Charles Christman and Police Violence
On December 5, 1970, shortly after SF State formally recognized the Gay Liberation Front as a student group, 27-year-old SF State ecology student Charles Christman, described in one account as a “shy Quaker farm boy from Philadelphia,” was shot by police outside the Stud, a popular Folsom Street gay bar. Police officers claimed they were responding to a crowd of 125 gay men who were blocking traffic outside the bar when Christman attacked them with his car, after which they shot him as he attempted to flee on foot. According to multiple witnesses, there were only 50-75 men on the street; no streets were blocked; and police officers initiated the conflict by attacking the men with night sticks and abusive language. Multiple witnesses also stated that Christman was driving slowly and attempting to maneuver around a police car. He was shot twice while driving, they stated, and once after exiting his vehicle. Christman claimed that after he exited his car and began to run, one police officer shouted, “Kill the cocksucking queer” and another yelled “Kill the motherfucker.” After police subsequently kicked him in and near his genital area, he ended up in the hospital with a shattered tibia. He was charged with five counts of assault on a police officer with a deadly weapon.[1] Notwithstanding the charges made against him, the attack on Christman can be seen as part of a long history of police violence against LGBTQ people, before and after the Stonewall Riots.[2]
In the incident’s aftermath, multiple LGBTQ groups mobilized to defend Christman, challenge police harassment at the Stud, confront the police chief and mayor, and criticize the police more generally. Shortly after the police shot Christman, San Francisco Gay Free Press, edited by SF State GLF leader Charles Thorpe, published a set of eyewitness accounts and an editorial that declared, “We have suffered another absurd attack on our community. Charles Christman was nothing more than target practice to some crazy pigs and as they get more into THE SPIRIT OF THINGS we can expect to all become targets.” According to Thorpe, “Charles Christman was against GLF and yet in irony he got S.F. GLF started again.” Thorpe likely was referring to a revival of interest in San Francisco’s (as opposed to SF State’s) GLF.[3] In January 1971, the Cockettes, a local queer performance group founded by George Edgerly Harris III, a.k.a. Hibiscus, were featured at a fundraising dance attended by 800-900 people at the Longshoreman’s Hall in North Beach; the proceeds were used to help with Christman’s legal expenses.[4]
At his March trial, where Christman was defended by local gay lawyer Evander Smith, the assistant district attorney questioned the veracity of multiple gay witnesses. Ten members of the all-female jury voted to convict, but two hold-outs resulted in a hung jury. During the early stages of his second trial in May, Christman accepted a plea bargain in which he agreed to plead guilty to two misdemeanor counts of assault and accept a one-year suspended sentence, three years of probation, and a $625 fine.[5] A few months later, Vector mentioned that Christman had helped the Society of Individual Rights register hundreds of San Francisco gay men to vote.[6]
Notes
[1] “Gay Bar Ruckus, Suspect Is Shot,” San Francisco Examiner, 13 Dec. 1970, 42; “Pigs Shoot Gay Brother,” Berkeley Tribe, 17 Dec. 1970, 7; Nick Benton, “Gay Shooting War Council,” Berkeley Barb, 18 Dec. 1970, 3; Nick Benton, “SF Gays Rally Round Wounded Leader,” Berkeley Barb, 25 Dec. 1970, 5; “SF Gays Protest Shooting by Cops,” The Advocate, 6 Jan. 1971, 1; Jim Kepner, “Angles on the News: From Hot-Shots to Self-Knowledge,” The Advocate, 20 Jan. 1971, 2, 13.
[2] For California examples in this period, see Marc Stein, “Queer Rage: Police Violence and the Stonewall Rebellion of 1969,” Process: A Blog for American History, June 3, 2019, processhistory.org/stein-stonewall; Marc Stein, The Stonewall Riots: A Documentary History (New York: NYU Press, 2019), 1-24.
[3] “Stud Horse Dead or How We Lost Disneyland,” San Francisco Gay Free Press, Dec. 1970, 2. See also “Pigs Sty-Me Stud,” San Francisco Gay Free Press, Dec. 1970, 2; “Exclusive Eyewitness Interviews,” San Francisco Gay Free Press, Dec. 1970, 2.
[4] “‘Radio Rodeo’—Cockettes Crusade,” Berkeley Barb, 22 Jan. 1971, 11; On the Cockettes, see David Weissman and Bill Weber, directors, The Cockettes (2002).
[5] “Shooting Protests Apparently Getting No Response in S.F.,” The Advocate, 20 Jan. 1971, 1, 9; Don Collins, “Police Shooting—A Folsom Uproar,” Vector, Jan. 1971, 18-19; “Christman's Trial Slated; Funds Raised,” The Advocate, 17 Feb. 1971, 2; “Christman Trial Delayed in S.F.,” The Advocate, 3 Mar. 1971, 19; “New Trial Planned in Car vs. Police Case,” San Francisco Examiner, 7 Mar. 1971, 15; “Retrial for Bluequeers’ Gay Target,” Berkeley Barb, 26 Mar. 1971, 6; Don Collins, “Christman Assault Trial Winds Up with Hung Jury,” The Advocate, 31 Mar. 1971, 2, 13; “Christman Retrial May Be April 26,” The Advocate, 28 Apr. 1971, 23; Lawrence Spears, “The Charles Christman Trial,” Vector, Apr. 1971, 30-31; “San Francisco,” Vector, Apr. 1971, 32; “Christman Accepts Lesser Assault-on-Officer Charge,” The Advocate, 26 May 1971, 2; “Christman New Trial Date,” Vector, May 1971, 25; “Urbi Et Orbi,” Vector, May 1971, 7; “SF Pig Victim ‘Free,’” Berkeley Barb, 18 June 1971, 8; “Christman Guilty—Misdemeanors,” Vector, June 1971, 28; “Urbi et Orbi,” Vector, June 1971, 7. See also Bill Lipsky, “The Trials of Charles Christman,” San Francisco Bay Times, 18 Apr. 2019.