Charlotte Pride ‘tearing down bridges’ with police parade ban, Mecklenburg sheriff says
Charlotte Pride is “tearing down bridges’ by banning police groups from its annual parade and festival in uptown, Mecklenburg County Sheriff Garry McFadden said.
“I am confused,” McFadden told The Charlotte Observer in an email late Friday. “I thought we were suppose to continue to build relationships in our community.”
Charlotte Pride’s board of directors voted unanimously Wednesday to ban all local, state and federal law enforcement agencies from participating in its annual parade and festival in uptown Charlotte. The decision was to show solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement, the Observer previously reported.
Charlotte Pride is “the leader in LGBTQ visibility in Charlotte and the Carolinas,” according to its website, and among the largest such organizations in the Southeast.
Its parade is the largest annual parade in Charlotte. The event celebrates the LGBTQ community and drew about 200,000 participants last year.
In a Saturday statement from spokesman Matt Comer, Charlotte Pride said it appreciates McFadden’s “enthusiasm and passion for including the members of his team who are LGBTQ.
“Charlotte Pride stands by our statement that all law enforcement — as a system — needs to be drastically changed to better serve the most marginalized members of our community, in particular Black and Brown LGBTQ people,” according to the statement.
“We acknowledge that Sheriff McFadden has begun some of that work, including strides in LGBTQ inclusion, his advocacy for the immigrant community, his work uplifting children and teens in the Sheriff Department’s custody, and recent changes to his department’s use-of-force policies,” Charlotte Pride leaders said.
“We look forward to seeing Sheriff McFadden push for continued and urgent systemic changes needed broadly in law enforcement agencies both locally and nationally.”
In its decision, Charlotte Pride’s board said law enforcement agencies will be permitted to return only when the community is confident that police “are committed to the meaning of Black Lives Matter and treat Black and Brown people with dignity and respect,” the board said in the statement.
Charlotte Pride’s board also unanimously agreed to ask the city of Charlotte to “make less visible” the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police officers who must provide public safety at the events.
And the board voted to encourage local, state and federal elected officials to ban law enforcement use of tear gas and other chemical agents.
The organization, meanwhile, will ask the city of Charlotte to redirect police funding into “community-based and community-accountable public safety, public health, affordable housing” and other efforts to help minorities and low-income residents.
McFadden told the Observer he created an LGBTQIA committee in his agency within months of becoming sheriff. LGBTQIA stands for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, Asexual.
His office also established a bond with LGBTQ teens, the sheriff said.
And McFadden and part of his executive staff had an “informal teaching lesson” with a group of LGBTQ community members “to better understand the needs of our ‘Entire Community,’” according to the sheriff’s email.
The sheriff’s website, meanwhile, has a rolling banner for Gay Pride Month, he said.
“I even got ‘Glitter Bombed’ by the teens after an evening of cooking for them at their center,” McFadden wrote.
This story was originally published June 13, 2020 at 3:59 PM.