Tensions between police and venue owners in San Francisco had been pretty much part of the LGBT scene in the period leading up to the 80s (for example, the ‘Gay-ola’ bribes of the 1960s and the White Night riots of 1979).

However, the fallout from the latter events prompted a significant effort on the part of the San Francisco Police Department to improve their relationship with the LGBT community, including concerted efforts to recruit officers from within the community itself.

It all seemed to be going very well – until 6^th October 1989, when the police shut down the entire Castro District and threatened to arrest anyone on the street or sidewalks of Castro Street.

Now known as the ‘Castro Sweep’, the episode followed an early evening ACT UP demonstration at San Francisco’s Civic Center. As protestors marched towards Castro Street police told the marchers they had to remain on the sidewalk – something that wasn’t overly practical for a group of around 150 people.

The Bay Area Reporter describes the night’s events

When ACT UP’s tactical coordinator stepped off the sidewalk to talk to the commanding officer he was immediately thrown to the ground, handcuffed and taken away.

Protestors were shocked and baffled by such hostile police behaviour and when they reached Castro Street they found their way blocked by hundreds of police officers lined up in formation across the street. With their route blocked and increasingly angry at the heavy-handed police approach, the demonstrators sat down in the middle of Castro Street.

Tensions grew even further, then police began clubbing people in the street. By 8 p.m. the police had declared the protest to be an unlawful assembly and ordered people inside Castro’s stores, bars and restaurants to remain inside or face arrest. They then started a systematic sweep down Castro Street, declaring that anyone on either the street or sidewalk would be arrested. By the end of the episode ten civilians had been injured and 53 arrested.

Journalist Brett Averill wrote in the Bay Area Reporter:

“… a bland plea for more AIDS funds ended five hours later with bloodied heads, mass arrests, and the specter of fully armed riot police marching through the heart of the Castro sweeping  demonstrators and confused passersby from the streets and sidewalks.”

And, of course, relations between the community and the Police Department had gone back to where they were following the White Night riots a decade earlier.As one lesbian police officer subsequently commented:

“I think our department grew quite a bit from the White Night riots to the Castro Sweep. What the Castro Sweep did was open a wound that was already there.”

It would take some three years, a series of lawsuits, Police Commission disciplinary hearings and the demotions and re-assignments of a number of senior police officers before that wound began to heal again.