MP Alex Greenwich Believes Police Should Still March In The Mardi Gras Parade
The case of gay couple, Jesse Baird and Luke Davies, has rocked the Australian LGBTQIA+ community. New South Wales Police officer, Beau Lamarre-Condon has been arrested and charged with two counts of homicide.
Organisers of the Sydney Gay And Lesbian Mardi Gras Parade, scheduled to take place this Saturday, March 02, have requested that NSW police officers do not march in the Parade, as they have done for the past 26 years, to avoid causing distress to members of the community.
Independent NSW MP, Alex Greenwich has stated he believes the police have reparative work to do with the LGBTQIA+ community and should still march, reports 9News.
“I want police to stand with the LGBTQIA+ community…”
Speaking to 9News correspondents, Mr Greenwich says: “I want police to stand with the LGBTQ community every day of the year, and that includes on Mardi Gras. There are many gay and lesbian police officers who look forward to showing their support for the LGBTQIA+ community at Mardi Gras by marching.”
In the case of Jesse Baird and Luke Davies, it is alleged that Lamarre-Condon was an ex-partner of Baird’s and murdered the couple following an altercation at a home in Paddington. An outpouring of grief from the community has led Mardi Gras event organisers to release a statement regarding NSW Police participation at Saturday’s Parade.
“The Board has taken the decision to request that the Police do not march in the 2024 Parade,” organisers say. “This decision was not made lightly, especially considering that many NSW Police members who participate in the Parade are also members of the LGBTQIA+ community and are navigating the impact of this tragedy alongside us. However, we believe that their participation at this year’s event could intensify the current feelings of sorrow and distress.”
Greenwich contests this decision alongside NSW Police Commissioner Karen Webb. “Now, there is certainly a great deal of work that police need to do to improve trust and improve community safety, but I think that starts with working together, not excluding the police from Mardi Gras,” he says.
DNA OPINION
The community is grieving the tragic deaths of Jesse Baird and Luke Davies at the hands of a serving NSW Police Officer, allegedly. But this is the action of one man in a domestic violence situation, not a systemic issue with the entire police force.
If there is a better reason to stop the police from participating in Saturday’s Parade, it’s the systemic failure of NSW Police to properly investigate gay hate crimes and, worse, the cover-ups and obfuscations police have used to disguise these failures over multiple inquires, over many years, as revealed in last December’s special report.
Police Commissioner Karen Webb has apologised for police failures, highlighted in the 18-month-long inquiry, which examined suspected homicides between 1970 to 2010.
But even the historic hostility NSW Police have directed to the LGBTQIA+ community in Sydney, should not prevent their participation in the Parade. Those officers, who choose to parade, in uniform, are either LGBTQIA+ servicing officers themselves, or they are our allies.
The violent birth of Mardi Gras in 1978 was at the hands of the police, and yet we have welcomed them into the Parade for the past 26 years as a sign of reconciliation.
The NSW Police still have a lot to answer for. Punishing our friends and allies among them is not the way to do it.
