WASHINGTON - This police beat has no precinct boundaries. It encompasses the vibrant gay club sce... Police departments expand
WASHINGTON - This police beat has no precinct boundaries. It encompasses the vibrant gay club scene in the nation's capital, the sidewalks where transgender prostitutes ply their trade, even the Internet - where criminals prey on men using gay dating sites.
It's the beat of a cutting-edge and award-winning police squad - Washington's Gay and Lesbian Liaison Unit - led by a burly, openly gay sergeant who gave up a career as a pro hockey referee to pursue law enforcement.
The unit investigates anti-gay hate crimes with zeal, but the bulk of its varied caseload arises from within the gay community - notably drug abuse and gay-on-gay violence. Crimes get reported and solved, said Sgt. Brett Parson, because of his unit's efforts to win trust and obtain tips from a group that long viewed the police as hostile.
"The biggest challenge, from Day One, has been to walk that very fine line between being advocates and enforcers," said Parson. "You want to build a strong relationship without losing respect because you're a pushover."
Historically, many gays across the United States considered police departments a threat for raiding gay gathering places and employing unfairly selective arrest policies. The gay-rights movement is widely depicted as starting with riots over a 1969 police raid on the Stonewall Inn, a New York City gay bar.
Amnesty International, in a report last year, contended that abuse by urban police officers is widespread, but acknowledged that many departments are striving to improve relations with the local gay and lesbian communities.
Cities as far-flung from Washington as Fargo, N.D., and Missoula, Mont., now have gay liaison officers, but Parson says none matches his department's commitment, establishing a unit with a mission to investigate gay-related crimes and to do community outreach. Parson also teaches fellow officers in the rest of department about gay-lesbian issues, a course he calls Gay 101.
Created in 2000 in a city with one of the nation's highest concentrations of gays, the unit now has six full-time officers, plus a cadre of part-time officers and volunteers from the community. It moved two years ago into a spacious storefront office near trendy Dupont Circle; posters condemning hate crimes decorate its walls.
The unit was formed after Police Chief Charles Ramsey concluded that the low number of anti-gay hate crimes reported in Washington was not cause for celebration but rather a troubling sign that the city's gays deeply mistrusted the police. In one notorious case, a police lieutenant admitted in 1997 that he had run an extortion racket targeting patrons of gay night clubs.
In one such case, Parson said, an America Online executive was reported missing by his family, who did not know he was gay. The executive's acquaintances in the gay community suspected foul play and provided tips that led to the arrest and conviction of a contractor who was doing renovation work for the victim.
In a recent sting operation, using an undercover officer, Parson's unit helped arrest a suspect who was arranging sexual trysts on a gay Internet dating site, then committing robbery on the assumption the other man wouldn't dare report the crime.
Most of the unit's tips and crime reports come from white gay men. Parson, who is white, has been working to develop better contacts with black gays - Washington is 60 percent black - and with the transgender community.
The unit has assisted in the department's campaign to move transgender prostitutes away from one of their favored "strolls" near the Washington Convention Center.
Parson, 38, joined the Washington police force in 1994 and took charge of the liaison unit in 2001. He has been profiled in a documentary film, "The Sheriff of Gay Washington," and his energy helped his unit win a $100,000 Innovations in American Government Award in July.
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