Atlanta Police Department Officer Patricia Powell, the recently appointed LGBT liaison, said she is considering offering a safety course to gay Midtown residents after a gay couple was robbed at gunpoint in Piedmont Park.
“I don’t know if gay people are being targeted,” Powell said Tuesday.
But she noted the July 2 armed robbery of Rev. Joshua Noblitt of Saint Mark United Methodist Church and his partner, as well as reports of anti-gay epithets used during a series of fights and disturbances by young people at the June 3 Screen on the Green in the park.
The official Atlanta Pride festival doesn’t take place until Oct. 8-10, but the city rolled out a rainbow of events at the end of June to mark the 41st anniversary of the Stonewall Riots.
The 1969 rebellion against police harassment of the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York City, is widely credited with sparking the modern gay rights movement.
Among the many events for Atlanta’s Stonewall Week was the showing of “Stonewall Uprising,” a documentary about the rebellion, for a week-long run at the Midtown Arts Cinema. The June 26 screening was followed by a panel discussion comparing Stonewall to the September 2009 police raid on the Atlanta Eagle.
Savannah LGBT activists are forming the group “Act Out Savannah” in response to recent attacks and alleged attacks on gay residents, according to a press release issued today.
“In response to the vile and vicious attacks on fellow members of the GLBT community of Savannah, and in response to the City and Police Department’s failure to maintain a safe and healthy environment for our community, the fiercest of Savannah’s activists have joined together to bring the fight for equal protection, equal rights and equal justice to the streets,” states the release.