Someone disrupted a Pride event in Park City in mid-August, according to the Park City Police Department and one of the event organizers.
The gathering was held on Aug. 15 at Lucky Ones Coffee at the Park City Library. The police were summoned at little before 9:40 a.m. Public agency logs indicated someone was “super anti gay, filming and harassing people.” The police logged the case as suspected harassment.
The Police Department’s incident report, provided in response to a Park Record request under state open-records laws, said that an officer responded after a request by an employee. A man was at the location as a Pride event was underway. The narrative said the person “began recording the people at the event and saying things that sounded anti gay.” The person left.
An officer met with the person who called the police. That person indicated the man was “upset that there was a Pride event and said he was going to complain to the governor,” according to the narrative. He also said “there should not be a Pride event near where kids could see and demanded the library employees’ last names,” according to the narrative.
The officer advised the person to call the police again if the man “returned and started confronting people again.” The officer stayed in the library parking lot until the end of the gathering.
Summit Pride organized the event as part of a series of monthly gatherings.
Virginia Solomon, the president of the Summit Pride board of directors, was at the event prior to the man arriving. Solomon said approximately 30 people were there.
“Someone comes and makes a scene,” Solomon said. “But it attacks everyone that can hear them. … It impacts the entire environment.”
Solomon said the person probably meant to intimidate the gathering and described the person as an outlier in Park City. Solomon said Summit Pride continues to see the community as a safe place to gather.