As World Pride flows straight into the military parade, DC officials say they’re ready for anything
WASHINGTON (AP) — Officials in the nation’s capital generally express full confidence in their ability to handle large, complicated events and huge crowds. As Metropolitan Police Department Chief Pamela Smith recently put it, “We are really the experts in this space when it comes to crowd management.”
That expertise will be publicly put to the test over the next eight days.
The District of Columbia is playing host to massive events on back-to-back weekends. Two wildly divergent events each carry the extra possibility of counterprotests or disruption, adding a layer of anxiety to the usual logistical hassles.
June 7 and 8 brings the peak of the two-week World Pride celebration with two days of mass gatherings — a parade on Saturday and a rally and protest March Sunday. Both days culminate in a giant street party and concert covering a multi-block stretch of Pennsylvania Avenue.
Then as cleanup from World Pride wraps up, preparations will begin for the much-hyped June 14 military parade to celebrate the 250th birthday of the U.S. Army (and the 79th birthday of a certain White House resident).
And while D.C. officials can claim they have seen it all before in terms of mass events, June 14 will present some genuinely unique challenges — actual 60-ton M1 Abrams battle tanks and Paladin self-propelled howitzers rolling through the city streets.
The cost of potential repairs is a concern
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, who has gone out of her way to stay on the good side of President Donald Trump, has not disguised her discomfort at the prospect of armored vehicles chewing up the downtown asphalt. And she is still openly leery, despite assurances from the military that it will cover the costs of all repairs, and a plan to install protective plates at intersections.
“I think that there has been time and attention paid to how to move this heavy equipment in a way that doesn’t hurt (roads),” Bowser said last week. “I remain concerned about it. If they are rendered unusable, we have to make them usable and then go seek our money from the feds.”
For each of these high-profile weekends, police and security officials are on alert for any sort of counterprotest or attempts to disrupt the proceedings. Trump’s campaign against transgender protections and oft-stated antipathy for drag shows have fueled fears of violence against World Pride participants; at one point earlier this spring, rumors circulated that the Proud Boys were planning to disrupt this weekend’s celebrations.
Those fears have proven to be unfounded so far, although one D.C. queer bar was vandalized last week. With those fears in mind, organizers will install security fencing around the entire two-day street party.
“We wanted to provide some extra safety measures (based on) concerns from some people in the community,” said Ryan Bos, executive director of the Capital Pride Alliance.
The bi-annual World Pride has, in the past, drawn as many as 1 million visitors to its host city. It remains to be seen just how large the final influx will be for the nation’s capital. Early hotel reservation numbers had indicated that attendance would be down somewhat, a possible result of international participants staying away out of either fear of harassment or in protest of Trump’s policies.
But Elliott Ferguson, president of Destination D.C. — which tracks hotel reservations — told reporters last week they were witnessing “a surge at the last minute” of people coming in for the final World Pride weekend.
Protests planned for military parade
The military parade, meanwhile, is expected to draw as many as 200,000 people, according to Army estimates. A large counterprotest against Trump — dubbed the No Kings rally — will march down 16th Street to within sight of the White House but isn’t expected to get close enough to the military parade to disrupt things.
Lindsey Appiah, the deputy mayor for public safety, acknowledges that longstanding plans for the Army’s 250th birthday “got a lot bigger on short notice” when Trump got involved.
“You have to be very flexible, very nimble. Things change and you have plans and then those plans change,” she said. “I think we’ve really learned to do that.”
Appiah points out an example of the District’s capabilities from early this year, when the city hosted the congressional certification of Trump’s electoral win, the state funeral for former President Jimmy Carter and then Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20 — all in the span of two weeks and in the midst of a huge winter storm.
D.C. officials also point out that the logistical challenge facing the capital city doesn’t actually end on June 14. The military parade will be followed by three matches for the FIFA Club World Cup starting on June 18 and running through June 26, which will then roll straight into preparations for the traditional July 4 fireworks extravaganza.
Clint Osborn, head of the city’s Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency, said the summer planning schedule “feels like Super Bowl after Super Bowl after Super Bowl.”