Police have been banned from marching in the annual NYC Pride parade until at least 2025.
What We Know:
- Organizers of the New York City Pride event announced on Saturday that they are banning police and other law enforcement from marching in the parade until 2025. They will also seek to keep on-duty officers a block away from the celebration of LGBTQ people. The group urged members of law enforcement to “acknowledge their harm and to correct course moving forward.” Their statement also says the protection law enforcement is meant to provide can instead be threatening.
- The organizers will also increase the event’s security budget to boost the presence of community-based security and first responders. This action is meant to make up for the police department’s missing presence. Police will provide first response and security only when “absolutely necessary as mandated by city officials.” Organizers hope to keep police officers at least one city block away from event perimeter areas.
- The Gay Officers Action League has criticized the demands. They call the action “abrupt about-face” and “shameful.” Last year, New York hosted virtual performances in front of masked participants and honored front-line workers in the pandemic. Activists were upset at the disruptions the previous year because it would have marked the 50 year anniversary of the first Gay Pride parade.
- The marches originally spawned after an uprising in 1969 at a gay bar in Manhattan. The uprising is credited with fueling the modern LGBTQ rights movement. In 2019, there was a division among marching organizers that resulted in their being two separate marches. The reason being that some marchers believe the event has become too commercialized.
Detective Sophia Mason spoke for the New York Police Department and called their exclusion from the parade “disheartening.”
