ABSTRACT
Little is known publicly about the men whose arrest led to the most important gay civil rights decision in American history. When Harris County sheriff’s deputies entered the apartment they did not find anybody with a gun but did witness John Lawrence and Tyron Garner having sex. Lawrence had twice been arrested for driving while intoxicated, once in 1978 and again in 1988. Lawrence began with an uncommon–and unusual—police intrusion into the bedroom. After Lawrence was forcibly separated from Garner, the two men were handcuffed. Joseph Rich Quinn was angry that Lawrence and Garner had not stopped having sex when the deputies entered the apartment and announced their presence. Lawrence, Garner, and Eubanks were led away to the station in separate patrol cars. But parts of Quinn’s account are very difficult to explain by fading memory. The Tipps account suggests a more plausible theory in support of the deputies’ version of events than either the Quinn or Lilly account.
