{"id":71873,"date":"2026-06-24T16:59:22","date_gmt":"2026-06-24T20:59:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=71873"},"modified":"2026-06-24T17:00:26","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T21:00:26","slug":"lgbt-crowd-cheers-as-police-remove-street-preacher-from-florida-pride-event","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2026\/06\/24\/lgbt-crowd-cheers-as-police-remove-street-preacher-from-florida-pride-event\/","title":{"rendered":"LGBT Crowd Cheers as Police Remove Street Preacher from Lakeland Pride Event"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img data-dominant-color=\"6a6a67\" data-has-transparency=\"false\" style=\"--dominant-color: #6a6a67;\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" src=\"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Street-Preacher-Florida-Pride-Event-1024x576-1.webp\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-71874 not-transparent\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Street-Preacher-Florida-Pride-Event-1024x576-1.webp 1024w, https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Street-Preacher-Florida-Pride-Event-1024x576-1-300x169.webp 300w, https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Street-Preacher-Florida-Pride-Event-1024x576-1-768x432.webp 768w\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A chaotic scene unfolded last week during a Pride event in\u00a0Lakeland. A man who attended the event not to join in the festivities but to preach the gospel was filmed being escorted away by police officers after the crowd shunned him. The incident was shared on Facebook by another attendee, and so far, the public has been split on whether the preacher was exercising his right to free speech or\u00a0disrupting an event.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">BREAKING: police arrested a street preacher who was preaching in a public park during an lgbtq pride event in Lakeland, FL <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/OZuDh19413\">pic.twitter.com\/OZuDh19413<\/a><\/p>&mdash; Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/libsoftiktok\/status\/2068868244044189813?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">June 22, 2026<\/a><\/blockquote> <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.x.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Before police intervened, the man had been standing amidst a small crowd preaching. As he spoke, his audience tried to drown him out by blowing whistles and clapping loudly. With the noise from the crowd and the loud music blasting from the event, it was difficult to hear what the preacher was saying.<br><br>Officers eventually approached the man and started leading him away from the area. Seeing him being escorted out, many people in the crowd began cheering. The preacher, however, seemed reluctant to leave and was seen pushing back against the officers as they continued to guide him away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-9-16 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"police arrested a street preacher\" width=\"563\" height=\"1000\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/A12IWbnFIek?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In the comments on the\u00a0Facebook post, many people who watched the video supported how the crowd and the officers reacted.\u00a0<em>\u201cThat\u2019s what I like to see<\/em><em>\ud83d\udc4c<\/em><em>,\u201d<\/em>\u00a0one person commented. Another cheered,\u00a0<em>\u201cWay to go Lakeland PD!\u201d<\/em>\u00a0A third said,\u00a0<em>\u201cHe deserved it, if it is not your thing then stay home!!\u201d<\/em>\u00a0A fourth remarked,\u00a0<em>\u201cThere\u2019s freedom of speech and then there\u2019s harassment.\u201d<\/em><br><br>One commenter who identified as gay wrote,\u00a0<em>\u201cI think its okay for anyone to attend and speak the gospel with LOVE not hate. I\u2019m a gay person who believes everyone has rights\u2026.just respect everyone.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0Someone else chimed in,\u00a0<em>\u201cIf he would have stayed out on the sidewalk, he would have been fine because of the public right of way. This event must have had a city authorized permit.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Meanwhile, there were also netizens who questioned whether the police response was justified.&nbsp;<em>\u201cLakeland PD totally wrong on that one it\u2019s freedom of speech he wasn\u2019t touching anybody or anything,\u201d<\/em>&nbsp;one viewer argued. Another added,&nbsp;<em>\u201cThe cop could have told him to leave, whatever, there was totally no need for them to use force to make him leave.\u201d<\/em><br><br>It remains unclear why officers decided to remove the preacher from the event. One comment from someone who claims to have been present during the incident alleged that the preacher had been at the event for roughly two hours and had been asked multiple times to leave before police became involved. They also claimed he had harassed attendees and openly used slurs around them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A chaotic scene unfolded last week during a Pride event in\u00a0Lakeland. A man who attended the event not to join in the festivities but to preach the gospel was filmed&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":71877,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"12","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":true,"token":"eyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvaTAud3AuY29tXC9sYWtlbGFuZGdhemV0dGUuaW5mb1wvbmV3c1wvd3AtY29udGVudFwvdXBsb2Fkc1wvMjAyNlwvMDZcL1NjcmVlbnNob3QtMjAyNi0wNi0yNFQxNjU1MDQuNjgwLndlYnA_Zml0PTMyNSUyQzM3MCZzc2w9MSIsInR4dCI6IkxHQlQgQ3Jvd2QgQ2hlZXJzIGFzIFBvbGljZSBSZW1vdmUgU3RyZWV0IFByZWFjaGVyIGZyb20gTGFrZWxhbmQgUHJpZGUgRXZlbnQiLCJ0ZW1wbGF0ZSI6ImRvaXMiLCJmb250IjoiIiwiYmxvZ19pZCI6MTYzMDQwNjYxfQ.OM3OAbOTOjt5PZUj6ge4_-JcqADa4psIzUWKVoVE538MQ"},"version":2,"media_source":"sig","attached_media":[{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/jetpack.com\/redirect\/?source=sigenerate&query=t%3DeyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvbGFrZWxhbmRnYXpldHRlLmluZm9cL25ld3NcL3dwLWNvbnRlbnRcL3VwbG9hZHNcLzIwMjZcLzA2XC9TY3JlZW5zaG90LTIwMjYtMDYtMjRUMTY1NTA0LjY4MC53ZWJwIiwidHh0IjoiTEdCVCBDcm93ZCBDaGVlcnMgYXMgUG9saWNlIFJlbW92ZSBTdHJlZXQgUHJlYWNoZXIgZnJvbSBGbG9yaWRhIFByaWRlIEV2ZW50IiwidGVtcGxhdGUiOiJkb2lzIiwiZm9udCI6IiIsImJsb2dfaWQiOjE2MzA0MDY2MX0.GCmaGaWBoa5Fuh-EhbFYGLr47Fw-NrABGR_j13remnsMQ","type":"image\/jpeg"}]},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[12,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-71873","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71873"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71873\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71880,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71873\/revisions\/71880"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71877"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}