It is true that shootings resulting in injuries have occurred at or around the massive Civic Center Pride celebration in each of the last several years. And following lawsuits involving a couple of the individuals hurt in those shootings, a Beverly Hills-based law firm has filed an injunction this week on behalf of two of those individuals who were shot in 2013 aiming to prevent the 2016 celebration but not the parade from happening at all.
A release went out yesterday about the injunction from the firm of Rosenfeld, Meyer, and Susman, the same firm who represented Trevor Gardner, an LA man shot in the leg as the Pride celebration was winding down on June 30, 2013. Gardner sued SF Pride and its Celebration Committee for $10 million the following year, citing that his leg injury threatened his planned career as a personal trainer and arguing that the committee had been negligent in managing security in and around the event. In November 2015, SF Pride reached an undisclosed settlement with Gardner in that case, but other lawsuits are still pending.
The text of the complaint filed Wednesday in SF Superior Court refers to shots fired during or after Pride festivities in 2011 and 2012 as well as the past three years, and it cites the fact that the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence chose to wash their hands of the Pink Saturday party in the Castro in 2015 for safety reasons as well. (As we learned in March, that's been fully cancelled for 2016, with the city and the LGBT Center choosing not to step in as they did last year.) The complaint also cites internal emails from SF Pride that both encourage the selling of alcohol at the event, and discuss the impossibility of fully securing the enormous, multi-block party.
SFist has reached out to SF Pride's executive director George Ridgely for a comment on the injunction, but we've yet to hear back.
The current complaint was filed in part on behalf of two young men, Mahlik Smith and Monte Smith, ages 19 and 20, both of Oakland, who were injured after shots were fired in the vicinity of Larkin and Grove Streets during a melee between a large group of young men. This was the same incident in which Gardner was shot as well.
We'll update you as we learn more.
Below, video of the moment when shots were fired during the Civic Center celebration on June 27, 2015. A 64-year-old innocent bystander was shot in the arm and was the only person injured in that incident, for which police later arrested 19-year-old Joshua Spencer of San Francisco.
Previously: SFPD Tracks Suspect In Pride Shooting All The Way To Vallejo
When, Exactly, Did Pride Become A Party For Straight Teens?
