Video shows police arresting lesbian bar owner as she protests, "We did nothing wrong!"

Video taken late Saturday night shows Atlanta, Georgia police arresting Jen-Chase Daniels, co-owner of the lesbian bar My Sister’s Room, for a noise violation that she says actually came from Blackjack, a nearby bar with outdoor speakers.

“We did nothing wrong tonight. We did nothing wrong,” Daniels says in the video (which has been viewed over 525,000 times on Instagram as of Monday evening) as police handcuff her and lead her towards a squad car.

In a follow-up post, she said she spent about 12 hours “in an extremely stressful situation” after police apprehended her, took her to Grady Memorial Hospital to check a heart monitor implanted in her chest, and was then transferred to jail. Meanwhile jail and hospital officials reportedly told her friends and family that she wasn’t there as they tried to locate her, Daniels added, even as she asked police officers to inform her family of her whereabouts, Them reported.

“I was asked to show my ID,” Daniels wrote. “The officer already knew who I was, and I questioned why I needed to provide identification when we had not done anything wrong. I was willing to show the video footage demonstrating that the noise was not coming from MSR. Instead, I was arrested.”

Daniels said that city ordinances used to require businesses to maintain noise below a certain decibel level checkable through a meter. However, a new ordinance requires businesses not to have any sounds that can be heard 100-feet away after midnight, she added.

A week and a half before her arrest, Daniels said that she met outside of her business with the Atlanta police chief, police lieutenant, and the owners of neighboring bars and restaurants to mark the 100-foot area outside of their businesses and clarify the low noise levels required after midnight.

Twenty minutes before her arrest, she recorded a video 100-feet away from her business, showing music playing from the outdoor speakers of the nearby Blackjack tapas bar, even though that bar closes at midnight.

“You cannot hear anything at MSR and we’re documenting it,” she said in the video.

Daniels thanked her friend, Melissa Scott, for “endlessly working on trying to find me and getting me bailed out,” and told her bar’s social media followers, “Thank you for standing with us, supporting us,” but has said she will not make any other public statements on the incident, following advisement from her lawyers.

Drag performer Taylor Alxndr called the incident “an unnecessary situation [stemming from a] clear lack of discernment,” Them reported.

Alxndr added, “A volume issue or noise violation does not equal an arrest – at most a citation. Was this discriminatory, homophobic, a misuse of power, or just a cop needing to hit a quota? APD’s history of mistreatment of LGBTQ+ bars & venues is long documented and this isn’t helping fix it at all. Transparency is needed around this.”

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