Inside Out at City Hall

You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby, er . . . Officer
by Annise D. Parker
Houston City Council At-large Position 1

The Houston Police Department is slowly coming around on GLBT issues

The sea of teenagers and 20-somethings at the Pride Parade cheered themselves hoarse when the seven-member HPD parade contingent passed by. The overwhelming positive response obviously surprised the two male and two female officers, one female dispatcher (all in uniform), and two Citizen Review committee volunteers.

The older parade watchers cheered just as boisterously, but some displayed more reflective expressions. Before most of the parading officers were born, these parade watchers were being chased out of bars and harassed by an earlier generation of HPD officers.

Chief Clarence Bradford would have ridden in the parade, but the invitation came too late. He’s expected to ride in this summer’s parade.

It’s easy to see Chief Bradford as a symbol of the new HPD. This extremely affable, highly educated man is comfortable in any room discussing almost any subject with anyone. He knows a number of gay or lesbian officers who are out to him. G/L officers have told me that the chief treats them like every other officer. I know personally that he has worked internally to stop antigay harassment.

Officers, however, are not out to many at work. Houston has no gay officers union, and I think it will be a long time before HPD recruiting advertises for gay officers. At my request, though, HPD did send officers to staff a city employment table at Empower 2001.

"Sexual orientation makes no difference. Ability to do the job is the only thing that matters. Discrimination has no place in HPD," Bradford told a Gay & Lesbian Political Caucus audience in the summer of 1999. Bradford’s visit was prompted by an HPD/Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission (TACB) inspection during Pride Week that crossed the line.

When he denounces discrimination, Bradford speaks with the depth of conviction and experience reminiscent of an earlier (1982-1990) HPD chief, Lee P. Brown. The mayor, who has so often talked about discrimination against the GLBT community, led a police department rife with bubbas. He made great strides in diversifying and upgrading the department.

But an organization with more than 5,000 officers is "slow to change," Bradford told HGLPC. Obviously, he can’t watch every officer every second.

The single biggest improvement to the department occurred when the police academy re-opened in the early ’90s after being closed for several years during the oil bust. All recruits must now be 21 and have 60 hours of college or military experience, as opposed to being 18 with a high school education. All police cadets receive three to four hours of sensitivity training about the GLBT community taught by community members. (I was the primary instructor until elected to council.) Houston’s major ethnic communities are accorded the same number of hours. Cadets also receive four more hours of general cultural awareness training team-taught by all the minority presenters.

My office receives about two calls and letters a month from members of the GLBT community complaining about HPD. Some of them are quite serious: from rudeness and calling someone a fag to sloppy investigating of an assault because the complainant was gay (or no charges because the couple was gay). One TG woman told my staffer that HPD sent five patrol cars to arrest her for a minor dispute with a neighbor and drove like maniacs to the station.

In the 1980s, Council Member George Greanias’ office got three to five GLBT police complaints . . . a week.

We always ask people to write out their complaint, have it notarized, and take it to HPD’s Internal Affairs Division (IAD) so the officer can be investigated. Or they can send the statement to my office, and I will forward it to Chief Bradford and ask him to file it.

Finally, three of the 21 members of the Citizens Review Committee are openly gay. This is the body empowered to review all complaints of excessive use of force by the department. (I was its first openly gay member). They are also happy to help people through the complaint process. IAD, which is confidential, will pursue the matter. Even if the complaint lacks sufficient evidence to sustain it, the complaint will be taken seriously and is added to the officer’s personnel file.

Of course, we need to praise officers who do a good job. Those letters also go into their personnel files.

My years working with HPD on the Advisory and Citizen Review committees and teaching sensitivity training at the academy have given me an awareness of police issues that have been invaluable. I have worked with dozens of fine officers and discussed complaints against dozens of others. I think most officers are doing a good job of serving such a diverse populace. And I am extremely hopeful that some of the remaining bubbas will be weeded out or brought into line as complaints fill their files.

After all, who would have predicted after the 1985 referendum that in 2001 the Houston Police Officers’ Union would honor an open lesbian as Council Member of the Year? Or that five dedicated, and brave, police officers and a dispatcher would march in a Pride Parade!

A Houston City Council member who happens to be lesbian, Annise Parker is serving her third term in At-large Position 1. Call or e-mail to receive Parker’s bi-monthly newsletter, 713/247-2014, or annise.parker@cityofhouston.net. Her website is www.ci.houston.tx.us/city govt/council/1.