Aurora Pride Parade organizers are fighting to be able to carry on with their scheduled event this Sunday after the city canceled their permit after too few Aurora police officers volunteered for security.
A former Aurora police chief gave her thoughts on the issue.
Kristen Ziman was Aurora’s police chief when the city’s Pride parade was staged in 2018 and 2019. Ziman said she was glad to see the parade return in 2022, but she was saddened to learn organizers were forbidding police officers from attending the parade if they were in uniform.
Ziman, who is gay, said she sees the issue from both sides, including that the distrust of police by the LGBTQ+ community came about from the police raids of gay bars.
Banning officers in uniform, though, takes away their identities, Ziman said.
“We have a group of LGBTQ+ officers [who] want to attend, [who] marched in 2018 and 2019 in uniform, donned with rainbows, and they took selfies with the parade goers,” Ziman said.
The former police chief, who’s now a public speaker and consultant, said, “I know this parade. It helps people. The reason that I think it’s so important to have officers in uniform is because we always say, 'visibility matters.' That’s how we become accepting of other people … through human influence.”
Ziman said the only way to overcome the fear, anger, and hatred is by leaning in to one another.
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