Diego Viñales

The Snake Pit bar raid took place in the pre-dawn hours of 8 March 1970. New York City Police raided the bar at 213 West 10th Street in Greenwich Village under claims that the bar had been operating illegally after hours. One hundred sixty-seven people were taken into custody in the raid.

Diego Viñales Diego Viñales (born Alfredo Diego Viñales in 1947 or 1948) was an Argentine man arrested during the raid. Viñales was in the United States on an expired student visa and feared deportation. At the police station, police explained that ID would not be checked, and those present would not have to post bail, but Viñales didn't hear or didn't understand. He ran up a flight of stairs and attempted to escape through a second-floor window to the roof of an adjoining building. He fell and was impaled on the spikes of an iron fence below. With the seriousness of the injury, the police could not simply remove him from the fence. Instead, the fire department was called, and a section of fence was cut out, Viñales was taken to St. Vincent's Hospital in critical condition, still attached to the fence. Surgeons operated on him, with fire department personnel asked to scrub in and assist.

Legacy The gay community had already seen a surge in organizing activity following the events at the Stonewall Inn the previous summer. The protest march following the Snake Pit raid played a role in galvanizing interest even further among the community in time for the upcoming Christopher Street Liberation Day events already planned for 28 June. This event, scheduled to commemorate the first anniversary of the Stonewall riots was the first Pride march celebration in the United States.

There were political repercussions as well. Democratic Congressman Ed Koch, the future mayor of New York City, accused New York City Police Commissioner Howard R. Leary of approving raids and arrests against the gay community.