The Alameda County Sheriff’s Office says members of the ‘Proud Boys’ group shut down a Drag Queen event over the weekend at the San Lorenzo library:
Alameda County Sheriff’s Office: On Saturday, June 11, 2022, at about 1:30 pm, Deputies responded to the San Lorenzo Library for a report of a disturbance.
When deputies arrived they learned an LGBTQ community member was hosting a reading event at the library called, “Drag Queen Story Hour”. Present at the event were children, parents, and other community members.
A group of 5 men entered the library and disrupted the reading event. “The men were described as members of the Proud Boys organization, known to be a right-wing hate group with anti-LGBTQ affiliations,” the sheriff’s office said.
“The men were described as extremely aggressive with a threatening violent demeanor causing people to fear for their safety.”
Local drag queen Panda Dulce, who was hosting the event, claimed the men shouted “tranny” and “pedophile” as they disrupted the event.
“I’ve always received death threats, hate mail for doing drag queen story hour. This time it felt very close to violence,” Dulce said in an interview with KPIX 5 on Sunday.
There are several drag queen story hour programs in the Bay Area, which organizers say offer kid-friendly entertainment while teaching children about diversity and community. “I thought the closet was the loneliest place, but I was wrong. It was being out in the open, vulnerable and alone. Drag Queen Story Hour is so important to me, and for our youth, because it converts our differences from shame into power,” Dulce told the Guardian in 2017.
A number of kids and their parents were at the event when the ordeal unfolded, authorities said.
The deputies were able to “de-escalate” the situation, the sheriff’s office said.
No arrests have been made, no one was physically harmed, and sheriff’s officials are investigating the incident as a possible hate crime and harassment of children, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
Authorities said the five men involved were wearing black and yellow, colors associated with the far-right Proud Boys group, which can be seen in a video of the disruption. “It appears the group of men may be affiliated with the Proud Boys organization,” said Kelly.
The men were described as extremely aggressive with a threatening violent demeanor, yet based on initial reports collected from various media outlets, it doesn’t appear that the Proud Boys were there to cause any harm to the drag queens, children, or their parents, but were there to simply protest the event.
The men, who appear in the image above, seem to have filmed the protest. Patriot One News has not yet spoken with the men involved and has not received or seen a copy of the video footage taken by the men during the transgender story hour protest.
Kelly said the sheriff’s office plans to post deputies at future story-hour events at the library “to deal with any disruptors”.
The incident was first reported by KQED.
But the story hours have long faced backlash and criticism from the right and conservative publications, who claim the events are indoctrinating children. The storytime event that gave away the location to the Proud Boys was shared by Libs of TikTok, a right-wing social media account with more than a million followers, SFGate reported.
Patriot One News has not reached out to the men to confirm their identity and is not claiming that the men involved are actually members of the Proud Boys at this time.
