PHOENIX – An LGBTQ protest against police involvement in the Phoenix Pride Parade was short-lived on Sunday as a phalanx of police officers used bikes to force the crowd from the streets onto the sidewalk.

Parade organizers had given permission for Trans Queer Pueblo, a community organization advocating for undocumented LGBTQ people of color, to voice concerns at the parade, according to Jeremy Helfgot, a spokesman for Phoenix Pride.

He said they hadn’t expected the group to disrupt the Pride parade, as they did last year but, just in case, Pride board members said Monday they had asked police to intervene if necessary.

About 30 people linked arms and lined the streets, chanting “Hey hey, ho ho, racist cops have got to go,” in opposition to Phoenix police being allowed to be part of the parade.

Then, as police participating in the parade emerged in their cars along the route, the protesters started moving into the streets to block them. Four trans women stood atop chairs in the middle of Third Street, near Clarendon Avenue, to stop police from continuing in the parade.

That’s when police officers, behind a row of bicycles, surrounded the protesters and used the bikes to push them back onto the sidewalk. As they continued to chant, Phoenix police threatened to arrest any protester that stepped back into the street.

Deeana Rivera, a 44-year-old trans women who was standing atop a chair on Third Street, chanting in Spanish and in English: “Sin Justicia, No Hay Orgullo, No justice, no pride,” said she fell off her chair when Phoenix police pushed through protesters. Read more via Cronkite News