A Drag Story Hour event at Lancaster Public Library in Pennsylvania was cancelled Saturday morning after a K9 alerted to an apparent suspicious package ahead of the event. Protests against and in support of the Drag Story Hour had been planned for over a week after social media attention had been pointed toward the event, including by the prominent account “Libs of Tik Tok.”
Even after the initial suspicious package had been cleared, police broadened their perimeter, even clearing the interior of adjacent buildings, over apparent bomb threats subsequently received via email. Police issued evacuation orders via social media in addition to physically clearing blocks of the downtown area as K9 units sweeped the streets.
Religiously themed protesters gathered to oppose the event and its supporters.
“You are hateful,” an individual said after tossing their mango dragonfruit lemonade on one street preacher. “This is not a Christian nation!”
I’m not saying anything about the bombs, but I’m saying praise God it was cancelled,” the street preacher remarked when asked about the event being cancelled. “I didn’t even know it was cancelled, so hallelujah, it was canceled!”
Tiffany Shirley, president of Lancaster Pride, called it “heartbreaking that individuals wanted to cause harm to children when they were saying that we were causing harm to children, when they’re obviously the credible threat, not us.”
“Hate does not win, and this is going to motivate Lancaster Pride and the LGBTQ+ community in Lancaster to keep making safe events for people to come to and feel safe and be that welcoming city that we say we are.”
At 3:16pm, about 6 hours after the initial cancellation and more than 2 hours after the broader evacuation order, Lancaster Police confirmed that “Residents can now return to their homes. There is no danger to the public.”
