By now, you’ve heard no small amount of anti-police talk, usually reintroduced immediately following the shooting of a black criminal by law enforcement. And as such, the idea of police brutality is typically made into a racial one, slung about by groups such as Black Lives Matter.
However, it seems that BLM isn’t the only demographic opposed to policing in all regards.
Apparently, the LGBT community also has a significant trust issue with police – or at least that’s what NYC Pride seems to be portraying.
In a Saturday announcement, the group responsible for organizing and hosting the annual New York City “Pride” parade officially banned police officers from marching or attending the event in any capacity.
According to the group, “new policies to address police presence” are being put in place to make the event “safer” for the LGBT community. And that means no police presence is allowed, at least until 2025.
In the news release, the organizers said, “NYC Pride seeks to create safer spaces for the LGBTQIA+ and BIPOC communities at a time when violence against marginalized groups, specifically BIPOC and trans communities, has continued to escalate. 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.”
And therefore…
“NYC Pride is unwilling to contribute in any way to creating an atmosphere of fear or harm for members of the community. The steps being taken by the organization challenge law enforcement to acknowledge their harm and to correct course moving forward, in hopes of making an impactful change.”
The announcement noted that all “corrections and law enforcement exhibitors” will be banned from all NYC Pride events until at least 2025. At that time, the organization will reevaluate law enforcement’s possible participation and go from there.
Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever attended a parade of this magnitude in NYC or any other major American metropolis before. I, for one, have not. However, I’ve seen my fair share of images and heard plenty of stories that describe such events as quite a bit more than chaotic.
Suffice it to say that there is a lot more going on than just floats being pulled behind marching bands and such…
For one, as the New York Post explains, millions attend the parade every year. Secondly, it’s essentially a massive party. And that means hundreds of people who are heavily intoxicated and possibly high. I think you know where I’m headed with this, right?
Whether it’s someone just being drunk or disorderly or sober criminals intent on using the chaos of the event as a distraction, things have a way of getting out of hand and rather quickly at that. You know, the kind of out of hand that only trained law enforcement personnel can address.
But NYC Pride doesn’t want them anywhere around – because it will supposedly be “safer” that way.
Instead, the group will “transition to providing increased community-based security and first responders, while simultaneously taking steps to reduce NYPD presence at events.”
Another thing to point out is that NYC Pride not only doesn’t want police to man the event, but they also don’t even want them to attend or march in it – and that includes LGBT officers.
As Gay Officers Action League (GOAL) president Detective Brian Downey remarked, LGBT officers have been allowed to march in the event, right alongside NYC Pride members, for four decades now. And yet, apparently, because they happen to wear a uniform as well as be gay, they are suddenly not allowed to celebrate their identity.
Downey told the Post, “Having courage to go into the institution as a gay or queer person… you’re going in there with that struggle that is your own identity and you’re bringing it inside that system.” And he says that doing that gives people of all walks of life “a voice at the table” where they might have otherwise.
Shutting police out won’t help to solve the problem that NYC Pride imagines. Instead, it will only serve to make the LGBT community less protected and more closed off from the rest of the world, all while claiming to be more woke.
I mean, who do they think is working to stop and investigate “hate crimes” against their community? It’s not private security firms…
How many want to bet it won’t take them until 2025 to revisit their new “policies” and allow police back in?