Seymour Pine (July 21, 1919 – September 2, 2010) was an American deputy police inspector with the

New York City Police Department The New York City Police Department (NYPD), officially the City of New York Police Department, established on May 23, 1845, is the primary municipal law enforcement agency within the City of New York, the largest and one of the oldest in ...

(NYPD) who served on the force from 1941 to 1976. As deputy inspector, he led the police raid on the

Stonewall Inn The Stonewall Inn, often shortened to Stonewall, is a gay bar and recreational tavern in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Lower Manhattan, New York City, and the site of the Stonewall riots of 1969, which is widely considered to be the s ...

, which took place in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969. The resulting

Stonewall riots The Stonewall riots (also known as the Stonewall uprising, Stonewall rebellion, or simply Stonewall) were a series of spontaneous protests by members of the gay community in response to a police raid that began in the early morning hours of Ju ...

helped spark the development of the nascent

gay rights movement Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) movements are social movements that advocate for LGBT people in society. Some focus on equal rights, such as the ongoing movement for same-sex marriage, while others focus on liberation, as in the ...

in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

Biography

Pine was born on July 21, 1919, in

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

and attended

Brooklyn College Brooklyn College is a public university in Brooklyn, Brooklyn, New York. It is part of the City University of New York system and enrolls about 15,000 undergraduate and 2,800 graduate students on a 35-acre campus. Being New York City's first publ ...

, where he graduated in 1941. He joined the NYPD after graduating from college, but shortly thereafter enlisted to serve in the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...

, where he saw duty in

North Africa North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in ...

and in

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

. After completing his military service, Pine returned to the force and had been elevated to the rank of deputy inspector in the late 1960s.Hevesi, Dennis
"Seymour Pine Dies at 91; Led Raid on Stonewall Inn"
''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', September 7, 2010. Accessed September 8, 2010. Pine died at age 91, on September 2, 2010, at an assisted-living facility in

Whippany, New Jersey Whippany is a unincorporated community located within Hanover Township in Morris County, New Jersey, United States. Whippany's name is derived from the Whippanong Native Americans, a tribe that once inhabited the area. Whippanong meant "place ...

. He was survived by two sons and seven grandchildren. His wife, the former Judith Handler, had died in 1987.

Stonewall

The NYPD regularly raided such clubs, seeking to combat

prostitution Prostitution is the business or practice of engaging in Sex work, sexual activity in exchange for payment. The definition of "sexual activity" varies, and is often defined as an activity requiring physical contact (e.g., sexual intercourse, n ...

and

organized crime Organized crime (or organised crime) is a category of transnational, national, or local groupings of highly centralized enterprises run by criminals to engage in illegal activity, most commonly for profit. While organized crime is generally th ...

activities, and Pine said at the time that three other bars in Greenwich Village had been raided in the two weeks before the Stonewall Inn raid. In such raids at gay bars,

transvestites Transvestism is the practice of dressing in a manner traditionally associated with the opposite sex. In some cultures, transvestism is practiced for religious, traditional, or ceremonial reasons. The term is considered outdated in Western ...

would routinely be arrested and it was common for officers to harass other customers. When the June 28 raid was initiated by his superiors, Deputy Inspector Pine was commander of the

vice squad A vice is a practice, behaviour, or habit generally considered immoral, sinful, criminal, rude, taboo, depraved, degrading, deviant or perverted in the associated society. In more minor usage, vice can refer to a fault, a negative character tr ...

and he was leading a group of eight officers. The Stonewall Inn was

Mafia "Mafia" is an informal term that is used to describe criminal organizations that bear a strong similarity to the original “Mafia”, the Sicilian Mafia and Italian Mafia. The central activity of such an organization would be the arbitration of d ...

-owned and there were 200 people inside when the raid began shortly after Midnight with plainclothes officers presenting a

search warrant A search warrant is a court order that a magistrate or judge issues to authorize law enforcement officers to conduct a search of a person, location, or vehicle for evidence of a crime and to confiscate any evidence they find. In most countries, ...

citing the claim that liquor was being sold illegally at the bar. Despite orders for all patrons to line up and provide identification, several customers refused and a number of transvestites refused to undergo "anatomical inspections". As word of the raid spread, hundreds of protesters gathered outside the Stonewall. After the police tried to place a woman in a police car the crowd confronted the officers who went back into the club to avoid the increasingly defiant crowd. After some in the crowd tried to set the club on fire, pulled a parking meter out of the sidewalk and tried to use it to smash down the door, and threw objects such as bottles, garbage cans and coins at the officers, additional reinforcements were called, taking more than an hour to restore order and disperse the crowd that had gathered around the Stonewall Inn. That night, four police officers were injured and there were 13 arrests made, in addition to several cases of liquor that had been seized as the Inn lacked a liquor license.Staff
"4 POLICEMEN HURT IN 'VILLAGE' RAID; Melee Near Sheridan Square Follows Action at Bar"
''

'', June 29, 1969. Accessed September 8, 2010. Rioting continued for several nights, with crowds growing into the thousands. In his 2004 book ''Stonewall: The Riots That Sparked the Gay Revolution'', David Carter described the Stonewall riots as being "to the gay movement what the

fall of the Bastille The Storming of the Bastille (french: Prise de la Bastille ) occurred in Paris, France, on 14 July 1789, when revolutionary insurgents stormed and seized control of the medieval armoury, fortress, and political prison known as the Bastille. At ...

is to the unleashing of the

French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are considere ...

." Pine retired from the New York City Police department in 1976. In the following years, Carter rebutted the notion that Pine was a

homophobe Homophobia encompasses a range of negative attitudes and feelings toward homosexuality or people who are identified or perceived as being lesbian, gay or bisexual. It has been defined as contempt, prejudice, aversion, hatred or antipathy, ma ...

, saying that "I think he was strictly following orders, not personal prejudice against gay people". At a 2004 program conducted at the

New-York Historical Society The New-York Historical Society is an American history museum and library in New York City, along Central Park West between 76th and 77th Streets, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The society was founded in 1804 as New York's first museum. ...

, Pine acknowledged that officers "certainly were prejudiced... but had no idea about what gay people were about." He also justified the raid on the Stonewall as a routine way of combating organized crime and noted that arresting gay people was an easy way for officers to improve their arrest numbers since, at least until that night, "They never gave you any trouble." He later told Carter that "If what I did helped gay people, then I'm glad". As cited in '' The Advocate'' in 2009, Pine said that "I don’t think not liking gay people had anything to do with it" and asked on the '' Brian Lehrer Show'' about the justification for the raid responded that "When we took the action that we took that night, we were on the side of right. We never would have done something without supervision from the federal authorities and the state authorities." Interviews with Pine and other eyewitness accounts of the incident at the Stonewall Inn were included in the 2010

documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional film, motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". Bill Nichols (film critic), Bil ...

'' Stonewall Uprising'' produced and directed by Kate Davis and David Heilbroner.Wilton, Lisa
"Witnesses revisit '60s gay rights riots"
''

Calgary Sun The ''Calgary Sun'' is a daily newspaper published in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. It is owned by Postmedia. First published in 1980, the tabloid-format daily replaced the long-running tabloid-size newspaper ''The Albertan'' soon after it was acq ...

'', September 1, 2010. Accessed September 8, 2010. "You knew they broke the law, but what kind of law was it?"'','' he claims in the documentary.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pine, Seymour 1919 births 2010 deaths United States Army personnel of World War II Brooklyn College alumni New York City Police Department officers People from Manhattan United States Army soldiers

External links

Interview with Seymour Pine in WGBH's public television series "American Experience: Stonewall Uprising", 2011