In Nashville, cops are targeting homosexuals in sting operations…not for being gay, but by trying to elicit drug sales out of them. They also get a little fun smearing, I mean, uh, “arresting” a “resisting” queer, after posing as an online date and asking him to bring some amyl nitrate:

In fact, the police later admitted that Sergeant Steve Brady, a 17-year veteran of the force, fired his Taser gun, delivering 50,000 electric volts into Steve’s back. Meanwhile, he was being kicked. Remarkably, Steve tried to get to his feet. In his mind, he was fighting for his life. Then Brady shot him a second time with the Taser. The officers ordered him to put his hands behind his back, but he couldn’t. His body was flopping like a fish out of water; every muscle was convulsing, it seemed to him at the time. The officers ridiculed him. “Does that tickle?” one of the officers asked, as the others laughed uproariously.

He was subsequently shot a third time–a guy who is six feet tall but slightly built. The catch?

In the meantime, nobody seems to know whether Steve even did anything illegal, other than resisting arrest. Here’s how the charges have evolved over the last few weeks: initially, police claimed that Steve’s bottle of liquid substance was not “amyl nitrate,” even though that’s what he told the informant he would bring over. So they charged him with intent to sell, deliver or distribute a counterfeit controlled substance. Oddly, both the defendant and the attorney claim that the bottle of substance he stuffed into his pocket was, in fact, amyl nitrate. The real deal.

So pretty much they’re abusing drug stings to harass homosexuals. But I guess Atrios would say it’s better they allow this than run the risk of not being able to entrap an Enron executive on an unrelated and bogus charge.

Link via Sploid.