Clubbers filmed raid on gay club
PinkNews.co.uk Exclusive
Gay clubbers captured the police raid that resulted in the Fire gay nightclub being shut down by Lambeth police in the early hours of Saturday morning. Witnesses claim hundreds of police were involved in the raid.
PinkNews.co.uk has heard criticism of the police for taking photographs of clubbers (but not taking their names). One reader pointed out that this was a particular worry for those not yet openly gay.
Nine people were arrested in the raid that followed a three month long intelligence led operation into Class A drugs- codenamed Pivot.
Officers armed with a search warrant raided the club in Vauxhall at 2:15 am on Saturday. Suspects are being held in a central London police station.
The DiscoDamaged linked to a video of the raids (featured below), here in stills from the mobile phone captured film, police can be seen selecting groups of visitors to the gay club to be searched and photographed.
Chief Inspector Clive Wakeley, who is responsible for operation Pivot said: āThis type of operation shows our commitment to stopping those who push drugs on the borough. The intelligence that we received led us to mount this operation that successfully finished this morning with nine arrests.ā
Mr Wakely added: āOur work will continue not only to crackdown on drug dealing but on all crime to make Lambeth a safer place for all those who live, work and visit.ā
The following video has been posted on YouTube by PinkNews.co.uk showing the police photographing groups of clubbers
DiscoDamagedās āJonā captured the video on his mobile phone
The club which hosts A:M (taking place during the raid), Orange, Juicy and Rudeboyz has been temporarily shut down under the Misuse of Drugs Act.
PinkNews.co.uk was unable to reach the club promoter All Things Orange for comment on Saturday. However, PinkNews.co.uk has spoken to a number of regular visitors to Fire who confirm the ready availability of Class A drugs at the venue.
Charles Whitney, who was there told PinkNews.co.uk: āI can understand why the police conducted the operation ā things are getting out of hand.
āBut the way they did it made me quite angry. Everybody had to queue up to be photographed by a police CCTV van parked outside the club before they were allowed to leave.
āThey made us stand in rows of five people while the pix were taken.
āIāve never been in a raid before but donāt imagine theyād do that at a straight clubā¦ so why at Fire?
āWhy take our pix? They didnāt take our names, or even search most of us. Itās not such a big issue for me ā Iām out ā but anybody still in the closet who went to Fire would have been freaking out about the photos.ā
A Metropolitan Police spokesman told PinkNews.co.uk that they couldnāt comment on why the photographs were taken without names being recorded.
But a source close to the Metropolitan Police stressed that the service would be mindful of the possible sensitvity in identifying people who were not openly gay.
A number of clubbers have been recounting their experiences on blogs.
Supersluth wrote on DiscoDamaged, āThe lights came on at 2am.
āWe were then lined in in groups of 3 in the car park ā had our pictues taken in the glory of spot lights jacked up on police vans, sniffer dogs have a good nose around our legs and escorted out onto the road where there were literally hundreds of police lining the closed off roads and railway bridge.ā
They continued: āTo get your cloakroom belongings,we had to walk around the block past the bus station and queue up outside the front entrance- now completely manned by police to be allowed to retrieve.ā
According to bloggers, police handed clubbers a pre-printed letter claiming that āa serious amount of cocaine and ecstasy have been openly sold in the Fire nightclub.ā
Paul S said: āwell everyone knew it was only a matter of time, didnāt they?ā
(For legal reasons PinkNews.co.uk has removed sentences from these postings)
Thanks to DiscoDamaged for lots of information and the video.
