Citizen Review Board Takes Up Eagle Raid

ATLANTA - Friday will mark the anniversary of a controversial raid by Atlanta police on a midtown gay bar and Thursday, the city's citizen review board says the police officers who took part in the raid were out of line.

Patrons of the Eagle Bar said they were unfairly treated when officers stormed the place during a raid in September of 2009.

Twenty-one officers, some of them undercover vice detectives, stormed into the midtown club and made permit arrests for illegal dancing that was allegedly taking place on bar.

Customers claimed they were treated in a rough manner and made to lie on the floor for an extended period of time. The bar's owners said some of the officers celebrated during the bust.

The Atlanta Police Department union representative said the department got numerous complaints about the bar and that undercover officers observed laws broken there for months.

The former police chief, Richard Pennington offered a conditional apology about the way the raid was handled.