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Organizers are paying extra attention to security at Pride events this year after arrests in Idaho.Ĭoncerns about safety are not limited to small cities or conservative areas. Organizers of Pride events in large cities are concerned as wellĪP A parade marshal starts the Seattle Pride Parade in 2019. We were taking each of those threats - not only on its face, but we take them seriously, even though some of them appear to be just anonymous internet stuff," the Coeur d'Alene police chief said Monday. "Any time you have an event like this, there's opposing groups who decide to make some threats. Law enforcement, too, had stepped up presence. It's been pretty constant and a challenging situation," she said. "Our organization has been sent numerous hate messages by phone, email, social media. The rhetoric grew in the days leading up to the event, said Jessica Mahuron, outreach director at the North Idaho Pride Alliance, in an interview with NPR. The threats to Coeur d'Alene's small-scale Pride in the Park had swirled so intensely that its organizers decided to form a safety committee this year, a first for the festival. Organizers of Pride events say they're now paying extra attention to safety. James performs at the LGBTQ community's Pride in the Park event in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, on Saturday.
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"It happens at every single Pride event, whether it's just somebody yelling slurs as they walk by, or whether it's something hyper-organized like what we saw in Idaho." "I've never been to a Pride festival anywhere that didn't have counterprotesters," said the Pride Foundation's Carter. While public events of all kinds generally require safety plans to address issues including crowd management, emergency exits and first aid, LGBTQ pride events have long required more forethought about safety concerns, organizers say. "We will be prepared to scale up any security concerns that we have as new information comes in," he said. In Boise, Williamson said, organizers have been working with Boise police since March to prepare safety plans for the festival, which is scheduled for September.
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The weekend's events have refocused organizers' attention on safety and "will bring that conversation to the top of the agenda," said Donald Williamson, the executive director for the Boise Pride Festival. Safety is now top of mind for Pride organizers Meanwhile, sheriffs in Alameda County, Calif., are investigating a possible hate crime after a Saturday book reading for preschoolers at a public library in the Bay Area, hosted by a drag queen, was interrupted by a group of men possibly affiliated with the Proud Boys, one of whom wore a T-shirt that read "kill your local pedophile" with an image of an assault-style rifle. Each man has been charged with conspiracy to riot, a misdemeanor.
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"They came to riot downtown," said the city's police chief, Lee White, at a Saturday press conference. Most had traveled to Idaho from other states, authorities said, and the group was outfitted with riot shields, shin guards and at least one smoke grenade. In Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, police detained 31 men near a Pride in the Park event on Saturday, all of them members of a white nationalist group called Patriot Front. "Our community needs to be on the hypervigilant side of safety."
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"I think it should be a stark reminder this is probably not the last time we are going to see something like this," said Katie Carter, the CEO of Pride Foundation, an LGBTQ philanthropic organization that focuses on the northwestern U.S. After disruptions to two LGBTQ pride events over the weekend - the arrest of a group of extremists who allegedly planned to riot near a Pride event in Idaho and the interruption of a "Drag Queen Story Hour" in the Bay Area - organizers of similar events this June say they are on edge as Pride Month continues.