‘This is not about Pride’: Police Commissioner Bethel addresses criticism of police response to Gayborhood
Bethel said he welcomes responding to questions during planned City Council hearings on the June 6 incident.
Addressing criticism of his department’s handling of crowd control at a Pride celebration in the Gayborhood over the weekend, Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel said Friday that his officers became overwhelmed by dueling events and unruly behavior from large groups of teenagers.
The turmoil — which led police to arrest 15 people and shut down street festivities in the LGBTQ+ neighborhood earlier than anticipated — stemmed from a change in the way the city celebrated Pride this year, Bethel said in a news conference at police headquarters.
The decision to hold Philadelphia’s official Pride celebration on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway on Sunday deviated from the tradition of holding it in the Gayborhood, according to Bethel, who said the competing events created a public safety risk.
In retrospect, he said, barricades that police set up on the Gayborhood sidewalks — another deviation from past celebrations there — might not have been a wise move.
“We now know that might not have been the right decision,” he said, noting they caused ‘frustration” among guests.
Bethel said the evening took a turn when large groups of people began arriving at both the Parkway and the Gayborhood, overwhelming the 600 officers dispatched across both events.
And in the Gayborhood, that included crowds of teenagers, some breaking out into fights, he said.
The commissioner said commanding officers made the decision to close down the streets near popular gay bars like Woody’s around 8 p.m. as a consequence.
To underscore the point, Bethel played a video of one of those altercations, which showed a throng of young people acting erratically, some yelling and pushing each other.
He called the arrival of young people to the Gayborhood a “surge” that saw teens “taking over” a parking lot and getting on top of cars.
“At that point there are some decisions that have to be made,” Bethel said. “We can’t have thousands of individuals swirling together.”
Bethel also acknowledged public outcry over images of police officers on horseback and motorbikes engaged in crowd control. Those officers had been dispatched to the Gayborhood from the Parkway event once crowds began to get out of hand, he said.
“That is not pretty — it is not pretty when you move people,” he said.
Responding to questions over the department’s enforcement at LGBTQ+ festivities, Bethel repeated his earlier assertion that the nature of the event had nothing to do with police response.
“All of this is not about Pride, it is not about the Gayborhood, it is not about anyone’s feelings about anything,” he said. “It is about safety.”
The commissioner added that he welcomed speaking again about the issue at City Council hearings called on the matter that will likely take place in the fall.
