The Stonewall raid was a federal liquor-enforcement operation, not routine local policing.

Evidence

As usual the real excitement, though, was in the streets. Friday night, June 27, an unexpected police raid on a Mob-owned Greenwich Village gay bar met unanticipated resistance. As the raid was prompted by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms rather than the local precinct, the management was caught unaware—even more so when the six cops who entered the Stonewall Inn began making arrests. — J. Hoberman, Everything Is Now, 1457

Categorization

• XREF: Corrects the standard origin story of Stonewall as a local precinct raid; connects to how institutions misfire when outside agencies police a community.
• QUESTION: Worth verifying: was the ATF/prohibition tax role of Stonewall’s raid part of a broader pattern of Mob-run gay bars in the Village?