Throughout 2024 Thunder Pride was invited to facilitate two community conversations with the Thunder Bay Police Services, including Chief Fleury and other members of the TBPS spearheaded by another local pride organization.
These were important and strong conversations with them and our 2SLGBTQIA+ community raising issues and discussing Pride and Policing. Topics included:
- Police presence at pride festival
- Police hired for parade
- Canadian Queer History Education and Reconciliation training for police
- Discussion of how hate crimes are reported, investigated and structure of levels of crime
- Issues around rainbow rockers, pins, flag raising and virtue signaling
- Beginning of formation of citizen led 2SLGBTQIA+ committee for reconciliation
- How to report hate crimes
- How to report complaints against police
We have previously discussed Thunder Pride’s position on pride and policing during 2023’s community townhall(read about it here) and will continue to work with Thunder Bay police in furthering education around 2SLGBTQIA+ history, issues and training. Reach out to us or the TBPS with any issues or ideas for moving forward. We will update when next steps are underway.
