POLICE REACT

The Cop Shop Deals With Revelations That It's Targeting Gay Men, Luring
Them To Trade Drugs For Sex

On Friday, the Metro Police Department's internal affairs unit launched a
preliminary inquiry into the conduct of four officers who arrested and
allegedly manhandled a gay man suspected of carrying a drug used to enhance
sex--an incident the Scene detailed last week ("Policing Gays," June 23).
Meanwhile, Police Chief Ronal Serpas met with officials from the Tennessee
Equality Project, a local gay rights group, to discuss the the
controversial arrest and Hermitage police precinct's use of confidential
informants to target gay chat rooms and lure homosexual men into trading
drugs for sex.

Last May, under the supervision of the Hermitage Crime Suppression Unit, a
police informant fabricated a racy profile and infiltrated a chat room on
gay.com. The informant ultimately lured a computer programmer into bringing
amyl nitrite, a commercially available sex drug, to his townhouse off
Stewart's Ferry Pike. In fact, four undercover officers lay in wait, but
when they tried to arrest him, he refused to submit. The man later said
that he never fathomed that he was the target of a police sting, thinking
instead that the men were malicious rednecks who had planned to terrorize a
gay man. But as the man resisted, the plain-clothed officers brought him to
the ground, shoved and kicked him. Police Sgt. Stephen Brady, a 17-year
veteran of the force, shot him three times with a Taser gun.

Kennetha Sawyers, a civilian attorney who heads the departments Office of
Professional Accountability, confirms that her staff will begin contacting
the officers involved in the arrest. They include Joshua Rhyne Walters,
Joel David Goodwin and Michael Dunn. None of the officers has ever been
cited for abuse or any other serious disciplinary infraction during their
police careers.

"We've opened the case, and we're proceeding on it," she says, declining to
elaborate further.

Incredibly, nearly two months after the man's arrest, neither the District
Attorney's Office nor the Metro Police Department can say with certainty
that amyl nitrite is even illegal. Still, the man faces charges of being in
possession of a controlled substance and resisting and evading arrest.

Last week, Eric Snyder, the Hermitage precinct's investigative lieutenant,
confirmed to the Scene that his men grabbed the suspect, brought him to the
ground and gave him a knee strike. He also confirmed the three Taser shots.
He said that the defendant resisted throughout and shooting him with a stun
gun was the preferred alternative to subduing him by force.

Legal precedent suggests that the four officers would be able to justify a
high level of force used against someone resisting arrest and suspected of
illegal drug possession. Still, speaking generally, Sawyers says that Metro
police are expected to exercise good judgment when making an arrest.

"Resistance in and of itself does not authorize the use of force that is
much higher than the use of resistance," she says.

John Herbison, the suspect's defense attorney, says his client is more than
willing to talk with investigators. Last week, Herbison issued a subpoena
to prevent the destruction of any police photographs, videotapes and notes
that would contradict any of the police statements made in the complaint.
He says that his client told him that another officer videotaped the arrest.

"This was a case where the boner patrol was out of control," he says,
referring to the unit's sex sting. "It's also a case that would warrant
criminal prosecution of these police officers."

Eric Snyder had no additional comment about the internal affairs
investigation of the four officers.

Meanwhile, on Monday, Serpas met with officials of the Tennessee Equality
Project. Rhonda White, a TEP board member, says that the gay rights group
doesn't have an issue with the other arrests made by the Hermitage
officers, which include busts for possession of crystal methamphetamine and
cocaine. They also don't necessarily have a problem with the broader use of
confidential informants to lure gay men into trading drugs for sex. The
real problem for TEP is the one arrest in particular. They want to know why
police targeted and apprehended a man who may well be innocent.

"I really tried to convey that the other arrests aren't really our
concerns," White says. "We were much more concerned with the fact that
someone was arrested for carrying a substance that either was not illegal
or it was not clear that it was."

White says that the police department told her the DA's office will have to
"make that call" on the drug's legality. In the meantime, she says, "we
will be watching and monitoring this case."