The Stonewall riots, also known as the Stonewall uprising, Stonewall rebellion, or simply Stonewall, were a series of protests by members of the LGBTQ community in response to a police raid that began in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Lower Manhattan in New York City. Patrons of the Stonewall, other Village lesbian and gay bars, trans activists and unhoused LGBT individuals fought back when the police became violent. The riots are widely considered the watershed event that transformed the gay liberation movement and the twentieth-century fight for LGBT rights in the United States.

A police raid is an unexpected visit by police or other law enforcement officers with the aim of using the element of surprise to seize evidence or arrest suspects believed to be likely to hide evidence, resist arrest, endanger the public or officers if approached through other means, or simply be elsewhere at another time. Various tactics are used by law enforcement in raids that often vary based on available equipment, situational factors, laws, and police powers.