BOSTON — After a landslide of phone calls and social media comments over the weekend, Boston Pride took away the honor of parade marshal from a Woburn police officer and high profile activist.
Officer Anthony Imperioso recently posted on Facebook about Black Lives Matter protesters and those posts caused a lot of outrage.
"The reaction was pretty incredible. We were not expecting that at all, so right away I talked to my board as to the best way forward,” Boston Pride president Sylvain Bruni said.
In one of the posts, Imperioso called protesters who blocked traffic on I-93 last year “very unpatriotic anti-American trash.” In another post he said "maybe we patriotic Americans should start protesting welfare offices and blocking those entrances then these lazy illiterates will go away. Oh and by the way the police need to start locking all of those people up.”
Daunasia Yancey, a founder of Black Lives Matter Boston, said Boston Pride made the right decision.
"I was upset about it. I was really disappointed like a lot of community members that this is someone that the pride community was putting forth as a representation,” Daunasia Yancey, a founder of Black Lives Matter Boston said.
There was even a petition circulated online that called for banning all police officers from being named as marshals of the parade.
"I think it was kind of the only option once those things were revealed. I wish it wasn't the situation that had to happen and I would want people to actually think about looking at him as a police officer in general as a representation of any community,” Yancey said.
Boston Pride organizers say they're working to make sure the controversy over Imperioso's comments doesn't distract from the focus of their event.
Imperioso did not respond to requests for comment from FOX25.