Protesters demonstrating against police and corporate participation in the San Francisco Pride parade delayed the 49th annual march for about an hour Sunday.
A half hour after the festivities started at 10:30 a.m., with Dykes on Bikes roaring up Market Street, a small group of protesters broke through the barriers along the parade route, stopping the motorcycle contingent at Market near Sixth Street. The protesters’ arms were interlocked, covered by rainbow painted pipes as they spread themselves across the street.
Another group of protesters along the sidelines of the parade pushed and shoved a group of San Francisco police officers and threw water bottles at them as the surrounding crowd angrily jeered and shouted at the demonstrators, reported CBS News.
Demonstrators said that the police were overly aggressive, reported ABC 7 News.
A CBS News chopper flying over the incident where San Francisco police officers had gathered to monitor the demonstrators sitting in the street captured that scuffle.
One police officer sustained non-life threatening injuries, according to a San Francisco Police Department statement issued Sunday afternoon.
Khrissa Pascual, a parade spectator, said that the protesters were chanting, “We are the enemies of the police.”
Some protesters were holding signs reading “cops kill,” she told the Bay Area Reporter.
Pascual said that she watched as police and San Francisco Pride organizers negotiated with the protesters to get the parade started again.
“At approximately 12:01 p.m. the protesters agreed to leave the street and reopen the parade route,” SFPD stated.
Police said that two people were taken into custody. Taryn Saldivar, 21, of Oakland, and Kenneth Bilecki, 27, of Santa Rosa.
Saldivar was charged with battery on a police officer, resisting arrest, and interfering with a parade route.
Bilecki was charged with resisting arrest and interfering with a parade route, police said.
The B.A.R. reached out to SF Pride officials but didn’t receive a response by press time.
Demonstrators remained along the parade route holding up signs after police cleared Market Street.
“We are pissed off that Pride is partnering up with corporations and police departments that are killing transgender people, particularly black transgender women,” Sylvia, a nonbinary transgender person who didn’t want to disclose their last name, told the B.A.R.
They added that demonstrators were also speaking out about the city “clearing the area of homeless queers and gentrifying the neighborhood so straight tourists can come get drunk and have a fun time.”
Tensions have been rising in recent weeks, with Google employees requesting the San Francisco LGBT Pride Celebration Committee board to ban the tech giant from marching in the parade. The employees were angry over Google-owned YouTube’s lack of enforcing anti-harassment policies against monetized channels directing anti-gay abuse toward the LGBT community.
The SF Pride board took no action on the request and Google had a contingent in the parade.
Members of Gay Shame have also been pressuring SF Pride to dump corporations and police participation in the event in an effort to return the parade to its roots of the Stonewall rebellion in New York City 50 years ago, according to the group’s Facebook page. As the B.A.R. reported last week, Gay Shame claimed responsibility for graffiti reading “Police out of Pride” that appeared in the Castro this spring.
KQED reported that the crowd surrounding the demonstrators chanted, “We support you.”
However, the crowd also thanked police, stating they supported them as the parade resumed and cheers erupted.
At one point, someone in a contingent led a call and response, “When police get attacked what do we do? We fight back!” into a bullhorn as it started walking up Market Street again.
This was an ironic turn of events considering that Pride marches were launched in the aftermath of the Stonewall riots in which police raided the New York City gay bar.
For the most part, onlookers beyond the site of the demonstration didn’t know why the parade had stopped or that there was a protest happening.
The parade was still going on, with contingents lined up at Main and Beale streets waiting to walk up Market Street when this reporter walked back to the Embarcadero at 2:38 p.m.
Updated, 7/2/19: An earlier version of this article reported that it was someone in UNITE HERE, the hospitality workers’ union, that led the call and response chant referring to police. That was incorrect. A person did lead that chant, but it is unclear which contingent they were with.
