DENVER — Threats against Pride events from as close as Nashville to as far away as Norway have made headlines this week – it's something top of mind for organizers in Denver as they expect close to half a million people to celebrate LGBTQ+ events this weekend in the city.
"I think we're going to have a huge, really fun event and I'm looking forward to that," Rex Fuller the CEO of the Center on Colfax, the organization planning the event said. "This is an important time for us to come together as a community and to support one another and it has been emotional for many of us in the community."
This will be Denver's first Pride celebrations since the Club Q shooting in Colorado Springs when five people were killed and many others were injured. The shooting shattered the little piece of security the LGBTQ+ community had in the city. Denver Pride has invited the survivors to the parade.
"We have invited survivors of Club Q to be in the parade as a grand marshals. It's just a really important aspect of the parade because we want to try and promote as much as we can a sense of healing," Fuller explained. "Certainly individuals who have survived a mass shooting event are hyperaware of the risk of gun violence in the United States which has become an ever present threat to everyday life."
This year, as traffic clears the parade route security will come through. The Pride organizers work with three different private security companies to monitor the festival.
They also close streets and a public park and work with the Denver Fire Department and the Denver Police Department to sign off on a security plan.
"We’ve coordinated with the Office of Special Events at the city of Denver and they actually use our safety plan as kind of the gold standard for how other events should plan safety," Fuller added. "I don't know if you can prevent every risk from happening but we certainly do what we can to mitigate risk and try and keep the community safe."
Fuller believes the current political climate may contribute to the threats at other Pride events being reported worldwide.
He told 9NEWS they are not aware of any threats to the Denver Pride events scheduled for this weekend.
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