Atlanta to Pay $1 Million Settlement for Bar Raid

The Atlanta city council passed a resolution Monday to pay a $1 million settlement in the dispute over its raid of the Atlanta Eagle gay bar last year.

According to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, "The council voted 14-0 to make the payment of $1,002,500 in the case of Calhoun v. Pennington, but it reserved deep discussion on the matter to executive session. Geoff Calhoun was a patron of the bar, and Richard Pennington was the city's police chief at the time of the raid."

The city will also oversee police department reforms as part of the settlement. A federal judge must now approve the settlement.

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of 19 patrons of the Atlanta Eagle, who claimed that police violated their federal and state constitutional rights by illegally detaining them in the September 2009 raid. They charged that officers did not present a search warrant for the raid and that police used antigay slurs during the operation.