Members in a Straight Delight Parade and counter-protesters met head to head in Boston on Saturday, with police making dozens of arrests in the course of a tense scene.
Boston police deployed a large presence of officers from Copley Sq., the place the parade started, to Metropolis Corridor, the place protesters gathered whereas parade members held a rally. Thirty-four individuals had been arrested and 4 officers suffered non-fatal accidents in the course of the occasions, police mentioned.
It was not instantly clear if these arrested had been members within the parade or protesters.
The parade, which included a lead float with a "Trump 2020" signal, started at midday. Members had been seen waving American flags as they walked alongside the route.
Counter-protesters had been seen holding indicators alongside the parade route and separated from the parade members by barricades. Most of the counter-demonstrators shouted and cursed the protesters, even singing "disgrace."
Boston police deployed a large presence of officers, who escorted the parade members by means of the streets and gathered at Metropolis Corridor earlier than the parade arrived. Police beforehand mentioned they’d improve safety and deploy uniformed and undercover brokers.
Protesters gathered within the Metropolis Corridor and lined the streets, with posters, rainbow flags and singing whereas the parade members handed by means of a safety checkpoint.
The occasion was organized in response to the annual Metropolis Delight Parade held yearly in June. The individuals behind the Straight Delight Parade have denied that the occasion is about hate.
"I'm marching right this moment as a result of it's nice to be straight," mentioned one participant, Teresa Richenberger. "I don't wish to offend anybody. If you happen to're homosexual, go homosexual. It's effective. However I'm straight and I’ve the appropriate to show my son to be straight, marry a lady when he will get previous."
The previous Breitbart editor, Milo Yiannopoulos, who’s banned from social media, was anticipated to function Grand Marshal.
The parade route of roughly 2 miles, which stretched from Copley Sq. to Metropolis Corridor Plaza, aroused the priority of Emerson School president Lee Pelton concerning pupil security.
In a message despatched throughout the campus this week, Pelton closed the parade calling it "a perversion" and a "desecration of magnificence, fact and generosity."
Parade organizer Samson Racioppi says that Emerson suppressed freedom of expression by criticizing her.
"They’re merely heterophobic. They don't wish to give us the appropriate to stroll down the road," Racioppi mentioned. "That's all we wish to do is stroll down the road."
Pelton responded in a campus message asking "to not be fooled by believing that this parade is motivated by a noble obligation to guard freedom of expression or meeting."
"That is simply his masks and behind that masks there’s a group of offended and flawed individuals whose purpose is to transform a valuable American worth, and pluribus unum, & # 39; of the various, one & # 39; in his head," he mentioned Pelton
The parade organizers anticipated not less than 2,000 attendees. The true quantity appeared to be a lot smaller than that.
"That parade was epic, and we’re right here, and we’re standing," mentioned parade organizer John Hugo.
