The vicious police raid at Blue's on the night of September 29, 1982 showed New York's Finest at their
very worst. It is certainly a night patrons of the black gay bar on West 43rd Street will not soon forget. Since the raid, business has fallen off one-third to one-half. That should attest to the brutality that was meted out.
The police story is that they were responding to a ten-thirteen--an officer in trouble call--when six of their men were beaten up inside the bar after arriving there to stop a fistfight. Lew Olive, the bar manager on the 8 pm to 4 am shift, was there that ill-fated night and denied there was a fight and that there were six cops in the bar. He said that from different sources he found out that "One or two drag queens did beat up one or two policemen out there on the street" and to retaliate, the police raided Blue's. But, continued Olive, a friend of his was told by a policeman that "those drag queens do not come to this bar and he knows that as a fact."
Olive said he told one policeman at Midtown South, "If your story is correct and if we did beat up six police, that's a felony. You had us against the wall. You could have identified the assailants of those six police." Olive accused the cop of dereliction of duty for not arresting the assailants if they knew them to be in the bar at the time.
"We know as a fact," said Olive, that they [the cops] did gather in Smith's Bar [located at 44th Street and Eighth Avenue] and they proceeded from Smith's Bar to here after drinking in Smith's Bar. Those are damaging facts and that's no way to answer a ten-thirteen."
The raid "left at least ten people seriously injured," said Olive. Among them were two young black men, one of whom had four teeth knocked out. Olive would like the two men to get in touch with Blue's to get medical and/or legal assistance. (Olive himself was hit on the head two or three times with a blackjack.)
Olive showed displeasure with the lack of interest on the part of the
Daily News and the
Times--which is across the street--to send a reporter and a photographer over to cover the story when they were notified of the raid. He also had some harsh words for Arthur Bell's piece in the
Village Voice. He called it "irresponsible" and "poor journalism" because Bell published a couple of quotes he didn't bother to substantiate. For example, "When he talked to the
New York Times lady out on the street, the lady says she was called certain names and said things [to] by patrons from this bar. Bell's question should be, 'How do you know they were patrons from this bar?' Now this white woman saw black people and they associate all black people to this bar and that's ridiculous. All black people in this area do not come in this bar."
In fact, said Olive, Blue's despite its predominately black clientele, is open to anyone wanting to buy a drink there. "We insist that they be treated as they act. And we do not allow any customer here to tell another they don't belong here because they aren't this, that or the other. We don't care whether they're lesbian, gay, drag queen, or what."
At the present time, there are several agencies conducting separate investigations into the raid, among them the FBI--Olive called them in because "I'm not comfortable with the police investigating police."--the New York Civil Liberties Union, and the Police Civilian Complaint Review Board. "All the agencies that we can get involved in this case," said Olive, "we want to be involved in this case." The management of Blue's intends to pursue the legal battle even if it takes five years.
Author's Note: I wrote the above article about the police raid at the black gay bar called Blue's in 1982. It was never published, as far as I can recall, in any gay newspaper. I started submitting articles and book reviews to gay publications around 1982.
