NEW YORK (AP) — Nearly 50 years after a police raid at the Stonewall Inn catalyzed the modern LGBT rights movement, New York’s police commissioner apologized for what his department did.
“The actions taken by the NYPD were wrong, plain and simple,” Commissioner James O’Neill said during a briefing at police headquarters.
“The actions and the laws were discriminatory and oppressive,” he added. “And for that, I apologize.”
The apology comes just weeks ahead of the milestone anniversary of the raid and the rebellion it sparked the night of June 27-28, 1969, as patrons and others fought back against officers and a social order that kept gay life in the shadows.
Organizers of what is expected to be a massive LGBT Pride celebration in the city this year had called this week for police to apologize. So had City Council Speaker Corey Johnson, who is gay.
The Pride organizers cheered O’Neill’s remarks.
“The NYPD, as an institution, needed to take responsibility for what happened at Stonewall. This isn’t going to undo the decades of violence and discrimination that our community has experienced at the hands of the police, but it’s a good first start,” said James Fallarino, a spokesman for NYC Pride.
Police participate in and protect its annual parade, but the lack of a formal apology from the department for the 1969 raid — the very event that gay pride marches commemorate each June — has hung over the collaboration, Fallarino said. He hopes people will see O’Neill’s remarks as a sign of “the NYPD’s commitment to positive change.”
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