In 2019 a blend of volunteer and private security was highly effective at preventing disruptions from a Proud Boy event that happened on the same day as Trans Pride. Trans Pride communicates to SPD where they would like them to be stationed, “out of sight, but near enough to the event to respond in the case of an actual police-appropriate emergency,” Wylie said. Trans Pride has relied on community members to form a volunteer safety team, as well as hiring uniform security and plainclothes security around the perimeters.
“We have practiced something similar since 2017 … We have limited the presence of SPD by enacting our own internal security measures, giving us a lot more agency to hold the event that we want.” Elayne Wylie, executive director of the Gender Justice League and executive producer of Trans Pride Seattle, said “I think that’s a rational decision,” when asked about CHPF’s banning of officers at their events. Trans Pride Seattle has also restricted police presence at their events. He went on to say, “Anyone that believes in banishment has no place in Seattle and does not believe in the inclusive LGBTQ message.” In a post from the Seattle Police Officer’s Guild on the day of CHPF’s announcement, SPOG President Mike Solan criticized the police ban, saying “Banning Seattle Police officers from Pride Week events is disgusting, bigoted, discriminatory and contradicts our community’s beautiful inclusive LGBTQ message.” Instead of working with SPD for safety and security, CHPF will work more closely with the Seattle Fire Department and Medic One, as well as volunteers, and they’ll hire a private security group if necessary. According to the City’s special event-permitting guidelines, police are still required to block off traffic for the event, although LeFevre said she is looking into alternatives for directing traffic. The CHPF announcement said they will continue to request police to remain at the perimeters of the event. I hate to say this - we can’t trust any officer,” she said. “How can we schedule any safe event when any police officer - we don’t know if he attended Washington D.C.? … it appears there is somewhat of a guild within SPD of white, Trump nationalism. Citing examples of broken trust with SPD, including officers posing for pictures with an open carry group instead of escorting them out during a CHPF event in 2015, unanswered messages and requests to the Office of Police Accountability, and considering the existing lawsuit against SPD for using excessive force against protesters on Capitol Hill last year, LeFevre said CHPF had decided on the ban a few weeks ago.įor those wondering how CHPF will be protected from potential counter-protesters like alt-right groups, LeFevre believes it’s likely that some officers are aligned with those groups. LeFevre has also been active in social justice and police accountability activism, notably through her blog writing for the Seattle P.I.
Before that she was the Capitol Hill Community Council vice president. LeFevre organized the first CHPF in 2009. “In line with New York Pride, Capitol Hill Pride also believes 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 CHPF announcement said. The press release also commended a recent decision by New York Pride to ban police presence at their events until 2025. during the January 6 Capitol insurrection. In addition to a police ban, CHPF called on Interim Police Chief Adrian Diaz to fire the six officers who traveled to D.C. In a press release issued on May 21, CHPF directors Charlette LeFevre and Philip Lipson announced that SPD would be banned from the CHPF march and rally on June 26 and 27 at Cal Anderson Park. In keeping with the origins of Pride - and especially given the violent and sometimes deadly confrontations between police and protesters during last year’s protests for Black lives - Capitol Hill Pride Fest (CHPF) organizers announced that the Seattle Police Department (SPD) will be banned from their events. LBGTQ+ communities and activist groups have convened every summer since then in cities around the world for marches, rallies, and festivities that honor this historic resistance. At the heart of Pride is a commemoration of the Stonewall Riots in 1969, sparked when queer and transgender people took a stand against a police raid at New York’s Stonewall Inn. “Stonewall was a riot!” is a popular chant heard at Pride marches, and it’s not wrong.