The annual St. Pete Pride Parade<\/a> is expected to draw more than 360,000 people along the waterfront route stretching from Albert Whitted Park to North Shore Park, a turnout that could rival last year\u2019s record attendance.<\/p>\nThe Trans March steps off Saturday from Vinoy Park at 5:15 p.m., followed by the St. Pete Pride Parade at 6 p.m.<\/p>\n
In the days leading up the parade, detectives are scouring social media and online platforms to check for any type of threats that could pose a safety risk.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith the growth of social media thats where a lot of intel can be collected, people will post things and we can track them,\u201d said Maj. Markus Hughes with the St. Pete Police Department. \u201cJust making sure that if there is anyone making threats somewhere online that we can check it and see if it\u2019s actual threat or just someone posting.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hughes says over the next two days, leadership is finalizing staffing plans and working to pinpoint where the busiest areas will be. In addition to uniformed and plain clothes officers, a network of waterfront cameras will also allow officers to monitor activity in real time from back at the station and through a mobile command center near the parade route.<\/p>\n
Additionally, drones can be launched from the St. Pete Police Department’s downtown headquarters if they need to get a better eye on a situation.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not surveillance,\u201d Hughes said. \u201cThe drones won\u2019t be up for the entire parade or entire street festival. It would just be if there\u2019s a call for service or something suspicious we need to get better eyes on.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dr. Byron Green-Calisch, president of St. Pete Pride, says they\u2019re expecting 360,000 people to attend this weekend\u2019s pride festivities. He says what\u2019s happening at the state level often has a direct impact on attendance numbers.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe more negatively the state legislature talks about queer people at large, the more people show up,\u201d he said. \u201cIn 2023 we saw a pretty strong spike in attendance. We saw more last year with \u2018Don\u2019t Say Gay\u2019 and then we\u2019re expecting even more this year with the multiple bills that passed through the state legislature.\u201d<\/p>\n
For St. Pete Pride, safety remains one of the event\u2019s biggest expenses and highest priorities.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy objective is to think about how do I get people back home safely,\u201d Green-Calisch said. \u201cWhen the month of July starts, we never want to be a position where we are celebrating the life of somebody because they lost their life at one of our events. That is my worst fear. The moment you skimp on those security pieces, you don\u2019t want to be a position where you made a decision about finances that cost someone their life.\u201d<\/p>\n
Officials are also preparing for extreme heat. Police say they will monitor both attendees and officers for signs of heat-related illness and encourage people to stay hydrated and seek shade whenever possible.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, St. Pete Pride announced a venue change for Friday\u2019s headline concert<\/a>. The event has been moved from Al Lang Stadium to the Coliseum. Organizers said the decision was made in part to protect attendees from the heat while also providing a more controlled environment with limited entry and exit points.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2014 St. Petersburg Police say their work to make sure this weekend\u2019s upcoming pride parade…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":319281,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[1564,274,770,28,115,596,4253,277,202,204,203,199,201,200,135,278,835],"class_list":["post-319280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-angie-angers","tag-app-top-stories","tag-community-news","tag-florida","tag-news","tag-pinellas-county","tag-pride-month","tag-public-safety","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news","tag-tampa","tag-top-stories","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=319280"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319280\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/319281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=319280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=319280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=319280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}