Terrorism Fears Cancel Suburban Fourth of July Parade
Plus, Taylor Swift and some football guys and their mom brunched in Philly.
A scene from a Fourth of July parade, like the one that has been canceled in Whitemarsh Township (Getty Images)
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Whitemarsh Township Cancels Fourth of July Parade Over Terrorism Concerns
In less than two months, thousands of small towns around the United States will host Fourth of July parades, complete with classic cars, cute kids in patriotic garb, and a bounty of American flags waving in the wind, as they have been doing for many decades. But you can cross Whitemarsh Township off of that list.
Whitemarsh Township officials have canceled their annual Fourth of July parade, and residents of the Montco township are none too happy.
Word of this decision first came from the Whitemarsh Township board of supervisors after their meeting late last week. Here is part of that released statement:
We are cancelling our annual 4th of July parade. We came to this point after hearing from Township staff, our Police Department and our Emergency Management Office. In light of recent events, they had conducted a thorough review of safety at the parade, including vehicle control, and concluded that holding the event presented an unnecessary risk to the community. We thank them for their time and expertise.
Safety is, and always will be, our top priority. That is not a cliché here in Whitemarsh. We say it and we mean it.
Trust me when I tell you that we appreciate the tradition of the parade. As I said, we wish there was a better choice. In this case, we don’t believe there is. We hope parade fans will understand why we made this decision and find other ways to celebrate with family and friends on July 4th.
OK, so of course you want your residents to be safe. But what exactly are these dangers we are talking about here? Whitemarsh Township police chief Christopher Ward followed up that statement with a statement of his own over the weekend.
Whitemarsh Township police chief Christopher Ward, one of the officials involved in the decision to cancel the Whitemarsh Township Fourth of July parade (photo via Whitemarsh Township Police Department)
Here is part of what he had to say:
I have lived and worked in Whitemarsh Township my entire life. I have participated in this parade for as long as I can remember. As a child, I rode my decorated bicycle… For the last 35 years, I have represented the police department in some fashion in the parade including having the honor of leading our parade for the last nine years as chief of police. I truly understand the importance of the parade.
Unfortunately, the society we live in today has changed, and what people are willing to do today to risk the safety and security of our communities has increased to a point that we never would have imagined. Without going into detail, three prominent examples of such atrocities are New Orleans, Vancouver, and Highland Park, Illinois. Acts of violence like these are motivated by hate, antisemitism, racism, and many other motivations too numerous to mention.
I must emphasize… that none of the locations where violence and hate came to be ever thought that this would happen. The chief of police in Vancouver went on international news to describe how he never thought this would happen in Vancouver and how it was the worst day of his life. While we all want to believe that this could never happen in Whitemarsh, I do not want to be the next chief of police that has to make that statement.
Chief Ward went on to say that officials conducted extensive research into what would be needed to keep residents safe and how much it would cost and that these security measures were simply beyond Whitemarsh Township’s reach.
This feels a little bit like deciding never to fly again because sometimes people do bad things with airplanes or, more to the point, shutting down air travel forever for the same reasoning.
Some have been quick to criticize Whitemarsh Township officials over a lack of transparency in this process, and, from what I can see, rightly so. There’s also a petition going around to save the parade.
So is Whitemarsh Township uniquely paranoid in its cancelation of the Fourth of July parade? I haven’t been able to find any other news articles around the country talking about canceled Fourth of July parades. Of course, it’s still early.
Chief Ward did not immediately return a call seeking comment.
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