The Tenderloin District of San Francisco was an area of the city reserved for the impoverished and general misfits of society, with police directing people there as a means to control them. When arresting trans women and drag queens, police working the Tenderloin were known for driving them around in squad cars for hours, forcing them to perform oral sex, and subjecting them to strip searches. Compton Cafeteria was a 24/7 cafeteria in the Tenderloin that often serviced queer people who lived in the area. One night the police began to arrest a group of drag queens and other gender-variant individuals who had been sitting in the establishment for too long. When a cop grabbed a drag queen's arm and began to pull her, she threw coffee in his face. The crowd began to hurl plates and cups their way, chasing them into the streets and beating them with purses and high-heeled shoes.