Seymour Pine was an American deputy police inspector with the New York City Police Department

New York City Police Department

The New York City Police Department , established in 1845, is currently the largest municipal police force in the United States, with primary responsibilities in law enforcement and investigation within the five boroughs of New York City...

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

Stonewall Inn

The Stonewall Inn, often shortened to Stonewall is an American bar in New York City and the site of the Stonewall riots of 1969, which are widely considered to be the single most important event leading to the gay liberation movement and the modern fight for gay and lesbian rights in the United...

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

Stonewall riots

The Stonewall riots were a series of spontaneous, violent demonstrations against a police raid that took place in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn, in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City...

 helped spark the development of the nascent gay rights movement

LGBT social movements

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender social movements share inter-related goals of social acceptance of sexual and gender minorities. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people and their allies have a long history of campaigning for what is generally called LGBT rights, also called gay...

 in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

.

Biography

Pine was born on July 21, 1919, in Manhattan

Manhattan

Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...

 and attended Brooklyn College

Brooklyn College

Brooklyn College is a senior college of the City University of New York, located in Brooklyn, New York, United States.Established in 1930 by the New York City Board of Higher Education, the College had its beginnings as the Downtown Brooklyn branches of Hunter College and the City College of New...

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

United States Army

The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...

, where he saw duty in North Africa

North Africa

North Africa or Northern Africa is the northernmost region of the African continent, linked by the Sahara to Sub-Saharan Africa. Geopolitically, the United Nations definition of Northern Africa includes eight countries or territories; Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, South Sudan, Sudan, Tunisia, and...

 and in Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

. After completing his military service, Pine returned to the force and had been elevated to the rank of deputy inspector in the late 1960s.

Pine died at age 91, on September 2, 2010, at an assisted-living facility in Whippany, New Jersey

Whippany, New Jersey

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

. 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

Prostitution is the act or practice of providing sexual services to another person in return for payment. The person who receives payment for sexual services is called a prostitute and the person who receives such services is known by a multitude of terms, including a "john". Prostitution is one of...

 and organized crime

Organized crime

Organized crime or criminal organizations are transnational, national, or local groupings of highly centralized enterprises run by criminals for the purpose of engaging in illegal activity, most commonly for monetary profit. Some criminal organizations, such as terrorist organizations, are...

 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

Transvestism is the practice of cross-dressing, which is wearing clothing traditionally associated with the opposite sex. Transvestite refers to a person who cross-dresses; however, the word often has additional connotations. -History:Although the word transvestism was coined as late as the 1910s,...

 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

Vice Squad

Vice Squad is a punk band formed in 1978 in Bristol, England. The band formed from two other local punk bands, The Contingent and TV Brakes. Songwriter and vocalist Beki Bondage was a founding member and is currently with the band, although there was a period of time when the band had a different...

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

Mafia

The Mafia is a criminal syndicate that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century in Sicily, Italy. It is a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organizational structure and code of conduct, and whose common enterprise is protection racketeering...

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

Search warrant

A search warrant is a court order issued by a Magistrate, judge or Supreme Court Official that authorizes law enforcement officers to conduct a search of a person or location for evidence of a crime and to confiscate evidence if it is found....

 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. 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

Storming of the Bastille

The storming of the Bastille occurred in Paris on the morning of 14 July 1789. The medieval fortress and prison in Paris known as the Bastille represented royal authority in the centre of Paris. While the prison only contained seven inmates at the time of its storming, its fall was the flashpoint...

 is to the unleashing of the French Revolution

French Revolution

The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...

."

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

Homophobia is a term used to refer to a range of negative attitudes and feelings towards lesbian, gay and in some cases bisexual, transgender people and behavior, although these are usually covered under other terms such as biphobia and transphobia. Definitions refer to irrational fear, with the...

, 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

New-York Historical Society

The New-York Historical Society is an American history museum and library located in New York City at the corner of 77th Street and Central Park West in Manhattan. Founded in 1804 as New York's first museum, the New-York Historical Society presents exhibitions, public programs and research that...

, 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

The Advocate

The Advocate is an American LGBT-interest magazine, printed monthly and available by subscription. The Advocate brand also includes a web site. Both magazine and web site have an editorial focus on news, politics, opinion, and arts and entertainment of interest to LGBT people...

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

Brian Lehrer

Brian Lehrer is a radio talk show host on New York City's public radio station WNYC. His daily two-hour 2007 Peabody Award-winning program, The Brian Lehrer Show, features interviews with newsmakers and experts about current events and social issues...

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

Documentary film

Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...

 Stonewall Uprising

Stonewall Uprising

Stonewall Uprising is a 2010 American documentary film examining the events surrounding the Stonewall riots that began during the early hours of June 28, 1969. Stonewall Uprising made its theatrical debut on June 16, 2010 at the Film Forum in New York City...

produced and directed by Kate Davis and David Heilbroner.