Editing Stonewall riots (section)

===Police raid===
[[File:Layout of the Stonewall Inn 1969-en.svg|thumb|alt=A color digital illustration of the layout of the Stonewall Inn in 1969: a rectangular building with the front along Christopher Street; the entrance opens to a lobby where patrons could go to the larger part of the bar to the right that also featured a larger dance floor. From that room was an entrance to a smaller room with a smaller dance floor and smaller bar. The toilets are located near the rear of the building|Layout of the Stonewall Inn, 1969{{sfn|Carter|2004|loc=photo spread, p. 1}}|270x270px]]

[[File:Stonewall Inn raid sign pride weekend 2016.jpg|thumb|The sign left by police following the raid is now on display just inside the entrance.]]

At 1:20 a.m. on Saturday, June 28, 1969, four plainclothes policemen in dark suits, two patrol officers in uniform, Detective Charles Smythe, and Deputy Inspector [[Seymour Pine]] arrived at the Stonewall Inn's double doors and announced "Police! We're taking the place!"{{sfn|Carter|2004|p=137}} Two undercover policewomen and two undercover policemen entered the bar early that evening to gather visual evidence, as the Public Morals Squad waited outside for the signal. Once ready, the undercover officers called for backup from the Sixth Precinct using the bar's pay telephone. Stonewall employees do not recall being tipped off that a raid was to occur that night, as was the custom.<ref group=note>According to Duberman (p. 194), there was a rumor that one might happen, but since it was much later than raids generally took place, Stonewall management thought the tip was inaccurate. Days after the raid, one of the bar owners complained that the tipoff had never come, and that the raid was ordered by the [[Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms]], who objected that there were no [[Revenue stamp|stamps]] on the liquor bottles, indicating the alcohol was [[Rum-running|bootlegged]]. David Carter presents information (p. 96–103) indicating that the Mafia owners of the Stonewall and the manager were blackmailing wealthier customers, particularly those who worked on [[Wall Street]]. They appeared to be making more money from extortion than they were from liquor sales in the bar. Carter deduces that when the police were unable to receive kickbacks from blackmail and the theft of negotiable bonds (facilitated by pressuring gay Wall Street customers), they decided to close the Stonewall Inn permanently.</ref> The music was turned off and the main lights were turned on. Approximately 200 people were in the bar that night. Patrons who had never experienced a police raid were confused. A few who realized what was happening began to run for doors and windows in the bathrooms, but police barred the doors. Michael Fader remembered, "Things happened so fast you kind of got caught not knowing. All of a sudden there were police there and we were told to all get in lines and to have our identification ready to be led out of the bar."{{sfn|Carter|2004|p=137}}

The raid did not go as planned. Standard procedure was to line up the patrons, check their identification and have female police officers take patrons they perceived to be women to the bathroom to verify their sex. The officers would then arrest any trans women or drag queens. The women refused to go with the officers and the men in line refused to produce their identification. The police decided to take everyone present to the police station, after separating those suspected of cross-dressing in a room in the back of the bar. All parties involved recall that a sense of discomfort spread very quickly, started by police who assaulted some of the lesbians by "feeling some of them up inappropriately" while frisking them.{{sfn|Carter|2004|p=141}}

{{Quote box |width=30em | align=left |quote=When did you ever see a fag fight back?{{nbsp}}... Now, times were a-changin'. Tuesday night was the last night for bullshit{{nbsp}}... Predominantly, the theme [w]as, "this shit has got to stop!"|salign=right|source=—anonymous Stonewall riots participant{{sfn|Carter|2004|p=143}}}}

The police were to transport the bar's alcohol in patrol wagons. Twenty-eight cases of beer and nineteen bottles of hard liquor were seized, but the patrol wagons had not yet arrived, so patrons were required to wait in line for about 15 minutes.{{sfn|Carter|2004|p=142}} Those who were not arrested were released from the front door, but they did not leave quickly as usual. Instead, they stopped outside and a crowd began to grow and watch. Within minutes, between 100 and 150 people had congregated outside, some after they were released from inside the Stonewall and some after noticing the police cars and the crowd. Although the police forcefully pushed or kicked some patrons out of the bar, some customers released by the police performed for the crowd by posing and saluting the police in an exaggerated fashion. The crowd's applause encouraged them further.{{sfn|Teal|1971|p=2}}

When the first patrol wagon arrived, Inspector Pine recalled that the crowd—most of whom were homosexual—had grown to at least ten times the number of people who were arrested and they all became very quiet.{{sfn|Carter|2004|p=147}} Confusion over radio communication delayed the arrival of a second wagon. The police began escorting Mafia members into the first wagon, to the cheers of the bystanders. Next, regular employees were loaded into the wagon. A bystander shouted, "Gay power!", someone began singing "[[We Shall Overcome]]" and the crowd reacted with amusement and general good humor mixed with "growing and intensive hostility".{{sfn|Carter|2004|pp=147–148}} An officer shoved a person in drag, who responded by hitting him on the head with her purse. The cop clubbed her over the head, as the crowd began to boo. Author [[Edmund White]], who had been passing by, recalled, "Everyone's restless, angry, and high-spirited. No one has a slogan, no one even has an attitude, but something's brewing."{{sfn|Carter|2004|p=148}} Pennies, then beer bottles, were thrown at the wagon as a rumor spread through the crowd that patrons still inside the bar were being beaten.

A scuffle broke out when a woman in handcuffs was escorted from the door of the bar to the waiting police wagon several times. She escaped repeatedly and fought with four of the police, swearing and shouting, for about ten minutes. Described as "a typical New York butch" and "a dyke–stone butch", she had been hit on the head by an officer with a [[baton (law enforcement)|baton]] for, as one witness claimed, complaining that her handcuffs were too tight.{{sfn|Duberman|1993|p=196}} Bystanders recalled that the woman, whose identity remains unknown ([[Stormé DeLarverie]] has been identified by some, including herself, as the woman, but accounts vary<ref name=Chu>{{cite web|last=Chu |first=Grace |url=http://www.afterellen.com/people/77167-an-interview-with-lesbian-stonewall-veteran-storm-delarverie|title=An interview with lesbian Stonewall veteran Stormé DeLarverie |publisher=AfterEllen.com |date=July 26, 2010 |access-date=August 1, 2010}}</ref>{{refn|group=note|Accounts of people who witnessed the scene, including letters and news reports of the woman who fought with police, conflicted. Where witnesses claim one woman who fought her treatment at the hands of the police caused the crowd to become angry, some also remembered several "butch lesbians" had begun to fight back while still in the bar. At least one was already bleeding when taken out of the bar.{{sfn|Carter|2004|pp=152–153}} Craig Rodwell{{sfn|Duberman|1993|p=197}} claims the arrest of the woman was not the primary event that triggered the violence, but one of several simultaneous occurrences: "there was just{{nbsp}}... a flash of group—of mass—anger."}}), sparked the crowd to fight when she looked at bystanders and shouted, "Why don't you guys do something?" After an officer picked her up and heaved her into the back of the wagon,{{sfn|Carter|2004|p=152}} the crowd became a mob and became violent.{{sfn|Carter|2004|p=151}}<ref>{{cite web |title=The night they busted Stonewall |author=Lucian K. Truscott IV |website=Salon |url=http://www.salon.com/2017/06/28/the-night-they-busted-stonewall/ |date=June 28, 2017 |access-date=July 1, 2017}}</ref>