Chicago pride got off to a rough start on Sunday, when it was discovered that sometime in the late hours of Saturday night or the early hours of Sunday morning, a person or persons slashed the tires on 51 floats destined for the city’s 42nd Annual Pride Parade.
General Manager Chuck Huser said the floats were fine when he left around 8 last night. But when he got in around 5 this morning, 51 floats — every float at the facility, and all of them destined for Pride — each had two tires slashed.
“This is catastrophic,” Huser told the Times. “This has never happened before, and we have been doing this since 1989.”
Huser said he thinks this was designed to sabotage the Pride Parade.
“99 percent of my being thinks it’s a hate crime,” he said.
Police said that the vandalism was not being treated as a hate crime. But Huser said he didn’t know what else to call it.
Huser said that shortly before Noon CT, all but about 12 floats had been repaired by that time.
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The news you care about, reported on by the people who care about you.The parade was not delayed, although coordinator Richard Pfeiffer told ChicagoPride.com that the order of floats may change.
