This is absolutely wrong, to my understanding:
There are 3 ways police appear at pride:
1) Off-hours out of uniform on their own time
2) On-hours, paid to keep the peace and do their jobs
3) Marching in the parade as ambassadors of police goodwill
My understanding is that 3) is the only presence that was rejected by organizers in various jurisdictions.
True, though not a parade here.
The issue was deployment of uniformed officers IN the designated festival area ('Permit area') of the park, which was not welcome, nor was a recruiting booth.
It's much smaller scale than Toronto, the 'permit area' a relatively small area with a stage, in a bigger park.
Organizers knew, and police did too - from recent years but certainly as of a Thursday meeting before the Saturday festival - that the area where police presence would be necessary would be where the religious bigots located themselves, somewhere on the fringes of the festival area.
Police were not there. Initially, there were just a few cruisers with officers all the way across the park, on the outer perimeter. Then more bigots, yellow vesters and hard line hate groups arrived from their rally at city hall, and along with them more police officers who then also just stayed by their cruisers far across the park.
The reverberations are still settling.
The violent haters are still not arrested.