the anniversary of some major gay bar raid in NYC (which I can't even remember when or what it was called because to the average person they don't know and it's irrelevant).

Most people cooperated as they should have, but you had a few belligerent fools who thought they were bigger than the cops and those are the ones who ended up getting arrested.

[luckytxn 2,265]

Very stupid laws and law officers.

[yogib37 3]

Very stupid laws and law officers.

yes it is stuipd law. Texas has some old 'blue' laws that are stuipd also

[NickD 203]

Wisconsin isn't quite as bad, cops wait outside of the bar and stop you when you are driving, can really hit you then.

[Nessa 23]

Very stupid laws and law officers.

the law might be stupid but the law officers are doing their jobs.

[luckytxn 2,265]

the law might be stupid but the law officers are doing their jobs.

Agree they are but they targeted a hispanic bar and gay bar. If they had gone to billy bobs and done it then there would have been a huge outcry. Some law officers use selective enforcement and that makes them stupid.

[Ban Hammer 14,664]

Agree they are but they targeted a hispanic bar and gay bar. If they had gone to billy bobs and done it then there would have been a huge outcry. Some law officers use selective enforcement and that makes them stupid.

only if decided in court. the real losers in this deal is the taxpayers as the local government will be liable for any monetary damages.

[Obama 2012 1,714]

Agree they are but they targeted a hispanic bar and gay bar. If they had gone to billy bobs and done it then there would have been a huge outcry. Some law officers use selective enforcement and that makes them stupid.

People outside this city don't know and don't pay attention, but Cops actually do plenty of Road-blocks/checks on the Northside of Fort Worth outside of Billy Bobs (which is your country-western redneck bar/music hall) and the many other 'white' bars there on the Northside of Fort Worth.... I know better than to drive into that area on a Saturday Night... Hell no.