Gay activists are pounding at the door of their longtime antagonists–big-city cops. With bias crimes against homosexuals on the rise , gay-rights leaders demand that police not only provide more protection, but hire gay cops and offer sensitivity training to the law-enforcement rank and file. In some cities, especially where gays have political clout, activists have made inroads with police. But in others, they risk deepening the divide: the combative tactics of radical groups such as ACT-UP and Queer Nation have alienated many cops. A report from some key battlegrounds:

In many cities, gays complain that cops are, at best, dismissive of their concerns. Last summer Milwaukee provided a tragic example of police indifference when it was revealed that cops surrendered a naked 14-year-old Laotian boy to the custody of serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer–and later laughed off the episode as “a boyfriend-boyfriend thing.” Sometimes the cops themselves are accused of gay bashing. In Cincinnati last September, a city police patrol car stopped Steven O’Banion, who has AIDS, and a friend for jaywalking. When one of the cops allegedly suggested that the men were “faggots,” O’Banion, 40, says he replied “Cowabunga, dude.” The officers hauled him off to jail where, O’Banion says, county corrections officers beat him, fractured his nasal cavity, and deprived him of medication. The officers say O’Banion intentionally spewed blood from a nosebleed on four people. Next month O’Banion stands trial for attempted murder–with the AIDS virus. (The Hamilton County sheriff’s department has refused to comment on the case.)

Nothing has altered the image of the gay-rights movement as decisively as the rise of the radical fringe. “That ACT-UP group, they advertise out front that they’re coming to cause problems,” says John Dineen, president of the Fraternal Order of Police in Chicago. “They’re biting officers, saying they’ve got AIDS.” Since September, police in Los Angeles and San Francisco have faced a sporadic siege by activists protesting Gov. Pete Wilson’s veto of a gay-rights bill. Activists have broken windows, set small fires, destroyed government papers and harassed the governor at public events. When authorities effectively contained a rowdy anti-Wilson demonstration in Sacramento, Queer Nation leaders lobbed charges of police abuse. “Sacramento has traditionally relatively brutal on lesbian and gay protests,” says Queer Nation’s Jonathan Katz. But so far there have been no formal complaints against police. Says Sacramento police spokesperson Betsy Braziel: “It went very well from our perspective.”

How many gay cops are there in San Diego? “I don’t know and it doesn’t matter,” says Police Chief Bob Burgreen. San Diego police built their reputation for good relations with gays by initiating a few simple reforms. Gay leaders are guest lecturers at the police academy, and police recruits are required to do volunteer work at social-service agencies including the AIDS Foundation and the Gay and Lesbian Center. Two SDPD officers have come out of the closet without being taunted by colleagues. In New York City, where openly gay officers serve throughout the department, homosexual cops have formed their own Gay Officers Action League. “We’ve gotten nearly every demand we’ve made,” says Sam Ciccone, the group’s executive director. The police academy expanded its gay-studies course, and gay officers played a major role in revising the department’s AIDS handbook. These may be small victories, but they are steps in a formidable task: to undo years of mutual distrust nurtured by both gays and cops.

Monitoring of incidents in six major cities showed that bias crimes against homosexuals jumped by 42 percent between 1989 and 1990.

In 1990, 1,588 bias incidents were reported to the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force; in the same six cities, police reported 265 incidents.

Of the 1,588 incidents reported to the Task Force, 8.6 percent involved police abuse.

SOURCE: NATIONAL GAY & LESBIAN TASK FORCE