Brenda Azizi: That’s all I need. It happens often.
Cristina Kugler: I’m sorry to hear this, and I’m glad this has been resolved. A couple of people were hurt, and it’s very frustrating to hear stories like that.
Shaun Gentry: That’s exactly right. It’s a very important issue to the people who were hurt or the families that lost a loved one — it’s a huge concern. It also has a direct impact on the public: people are still having to deal with this. They haven’t seen the investigation take place. And the public, which is our constituency, has not seen the investigation either.
Cristina Kugler: And for those who would feel that — and I know that’s a lot of people, particularly the LGBTQ community — that these arrests, these arrests of people who represent communities, who represent minorities, that’s a direct hit on their very core concerns.
Shaun Gentry: Yeah.
Cristina Kugler: And those core concerns are not being pursued.
Shaun Gentry: Right.
Cristina Kugler: And that’s definitely understandable, especially for folks like me who work in police departments and police departments around the country. But we know from our reporting, through interviews and other resources and from community reports, that when LGBT members of the community are targeted and harassed — police officers and their families in many cases — the first call they’re made from is: “Who is this horrible person?”
Shaun Gentry: Yeah. One of the things that’s been really consistent is that the first report of harassment or harassment of an LGBT person is by members of the LGBT community. And they’ll call out, “Do you know who these people are?” And there’s one case I told from Oakland a while back, where it was the same thing — it was a couple of people. But the officer didn’t understand that one of the members of the LGBTQ community was there. The other members of the community are not talking to the officer or they’re too scared or they’re afraid.
Cristina Kugler: The reality is that when police conduct an investigation it’s really important that we understand what the investigation is. And as someone who’s been a part of the LGBT movement for a while, and also in the community working with young transgender women