Police Attack Queer Liberation March for Black Lives
By: James Finn
Tags: Racism, LGBTQ, Police Brutality, Equality, Police

On Sunday afternoon, according to Reclaim Pride New York and multiple independent news sources, police attacked peaceful LGBTQ marchers in and around Manhattan’s Washington Square Park, using pepper spray, batons, punches, and violent shoving. Ironically, marchers protesting police brutality were met with that same brutality. Multiple independent observers documented hardcore police violence directed against people who were guilty of nothing but attending a march.

One observer even called the police violence “Stonewall 2.” Activists and advocates are calling for defunding the New York City Police Department, claiming they are incapable of reform and essentially unchanged since they sparked the original Stonewall riots of 1969.

Background on the march

Reclaim Pride, which held its first Queer Liberation March last summer, formed in opposition to corporately funded Pride parades, which in most major American cities have morphed into expensive parties for the privileged elite.

Last year’s Reclaim Pride march, which retraced the route of the original illegal march the summer after the Stonewall riots, emphasized Pride as protest, calling attention to the marginalization and oppression of diverse queer communities in the US and abroad.

Reclaim Pride Queer Liberation March — June 30, 2019

Queer Liberation March for Black Lives and Against Police Brutality

This year’s march focused on queer Black lives, seeking to keep a spotlight on continuing Black Lives Matter protests that have rocked much of the world after a string of police killings of unarmed Black people.

Reclaim Pride had originally cancelled this year’s event in the wake of COVID-19 concerns, but organizers called it back on in a June 4 announcement:

RPC’s Queer Liberation March for Black Lives and Against Police Brutality will be focused on elevating and protecting Black Lives. This moment, the principles of the 1970 march, and the RPC founding mission demand it. Black Americans and their children have suffered disproportionate abuse at the hands of America’s white supremacist power structure. The most marginalized among Black Communities, like Trans people, Immigrants, Disabled people, Deaf and Hard of Hearing people, and Neurologically Diverse people live under an even greater risk for the worst outcomes within this system. Inordinate risk calls for urgent consideration.

Organizers did not seek a police permit for either last year’s march or this year’s, in keeping with their recognition of Pride as protest. The original post-Stonewall LGBT liberation marches didn’t have have permits either.

But, as with last year’s march, this year’s seemed to start off with no police interference. Organizers were surprised by a huge turnout, estimated to approach 50,000 people, but the event proceeded smoothly and without violence.

Even so, organizers noted an exceptionally heavy police presence. Also, according to The Gothamist, in a change from last year, NYPD helicopters circled above during the entire march.

Marchers started off from Foley Square and headed north on Sixth Avenue, then around the Stonewall Inn and back east to Washington Square park.

The violence started as the march wrapped up in Washington Square

“The NYPD is going ballistic,” reported one witness on a Facebook livestream. “The situation was at a point where this was almost Stonewall 2.”

Reclaim Pride reports that as marchers entered the park, an NYPD officer tried to arrest someone, and a crowd gathered to object, chanting, ‘Let him go.’ Some news sources report the marcher had spray painted graffiti on a building, but police have not verified this claim.

Witnesses agree that a large crowd of NYPD officers then rushed in and attacked the crowd with pepper spray. Reclaim Pride says one NYPD officer slammed a woman on a bicycle to the ground as other marchers were punched, violently shoved, and hit with batons.

Officers reportedly assaulted marchers with bicycles, motorcycles, and at one point, even a squad car. Police violence quickly spread beyond the small area where it started, into parts of the crowd where marchers knew nothing about the original altercation.

Mike Perles, a 29-year-old city employee, described the escalation to The Gothamist:

We were dancing right in front of the arch on 5th Ave and out of nowhere, cops started storming into the crowd. They pushed everyone in front of them out of the way and onto the ground. They pushed a reporter who was taking photos down and started randomly pepper spraying people. I couldn’t see anyone instigating. It seemed like they felt out numbered after entering a huge group and panicked and started beating people up.

Pippa Bianco told reporters she was picking up food and water supplies for charity NourishNYC when officers shoved her and held her to the ground. She says she then watched officers pepper spray three other peaceful people, apparently at random.

“The cops rushed into the crowd in a panic and started the violence,” she said.

Mike Perles was at the march and posted video of the police violence to Twitter, saying, “The police just started a riot at Washington square park.”

Organizers and advocates condemn NYC police violence

“Using pepper spray against the Black and queer community, beating LGBTQIA+ protestors with batons and bicycles, and intimidating our right to peacefully assemble, reflects the wanton disregard that the mayor, along with the NYPD, have for the lives and safety of all Black and queer New Yorkers,” Reclaim Pride told BuzzFeed News.

Reclaim Pride organizer Jake Tolans issued the following statement:

I wish that I could say what I saw today was shocking, but how could I reasonably expect anything else from the NYPD? 51 years after the Stonewall Rebellion, the NYPD is still responding to peaceful, powerful, righteous queer joy with pepper spray, batons, and handcuffs. Thank you, Commissioner Shea and the entire NYPD, for continuing to show us why you should be abolished.

City council candidate Marti Gould Cummings, campaigning as an out and proud drag queen, tweeted her own opposition to the mayor and the police. “Hey @NYCMayor @NYPDShea on the anniversary of stonewall your cops are beating and arresting people.”

In an accompanying video, Gould details what she saw:

I was leaving Washington square — there was a beautiful rally centering around Black trans women. As we were leaving, we noticed a commotion directly in front of us and realized it was the police. People were chanting ‘don’t shoot’ and many took a knee. The police escalated and used pepper spray and batons.”

Out gay City Council Speaker Corey Johnson has called for a full investigation of the violence, tweeting, ““Today, peaceful protesters were pepper sprayed on the 51st anniversary of Stonewall. This is incredibly disturbing. We need a full investigation into what happened today.”

Police violence against marginalized people is nothing new

I did a Zoom meeting last week for a reading of a screenplay based on a story I’ve written about Act Up and Queer Nation in the 1990s. Most of the actors are too young to remember how things used to be, and somebody asked me a question about violence.

I spoke before thinking. “You have to understand,” I said. “When we went to actions and zaps, we expected to be brutalized.” Then I felt embarrassed, like I’d been too dramatic. So, I started to correct myself, to downplay what I’d just said. “Wait a minute, let me think.”

But as I closed my mouth, images of violence flashed through my mind. I shook my head. “Yeah, that’s the reality. I’d like to soften it, but that’s the way it was. We expected the cops to brutalize us.”

So, I have to join my voice to Jake Tolans’ and ask how we can expect anything different from the NYPD. How can any marginalized people anywhere in the United States expect to be treated well by police forces?

How can Black people, queer people of color, and other folks on the fringes live as free and equal people when police everywhere aim violence squarely at them for the most minor of offenses.

Sunday’s police violence is a distressing example

According to one narrative, which may or may not be true, one man in a crowd of peaceful marchers spray painted graffiti somewhere near Washington Square. For this minor offense, police punished an entire crowd with pepper spray, beat people with fists and batons, shoved them to the ground, and violently hurt them.

Is this what it means to live in a free country?

I don’t know, but that’s absolutely what it means to live as a marginalized person in the United States. If you’re a middle or upper class white person, you probably don’t experience police as brutal people.

But if you’re Black or transgender or, as Reclaim Pride points out, Black AND transgender, you’ve got a target on your back, one that says it’s OK to gas you, punch you, push you, cuff you, brutalize you.

Sunday wasn’t Stonewall 2, sadly. After the police brutalized marchers, everybody went home. There will be no three nights of riots to protest like in 1969. But maybe this summer as a whole can become a sort of Stonewall 2 for Black people and all marginalized people.

It’s time to take back the streets from police violence. The brutality must end. If our politicians won’t see to it, then it’s time to elect people who promise radical change. It’s time to defund the police.