‘Eugene Rad Pride’ Announced Amid Feud Between Official Nonprofit and Police

An alternate Eugene Pride rally and march starting at Kesey Square was, inevitably, announced in response to the official rally and march’s cancellation amid a dispute with the Eugene Police Department. The official festival at Lane Events Center will still take place

“EUGENE RAD PRIDE,” will begin with a rally at 9:30 a.m. and a subsequent march that is scheduled to begin at 10:15 a.m. 

The creation of EUGENE RAD PRIDE comes on the heels of the official rally and march’s cancellation, citing the need for permits and the recent controversy with the police department regarding overtly racist former officer Martin Siller, among other issues, in their official statement, published on June 22. 

The Police Press Conference

Then came the press conference from EPD Chief Chris Skinner, specifically about the cancellation, the next day, on June 23 at 11:30 a.m. The presser wasn’t announced until a little after 9 a.m. the same morning. 

Chief Skinner, with Deputy Chief Jake Burke off-camera, led the entire 17-or-so-minute press conference, which he started — prefacing by saying this “set the tone” for how the department wanted to operate during this year’s event — an email he and then-Deputy Chief Shawn Adams received from the then-president of Eugene Pride, Brooks McLain, after the 2025 event. He read aloud:

“Hello Chief Skinner and Assistant Chief Adams, I wanted to reach out and offer our gratitude to EPD for your help with Pride this year. Lt. Ware and Sgt. Pieske were really great to work with and we’d like to commend them for their approach to this year’s event. We appreciate your, and their, efforts to keep us all on the same page and keep the event safe, as well as open communication leading up to, and during, the event. This is the best year for us thus [far as] intrusions into the event since 2018. We are grateful for the collaboration that made this possible and we expect to have a debrief with you all soon but I wanted to pass along our thanks for now with appreciation. President of Eugene Pride.”

He subsequently said that the department had hoped for a “rinse and repeat” of last year’s event and said that the cancellation of the official rally and march was the doing of the Eugene Pride organization, not the police. 

Chief Skinner also refuted the official Pride organization’s assertion they were told by an EPD liaison, last Monday, that organizers in the street would be viewed as “disorderly.” He said:

“We’re not there to arrest people. That’s not our job. I don’t remember the last time in eight years I’ve been chief here that we went out and mass arrested people for gathering in the street. We’ve figured out a way to allow for that to happen. It’s not our favorite thing to do, [because] it is disorderly conduct, I mean it’s not our favorite thing to let people do but we certainly don’t — we’re not heavy handed that way — and the suggestion that we are is just not fair quite frankly.”

Apparently, Chief Skinner has forgotten about the several individuals who sued both the city and police after being arrested on the night of May 31, 2020. Their arrests were, essentially, for being with groups of people, outdoors, that had combined in the Whole Foods parking lot. These arrests occurred during what was determined, in 2023, by U.S. District Judge Mustafa Kasubhai — the same judge handling the current Old Federal Building fence case — as an unconstitutional city-wide curfew declared by then-City Manager Sarah Medary at the recommendation of Chief Skinner in response to protests. (The arrests themselves, however, were not ruled unconstitutional because, as Judge Kasubhai put it, the arresting officers could not have known the constitutionality of the curfew.)

Chief Skinner was also asked about amplified sound during the press conference and said that he expected there to be amplified sound and that he was “not sure what amplified noise has to do with the cancellation of the march.” He also said the department is “going to be enforcing more” the unpermitted use of amplified sound at the Saturday Market in regards to the right-wing bigots who have recently been protesting there. 

Regardless of the official events’ cancellation, Chief Skinner said that the department would still be present should another march be announced but take a “hands-off” approach, remain in the distance, but be available if needed. 

The New Rally & March

“The local LGBTQ+ community immediately jumped in to create a grassroots, autonomous event that goes back to Pride’s radical roots,” Jade, one of the organizers, told DSM about the creation of the EUGENE RAD PRIDE rally and march. “We do not need permission from cops, city bureaucrats, or corporations to exist and celebrate our identity! As federal fascists try to strip away our rights and criminalize our existence, our community is ready to stand strong and show that we aren’t going anywhere. We protect us. We keep us safe.”

But that’s not to ignore why the new rally and march had come to be, as expressed.  

“Throughout 2025 and 2026, the Eugene Police Department continued its disgusting history of intimidating and abusing marginalized groups such as BIPOC and queer community members,” Jade said. “They harassed transgender protesters at the Eugene ICE office for using megaphones, while allowing right-wing religious hate groups to preach with amplified sound about how queer people were going to hell at Saturday Market and previous Pride events.”

Also mentioned was former officer Martin Siller’s bodycam footage, said that officers had “bullied and detained First Amendment legal observers who were monitoring ICE agents in the community,” and the department’s history of houseless sweeps. They said: 

“This is on top of decades of other abuses, assaults, and murders of marginalized people. Because of this, the official Eugene-Springfield Pride nonprofit refused to work with EPD for the rally and march. When EPD learned about this, they threatened Pride volunteers with arrest if they marched without a permit, said they would do nothing if cars hit marchers, and said the Pride organization would be legally liable for anything that happened. This was an obvious double standard, because EPD had not made those threats during previous unpermitted free speech events in the last year including a Charlie Kirk march and No Kings 2. Because of this police intimidation, the official Pride organization cancelled the official march and rally and released it to the community.”

EUGENE RAD PRIDE, will include speeches “about collective liberation, the fight for our rights, and queer joy,” Jade concluded. There will also be music and live performances in addition to the “celebratory march where our community can party in the streets all the way to the Pride festival at the Lane Event Center.”