Amanda Brown, daughter of the gay man ejected this week from Research Medical Center, a Kansas City, Missouri hospital, while attempting to visit his ill husband, has written an article bringing to light new information suggesting that her father, Roger Gorely, may have been the victim of police brutality.
When the Kansas City Missouri Police Department arrived they asked my father to leave the room. He said to them, “No. This is my husband and I am going to stay with him.†The police considered that a violation of a direct order so they began to forcibly remove him from the room. My father held onto the rail of the gurney as well as his husbands hand with everything he had. The police responded with brut and excessive force. The office began karate chopping his wrist to get him to release the gurney. Then they wrestled him to the ground forcefully enough to knock his glasses off of his face, his hearing aids out of his ears, and nearly break his wrist while they took him down. To handcuff him they pushed a knee into his back and wrenched his wrists around.
READ:Â HCA Employee Uses Shocking Anti-Gay Slur To Defend Missouri Hospital That Handcuffed Gay Man
Brown adds:
It didn’t end there. The police changed his handcuffs 4 times! They assumed because he was a gay man that he was HIV+. When they drew blood from accosting him in such a brutal manner they freaked out. One of the arresting officers was so offended by my father’s presence that he would not touch him with his bare hands. He wore gloves the entire time and to make matters even more humiliating he didn’t want his handcuffs back. He grabbed them with gloves on, then another layer of gloves pinched between his index finger and thumb as he handed them off to another officer. The officer taking the handcuffs looked at him like he was crazy and just grabbed the handcuffs with no issue.
[Emphasis added]
Kansas City, Missouri police have offered no explanation for the extreme measures taken to detain Mr Gorely, nor have they offered any justification for their alleged assumption that Gorely was HIV+. Should these allegations prove accurate, it would lend even more weight to a story that has become a national symbol for the institutional discrimination present in parts of the country, and that has become a rallying cry for LGBT rights advocates worldwide.