Police, Capitol Hill hoping to avoid repeat of gay pride weekend violence

One of the biggest weekends of the year is set to kickoff
Friday in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood with the
annual gay pride
festivities. And after violence and
vandalism marred last year’s events, Seattle Police
say they’ll be keeping a close eye on the rallies and
parties planned for the area.

“We’re certainly aware of it. We know what happened last
year,” says Seattle Police Department spokesman Detective
Mark Jamieson.

“We’ll have officers out there. There’ll be a visible
presence. We just want to make sure people are able to
enjoy themselves safely.”

The festivities are highlighted by Saturday’s day-long
Capitol Hill PRIDE Festival and Sunday’s downtown
parade, along with various other parties and celebrations.
But activists are vowing to bring a more radical,
political tone to the proceedings.

“Historically, LGBT folks have been at the forefront of
every radical leftist movement in the history of our
country except for Occupy. So we’re trying re-inject that
idea of revolution as queer liberation,” says Ian
Finkenbinder, an organizer with a group calling itself The
Grand Legion of Incendiary and Tenacious Unicorn
Revolutionaries or GLITUR.

While the group takes a tongue in cheek tone, Finkenbinder
says their aim is to shake up what he calls a community
and event that has been “hijacked by corporate interests.”

“What I really hope that people walk away from is that
they really take away the idea that queer liberation is
class struggle. That the problems that we’re working on
are endemic and they face every stratus of our community,
not just the fact that gay people can’t get legally get
married.”

The group plans a large street dance party Friday evening.
A similar event last year was marred by an outbreak of
violence that resulted in broken windows and riot-gear
clad police moving in to make arrests. Police attributed
it to a small group of anarchists rather than the gay
pride activities.

“We don’t plan for any sort of property destruction. But
we’re going to remind people of the militancy of the queer
community as it has been in the past and I assure you will
be in the future,” Finkenbinder says.

Still, tensions have been running higher on Capitol Hill
in the last year with several recent clashes involving
demonstrators and police, including a recent incident
where self-proclaimed anarchists threw eggs and flares at
a
Seattle police officer.

And while police say they are beefing up patrols for the
weekend, they’re hopeful the community and event
organizers will help keep the peace.

“The events do a great job of self policing. They
certainly
don’t want their events marred by any disruption or
violence, or anything like that,” Jameison says.

Video of last year’s violence: