Mayor Cherelle L. Parker says she is looking for answers after Philadelphia police arrested 15 people at a Pride celebration in the Gayborhood on Sunday that drew anger from community members over police use of force.
“I know that members of our LGBTQ+ community are hurting, frustrated, and looking for answers. … I want everyone to know that I hear you, I see you, and my Administration is taking your concerns seriously,” Parker said on social media Tuesday evening.
Images and videos spread across social media of police using crowd control tactics to disperse Pride-goers in the neighborhood, in what some considered to be an outsize and aggressive law enforcement presence.
In one image shared on X, a police officer on a motorcycle appears to push against a woman’s chest, and, in a separate photo, another officer pushes the same woman against a storefront security door while arresting her.
Other videos posted on social media showed police on horseback dispersing young people from a sidewalk, as well as officers physically struggling with a man outside the gay bar Woody’s. Another clip shows a row of police officers — two of them wearing face coverings — forming a line to clear a barricaded Gayborhood street while officers on motorbikes rode along the sidewalks.
On Wednesday, Sgt. Eric Gripp, a spokesperson for the police department, said that officials had identified five officers who wore face coverings during the enforcement, and that those officers had violated department policy by doing so.
The department is still working to determine what type of corrective action will be taken depending on the outcome of an internal investigation, he said.
On Tuesday, Parker said she and some of her top staff, Director of LGBTQ+ Affairs Tito Valdes, and Philadelphia Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel had met to “review the information available to us and discuss next steps.”
“In the days ahead, we will meet with community leaders as part of that effort. As we move forward, we must reject the notion that public safety and accountability are mutually exclusive,” Parker said in the statement posted to social media.
Commanding officers at the scene gave orders to disperse crowds, according to Gripp, the police spokesperson.
The crowd control tactics used on Sunday drew ire from local elected officials like City Councilmember Rue Landau, who said she has been in talks with city departments and police to understand why PPD used this strategy. “Police brutality has no place at Pride,” Landau said.
A different Pride this year
This year’s Pride looked different from that of earlier years. Usually, Philadelphia Pride celebrations and parades occur within the Gayborhood in Center City, east of Broad Street. But this year Philly Pride 365 and the city moved the parade and festival to the Benjamin Franklin Parkway because of security concerns over crowd sizes that had grown to more than 150,000 people, among other reasons, festival organizers said.
The festival portion of Pride also asked attendees to pay $10 to enter an event that for years had been free to attend.
Before and after the official celebrations ended, Pride-goers gathered in the Gayborhood, patronizing bars and spilling into the streets — a common practice during the celebration. But guests were surprised to find that several Gayborhood blocks around 13th and Walnut Streets were blocked with metal barricades, limiting crowds to sidewalks, said Joshua Stokem, a New Jersey resident who regularly attends the city’s Pride celebrations.
Stokem said the layout caused large groups to pack into the corridors outside bars and restaurants and, in his view, created confusion and exacerbated some of the issues attendees had with police.
On Sunday, police had 600 officers assigned to Pride celebrations with around 150 officers in the Gayborhood monitoring festivities, Bethel said.
“By all accounts, [it was] a successful event attended and enjoyed by thousands of people. As crowd sizes increased in the Gayborhood, officers responded to a growing number of public safety concerns, including fights, disorderly behavior, blocked roadways, and the challenges associated with safely managing large crowds in a confined area,” he said in the statement.
Bethel said the department had expected the Parkway celebration to gradually transition to the Gayborhood event, but that did not happen.
Instead, he said, two separate gatherings were essentially happening at once, creating a situation that was “challenging to manage safely” and led to the decision to clear parts of the neighborhood.
“That decision was not made in any way, shape, or form because people were celebrating Pride,” he said.
Most of the arrests during Sunday’s event were for disorderly conduct, according to Bethel, while one person was charged with aggravated assault of a police officer.
