The community was unsettled, seeing parallels with the Stonewall riots on the 50th anniversary.

Drag performer Victoria A. Jewelle immediately thought of the Stonewall riots, where 50 years ago LGBTQ people fought back against police harassment in New York City.

“That was a very surreal moment,” Jewelle told the Montgomery Advertiser of her reaction to law enforcement entering A Touch of Soul Cafe, in Montgomery, Alabama, as she prepared for a Pride show on Saturday night.

“I was sitting there like, ’Damn, we can’t do this again.'”

Montgomery Pride United shared the news in a Facebook post, adding, “This is why we fight.”

Police forced A Touch of Soul Cafe to close at midnight, according to owner Geri Moss.

“I think it’s centered on the fact that I had the audacity to come downtown and give a disadvantaged people a night to enjoy themselves, to come and be safe in a place,” she said on Sunday.

According to Montgomery Police Chief Ernest Finley, the operation was scheduled for weeks, in which law enforcement assisted in a state ABC Board inspection detail for city clubs and bars.

“During the detail, at about 10:45 p.m., [Montgomery Fire and Rescue] observed a restaurant in the 100 block of Montgomery Street with armed security and what appeared to be the collection of money at the door,” MPD Sgt. David Hicks said in a statement.

“Although the business is licensed as a restaurant, the kitchen was not operating at the time. A safety inspection was completed, and MF/R reminded the owner that the business, as a restaurant, is required to close by midnight. No citation was issued.”

Moss said it was not true that the kitchen wasn’t operating, saying she had prepared a menu and cooks were on site. She said she is legally able to operate until 2am on Saturdays, and that she “lost a lot of revenue” and had to cancel reservations due to the police action.

Community members took to social media to vent frustrations and call for answers in the wake of the shut down.

“I think that this level of police intervention is a strategy to control what conservatives fear about the expansion of queer visibility in the South,” Joshua Burford, of the nonprofit queer history archival organization Invisible Histories Project of Alabama, told NewNowNext. “This level of police presence is what happens when we settle for rainbows on police cars instead of interrogating these agents of state control.”

“This is how a heavily armed agent of the state is allowed to act and I don’t understand why we didn’t listen to Black Lives Matter when they screamed this at us!”

Finley spoke to Pride attendees on Sunday (below), apologizing for what he said “had nothing to do with Pride,” while noting there were no arrests made.

“My officers are with you, and I’m with you. It’s all about safety,” he said.

“You’ve got my word that this shouldn’t happen, and that we will have more cops into the mix and more communication,” he added. “So we’ll work on that.”

Jewelle took the stage after Finley and said the police response following the closure, including having officers come out to answer questions, helped ease the tension between law enforcement and the LGBTQ community.