News in from what used to be the gayest place in America, Palm Springs. The allegedly corrupt police department have won a court victory in their defense of a gay sex sting that netted 19 arrests in 2009.
A Superior Court judge ruled last Wednesday that the police did not discriminate against gays in the controversial sting, which is what defense attorneys for 14 of the men had charged.
The Desert community has long been a retreat for gays and lesbians from the Bay Area and other spots, but the controversy over the sting has strained relations between the city government and Palm Springs' large gay community, estimated to be as high as 50 per cent of the city's population.
The sting has already led to the resignation of the Palm Springs Police Chief. Chief David Dominguez retired last week and apologized for uttering an anti-gay slur while he was on-scene the night of the sting.
Undercover police officers, some of them shirtless, acted as decoys to engage gay men in the city's Warm Sands neighbourhood, a popular cruising spot for gays. Defense attorneys say the police decoys encouraged the suspects to expose themselves. Nineteen men were arrested, but five have either chosen to mount separate defenses or have had their charges dismissed.
Adding to the controversy, the Riverside County District Attorney's office charged the men under state codes that would force them to register as lifetime sex offenders in a database available to law enforcement.
Defense attorneys had asked the court to dismiss charges against the remaining 14 suspects, arguing that police never target heterosexual couples in the same way. But Riverside County Superior Court Judge David B. Downing ruled there was no such discrimination.
The judge's refusal to dismiss the case means that it will now proceed to trial unless the men accept a plea deal before then. The DA's office has offered to throw-out the requirement to register as sex offenders, if the men accept such a deal.
Continue reading - San Francisco City Buzz | Examiner.com
The case is likely to have much wider implications for the area, which has already been dropped by three European travel companies specialising in gay holidays, due to its changing stance and homophobic nature of law enforcement and establishment. “We’ll not be arranging any more trips there, at least not this year” One told me today, based on the most recent news. Palm Springs is no longer the gay paradise it once was, attitudes are changing there, for those worse.
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