Pride NYC’s announcement Saturday follows a division among organizers in recent years in planning for celebrations of LGBTQ pride in New York City. Pride season occurs this year amid activism inspired by the response to racial injustice and police brutality in the wake of George Floyd’s death last year at the hands of police in Minneapolis. The uprising is largely credited with fueling the modern LGBTQ rights movement. Those marches came a year after the 1969 uprising outside Manhattan’s Stonewall Inn, a gay bar, in response to a police raid. The disruptions frustrated activists who had hoped to collectively mark the 50th anniversary of the first Gay Pride parades and marches in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco in 1970. The parade is scheduled for June after the coronavirus prevented many Pride events worldwide last year, including in New York which instead hosted virtual performances in front of masked participants and honored front-line workers in the pandemic crisis. The group called the ban an “abrupt about-face” and said the decision “to placate some of the activists in our community is shameful.”
Word of the ban came out Friday when the Gay Officers Action League said in a release it was disheartened by the decision. Police will provide first response and security “only when absolutely necessary as mandated by city officials,” the group said, adding it hoped to keep police officers at least one city block away from event perimeter areas where possible. It will also increase the event’s security budget to boost the presence of community-based security and first responders while reducing the police department’s presence.
“The sense of safety that law enforcement is meant to provide can instead be threatening, and at times dangerous, to those in our community who are most often targeted with excessive force and/or without reason,” the group said. In their statement, NYC Pride urged members of law enforcement to “acknowledge their harm and to correct course moving forward.” "Their response to activist pressure is to take the low road by preventing their fellow community members from celebrating their identities and honoring the shared legacy of the Stonewall Riots," Brian Downey, president of the Gay Officers Action League, told The New York Times.NEW YORK (AP) - Organizers of New York City’s Pride events said Saturday that they were banning police officers and other law enforcement from marching in their huge annual parade until at least 2025 and would also seek to keep on-duty officers a block away from the celebration of LGBTQ people and history. That said, we'll still be there to ensure traffic safety and good order during this huge, complex event." "The idea of officers being excluded is disheartening and runs counter to our shared values of inclusion and tolerance. Detective Denise Moroney told Insider in a statement. "Our annual work to ensure a safe, enjoyable Pride season has been increasingly embraced by its participants," NYPD spokesperson Det. In the press release, the organization also said that it was working to "review" the New York City Police Department's presence as security at Pride events and said it will take steps to "transition" to community-based and private security companies. As The New York Times reported, the decision follows decades of pressure from some LGBTQ activists who have argued police do not belong at Pride events, which grew from the 1969 anti-police riot outside the Stonewall Inn