Policeraid of a gay bar inside of nyc

Here's a timeline of how it unfolded. Last Updated: June 25, At the time, homosexual acts remained illegal in every state except Illinois, and bars and restaurants could get shut down for having gay employees or serving gay patrons. The Stonewall Inn Riots sparked the beginning of the gay rights movement in America. Learn how.

On the Tuesday before the riots began, police conducted an evening raid on the Stonewall, arresting some of its employees and confiscating its stash of illegal liquor. As with many similar raids, the police targeted the bar for operating without a proper liquor license. After the raid, the NYPD planned a second raid for the following Friday, which they hoped would shut down the bar for good.

After midnight on an unseasonably hot Friday night, the Stonewall was packed when eight plainclothes or undercover police officers six men and two women entered the bar. More NYPD officers arrived on foot and in three patrol cars. Meanwhile, bar patrons who had been released joined the crowds of onlookers that were forming outside the Stonewall.

A police van arrived, and police began loading Stonewall employees and cross-dressers inside. Early hours of June 28, Transgender women resist arrest. Bottles are thrown at police. Learn about what the ACLU stands for, its history and founders, and some of the biggest cases it has represented. Dive into the Scopes Monkey Trial, Brown v.

Board of Education and Obergefell v. Hodges, which led to legalizing same sex marriage. Two transgender women of color, Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Riverawere said to have resisted arrest and thrown the first bottle or brick or stone at the cops, respectively. Although Johnson later said in a podcast interview with historian Eric Marcus that she had not arrived until the uprising was well underway.

Shortly after the historic Stonewall protest intwo transgender activists, Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P Johnson, embarked on a mission to protect one of New York City's most vulnerable communities. The exact breakdown of who did what first remains unclear—in part because this was long before the smartphone era and there was minimal documentation of the night's events.

Stonewall Riots

As the police van and squad cars left to drop the prisoners off at the nearby Sixth Precinct, the growing mob forced the original NYPD raiding party to retreat into the Stonewall itself and barricade themselves inside. Some rioters used a parking meter as a battering ram to break through the door; others threw beer bottles, trash and other objects, or made impromptu firebombs with bottles, matches and lighter fluid.

As the helmeted officers marched in formation down Christopher Street, protesters outsmarted them by running away, then circling the short blocks of the Village and coming back up behind the officers. Finally, sometime after 4 a. Amazingly, no one died or was critically injured on the first night of rioting, though a few police officers reported injuries.

An unidentifed group of young poeple celebrate outside the boarded-up Stonewall Inn after the riots.