St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Kriseman said Thursday morning he'd "be damned" if fear over a possible attempt to repeat the tragic events that unfolded in Orlando Sunday would keep St. Petersburg from celebrating Pride next week.
Kriseman spoke Thursday morning at a meeting of city officials, law enforcement and organizers of the celebration, which has grown each year since its inception and now spills over into two days (not including a wealth of events not officially part of the celebration). Officials hoped to allay fears of violence at the southeast's biggest Pride celebration next week.
“It's absolutely going to be safe,” he said. “This is a plan that they'd been working on well before last week's tragedy. Obviously the events that occurred had forced us to take a step back and look at our plan and step it up even beyond what was already going to be a safe event.”
Rather than cancel the event out of fear of a repeat incident of Sunday's horrific mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando — and, the same day, the unrelated arrest of a man who was headed to a Pride event in Los Angeles with guns and explosives — organizers are going on with the event as planned, and plan to spend the first portion of the event honoring victims of the tragedy, 102 in all (49 killed, 53 wounded).
“We expect it's going to be a very emotional time, but Come Out With Pride and our board really wants to emphasize that this is a celebration of their lives," said Jay Aller, a board member of St. Pete Pride. "They were out at a gay club, they were partying. They would want to continue the party.”
St. Petersburg Police Chief Anthony Holloway said a host of law enforcement agencies is helping out this year: the FBI, Florida Department of Law Enforcement, Tampa Police Department, the Hillsborough County Sheriff's office, the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office and the Clearwater Police Department.
“We took it up a couple of notches because of what happened in Orlando, the tragic event," he said. "We just want to make sure that people feel safe.”
The event's attendance numbers, he said, could possibly double last years; his department is expecting up to 180,000 attendees.
Among those attendees will certainly be protesters, as there are every year in a designated "free speech zone," which will be located at 27th Street and Central Avenue along the parade route. Officials say they don't think situating protesters in such a high-traffic area will cause anything more than the verbal arguments that always take place in such situations.
“There is a right of free speech and we're required to provide that space," Kriseman said. “My hope is that if someone has a view that's different, that they'll be respectful. Supposedly what this country is about is having the right to express yourself, but doing it in a respectful way.”
Law enforcement urges anyone who sees suspicious activity to use their smartphones to document it and notify authorities.
Another request?
Leave the guns at home.
You may be legally allowed to carry your gun and only intend to use it in the event of violence, Holloway said, but police responding to the scene won't know that.
“If something does happen, all we're going to see is a bunch of people in the crowd with guns," he said. "We don't know who's good and who's bad. That's why we're saying leave them alone and let the police department do their job.”
Susan McGrath, head of the Pinellas County Stonewall Democrats, said the measures being taken make her feel at ease.
“With the preparation and the commitment from the city, I feel like the events for St. Pete Pride weekend will be one of the safest places you can be in the country.” “Where we're vulnerable is when we let our guard down. That's not what's happening. We have a commitment from the mayor and Chief Holloway, and everything is going to be in place to have a great, safe event.”
This article appears in Jun 16-23, 2016.