Tensions were high at Philadelphia City Hall on Aug. 5 during a hearing about police presence in the Gayborhood following Philly Pride 365’s Pride festivities at the Benjamin Franklin Parkway in June.
This hearing was the result of a resolution Councilmember Rue Landau introduced during a City Council meeting on June 11, four days after reports of clashes between Philadelphia Police Department (PPD) and people celebrating Pride in the Gayborhood. The resolution, which passed with unanimous support, authorized the Committee on Legislative Oversight “to hold hearings examining the strategy and tactics deployed by the City of Philadelphia for crowd control during and following public events as a result of reports of overly aggressive tactics used by the police department following the 2026 LGBTQ Pride festivities.”
The hearing included tense conversations between Police Commissioner Kevin J. Bethel and city councilmembers — most notably Landau and Councilmember Isaiah Thomas — along with testimonies from about 20 community members speaking about their experiences with officers.
Tense Conversations
Bethel said this year’s Pride event required extensive security planning due to the festival moving from the Gayborhood to the Benjamin Franklin Parkway. He emphasized that the department’s primary concern was preventing vehicle attacks and other threats, citing past international attacks on public gatherings and Pride events as justification for barriers, sanitation trucks and a large police presence. He stressed that police were responsible for securing the event rather than running it. He also noted that while police expected people to return to the Gayborhood after the Parkway festival, there were no official Pride activities scheduled there, unlike previous years.
He said the Pride festival on the Parkway remained peaceful throughout the day, but that the department observed an earlier-than-expected influx of people into the Gayborhood beginning around 1:15 p.m. He said the unexpected crowd created staffing challenges because officers had been deployed to the Parkway, prompting police to gradually reassign specialized units to the Gayborhood. According to the commissioner, multiple incidents later in the evening led police to begin dispersing the crowd.
Bethel presented several blurry videos of what he said were young people engaging in disruptive behavior, such as fighting. After Bethel showed the first video, Thomas was quick to point out that the video content was unclear and questioned why it was being presented.
“When I think about [Pride], I think about mostly adults,” Thomas said. “These are kids. Help us understand how this incident with these children that I can’t really see has to do with adults celebrating [Pride].”
Bethel said it was his duty to protect youth.
“Kids are getting jumped by other kids. I have a duty to not allow others to get victimized,” he said. “I have a duty in the fight to take some action to make sure that someone doesn’t get hurt. I stand by and do nothing, and a child gets knocked down, brutalized and assaulted, I’ll be in a different conversation sitting here now as to why [I] didn’t do anything.”
Bethel tried to divert attention by questioning why young people opted not to go to the Parkway for Pride and chose to gather in the Gayborhood instead.
“Folks in this room — not me — folks in this room have to figure out what are we going to do with those young people,” Bethel said.
He said there were no events in the Gayborhood for young people to attend, noting that young people and other community members headed to the Gayborhood and were surprised that Pride festivities looked different from last year. However, several speakers refuted that claim, noting that there was a DJ in one of the streets. Others also pointed out that historically, people would party in the Gayborhood into the late hours of the night even after formal Pride events ended. Festivalgoers would also migrate to the Gayborhood dating back to when Pride was held at Penn’s Landing.
Bethel also addressed how some officers wore masks, noting that there were “eight or nine.”
“I sit here today, and I can tell you, I have absolutely no idea why my officers were wearing masks that day,” he said. “That is not acceptable. That is not a part of policy…But just like anything, unfortunately, you know, folks violate policy, and we have a process for them.”
He said his office is investigating the matter and the officers are going through a disciplinary process. However, Bethel said that officers will be allowed to wear masks on cold days. Thomas challenged that idea, noting that there are other ways to keep warm, such as gloves, hats and earmuffs, and adding that masks are a relatively new phenomenon.
“I don’t think that we should let the weather justify people doing something in 2026 that they didn’t do in 1996,” Thomas said.
Thomas also questioned Bethel on whether other officers reported their colleagues for violating policies. Bethel said it’s the responsibility of the nearby supervising officer to address this and said that other officers would not have the authority to challenge other officers.
“I think what we’re trying to figure out is the culture of the police department,” Thomas said. “Do we have a police department where the culture is, ‘If I see somebody doing something wrong, I’m gonna say something,’ or do we have the culture of a police department where [the culture is] ‘I see somebody doing something wrong…this is the brotherhood. I’m not doing nothing. I’m more loyal to the brotherhood than the people we serve.’ And I think that’s the thing that we’re trying to figure out.”
Landau then took over the meeting and told Bethel that his testimony was “painful and perplexing,” adding that he contradicted himself many times.
“You said you knew people were going to come back to the Gayborhood, that you knew they would migrate there, that you had planned for it, and then you would say on another separate occasion you didn’t know this was going to happen. This was something that wasn’t planned,” Landau said. [You said you] had 10 scheduled in-person and virtual meetings that were held between April 17 and June 4. Yet early meetings were focused on the event’s relocation to the Parkway. We had planning discussions, public safety discussions, and numerous additional phone calls occurred before and during the event to exchange intelligence and coordinate planning logistics emerging. It is mind-boggling to think that you and your team would not know that people were going back to the Gayborhood.”
Bethel continued to point out what he saw as an issue for youth to not have anywhere to go for Pride. Landau asked, “Whose fault is it?”
“The kids are not allowed in the Fashion District after 2 o’clock. They’re not allowed in Liberty Place. We have shut down all of their places, and most importantly, we are raising money for The Attic Youth Center to open their building, which they have purchased at 12th and Chestnut,” Landau said. “And we have asked the City of Philadelphia for additional funding that was not even approved. I have been championing that for The Attic Youth Center to move there to 12th and Chestnut. This is where they belong. When you were describing what happened at 12th and Walnut, you said, ‘What were they all doing there? How could they all congregate there?’ They will have their home at 12th and Chestnut very very soon. They belong there. They belong in our city.”
Landau also criticized the force used by officers.
“For most of us, riding a motorcycle on a barricaded sidewalk where you can’t go anywhere — that’s force,” Landau said. “That is terrifying. We don’t allow bikes on the sidewalk. We don’t allow motorcycles on the sidewalk in general. You put motorcycles on the sidewalk with barricades when there were too many humans on there, and you knew it, and you did it anyway. You brought horses into areas to terrify people. There are so many things you