GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — The Grand Rapids Pride Festival has been around for 34 years. This year, organizers made a big change to the event, choosing not to have a police presence.
FOX 17 talked with Jazz McKinney from the Pride Center who says organizers are excited to welcome thousands of people to the festival at Calder Plaza.
“We do want the day to be about celebrating job and being who you are, and being free to be who you are,” said McKinney. “So we’re super excited about it. We will have having live entertainment. Our theme this year is ‘together again,’ so we really focused on local talent.”
They say organizers decided against having a police presence because they don’t want visitors to feel threatened or scared at the festival.
“I’m not naïve and, especially in light of, you know, the different things that are going on around the country,” added McKinney.
McKinney is referring to the recent arrests of 31 white supremacists, who allegedly planned to disrupt a gay pride parade in Idaho.
So, with safety of the LGBTQ+ community as a top prioirty, GR Pride hired two security agencies to keep the festival safe.
“Both of them are affiliated with the LGBTQ community, which was very important to me because not only am I supporting the LGBTQ community by hiring them, but they understand the uniqueness of our community and why we don’t want police there,” said McKinney.
They say this decision wasn’t only about recent events, but also came down to the history of pride.
Pride Month commemorates the Stonewall Riots in 1969, where LGBTQ+ community members resisted police raids at a bar in New York.
With that in mind, McKinney says organizers don’t want people showing up to the festival in police uniforms. “If they want to come and they want to have fun out of uniform, that’s on them,” they added.
New York and San Francisco also banned uniformed police officers at their pride festivals.
Earlier this month, Aurora, Illinois had its permit revoked after not allowing uniformed officers and not being able to reach an agreement on an alternative safety plan for its pride event.
FOX 17 reached out to GRPD, who responded with the following statement:
“GRPD is committed to providing a safe environment across the city and aligning police resources in a way that accomplishes that in an effective manner. For all permitted special events, GRPD works with the city’s Office of Special Events and event organizers to determine safety and security needs based on a number of factors.
“Not all events need officers specifically assigned to them in addition to the regular patrol operations. For instance, there is another event that morning, a 5K race, that requires support for traffic control along the route. Patrol officers will be working the Central (Downtown) Service Area as usual and will be available for any calls for service or needs from the Pride Festival and/or its attendees.”
The Grand Rapids Pride Festival is Saturday, June 18, from 12 p.m. to 10 p.m.
