The group says transgender and minority LGBT people, among others, still face heavy-handed policing.Īt the time of the Stonewall raid, the psychiatric establishment saw homosexuality as a mental disorder, and law enforcement often viewed it as a crime.
The coalition, which is excluding police from its march, is seeking a more sweeping apology from the NYPD. “Where has this apology been for the last 50 years?” the group, called the Reclaim Pride Coalition, said in a statement. They called O’Neill’s comments an “empty apology” made under pressure. Organizers of the alternative Queer Liberation March, however, see no such thing. He hopes people will see O’Neill’s remarks as a sign of “the NYPD’s commitment to positive change.”
Police participate in and protect its annual parade, but the lack of a formal apology from the department for the 1969 raid - the very event that gay pride marches commemorate each June - has hung over the collaboration, Fallarino said. He called the actions and laws of the time discriminatory and said, “For that, I apologize.” AP Photo/Mary Altaffer, File O’Neill said Thursday that “the actions taken by the NYPD were wrong” at the gay bar in New York City’s Greenwich Village.
On Thursday, June 6, Commissioner James O’Neill apologized for the 1969 police raid at the Stonewall Inn, which catalyzed the modern LGBT rights movement. In this Jfile photo, a couple embraces outside the Stonewall Inn in New York.