Ahead of this weekend’s 53rd Pride Parade — slated to be a shorter and smaller version than normal — the Chicago Police Department said much of its focus will be on the sometimes-raucous post-parade parties in and around the Northalsted area.
“It’s important that this tradition and this parade goes off safely, goes off without any problems and any issues,” CPD Superintendent Larr Snelling said at a press conference Friday morning at the Center on Halsted. “We want to make sure that everyone who shows up is safe, we want to make sure that every participant is safe. We’ve seen this parade in the past, and people just go there to have a good time, and the parade goes off well. However, what we’re concerned about more than anything else is what occurs late into the night after the parade.”
The parade will step off at 11 a.m. Sunday and will travel south from Sheridan and Broadway to Belmont. This year’s iteration will feature fewer floats and a shorter route in an effort to ease congestion in the area.
After parades in years past, throngs of people would remain in the Northalsted neighborhood, partying until the early morning hours. Fights broke out, and the combination of summer heat, alcohol and recreational drug use often lead to several hospitalizations.
“What we’ve seen in the past with those large gatherings late at night is that there are acts of violence,” Snelling added. “When those acts of violence occur, what we’ve also seen is people who’ve just decided to converge upon that area and carry out more acts of violence, vandalism, things of that nature. I’m just here to tell you right now that’s not going to be tolerated. We will put an end to that, and if arrests need to be made we will do that. We hope we do not have to do that.”
Snelling also said CPD is in contact with federal law enforcement agencies to assess threats made against the parade.
“We know that this parade gets threats constantly,” he said. “We’re working with not only local partners, but our federal partners making sure that we’re looking at every threat. We take them all seriously, we do our research and we put plans in place to make sure none of those threats can be carried out.”
Some LGBTQ+ groups and community members, meanwhile, have criticized the city’s decision to shrink the parade, saying limiting entries and shortening the route sends the wrong message. When Dana McKinney learned of the move, the communications assistant for the Chicago Coalition of Welcoming Churches said her initial reaction was a “mixture of disappointment and concern.”
Typically she said more than 300 people from dozens of Chicago churches march in the parade. But this year the number of people allowed to walk was cut in half, a restriction some of her organization’s members felt went against the spirit of Pride, McKinney said.
“Showing that strength in numbers supporting the LGBTQ community .. it’s really been important to us,” McKinney said. “Limiting the number of churches, number of people, it kind of feels like an attempt to silence us.”
Anthony Didato, an executive board member for the coalition, said it’s important that the city see ample representation of affirming faith communities. When Didato was coming out, he said he worried about integrating his Christian faith and sexuality. Through the coalition, Didato said he was able to find an affirming church, and events like the Pride parade help others do the same.
“(For) a lot of people to be able to worship openly for whoever they are allows them to trust their gifts, and everyone is better because of it,” he said.
Some groups have said the parade’s downsizing is part of the city’s plan to maintain safety with a reasonable number of police officers, which Didato acknowledged is a “challenging situation” and that the “city is trying to deal with a lot.”
“We’re people of faith, so I just believe that something will allow us to figure it out,” he said.