As New
York prepares for LGBTQ pride celebrations, a new
case of homophobia-driven police brutality has sobered the city.

On the
night of May 17, Jeannette Grey and Tiffany Jimenez were both brutally beaten
by uniformed NYPD officers outside the IFE Lounge, a nightclub located at 565 Nostrand Avenue
in Crown Heights,
Brooklyn.

The attack
mobilized community members across the borough. Hundreds gathered to express
support and solidarity in a demonstration held in front of the NYPD’s 77th
Precinct on Saturday, June 6.

“I don’t
feel safe with the NYPD anymore,” said Tiffany Jimenez tearfully at the rally.
“I feel like they’re the ones committing hate crimes against us.”

Grey and
Jimenez, both self-described lesbians of color, recalled how they had been
subjected to unwarranted brutality outside of the nightclub as homophobic slurs
were screamed at them from the officers. They were beaten, they said, with nightsticks
and forced to the ground.

“They had the audacity in front of their own
sergeant and the rest of their brothers and sisters to say, ‘We are having some
dyke pussy in here tonight!’” Grey said of the officers. As she was being
beaten, Grey said she thought of Martin Luther King Jr. and willed her body to
go slack. “I know wholeheartedly that not all cops engage in this behavior,”
she said at the rally. “What we need now is for the good cops to not walk away
when they see injustice being done.”

New York
City Council member Letitia James attended the rally and promised to demand
NYPD to drop all charges against the two women. The case reminds many of last
year’s embittered battle of the New
Jersey 4.

As
Saturday’s demonstrators hoisted rainbow adorned signage and responded in
thunderous unison to rallying calls, organizers from GLOBE, Make the Road New York and the Audre Lorde Project
exhorted: “There is no need to fear the people that are supposed to protect us.
We are not as powerless as we are led to believe.”