Photos: Firearms cops wear Rainbow Laces
The Rainbow Laces campaign has found support from a team more used to riot gear than football gear.
Rainbow laces were sent to all Premier League footballers, and every professional team in the UK as part of a campaign to raise awareness of homophobia in football by Stonewall, Paddy Power and the Gay Football Supporters’ Network.
However, they have proved surprisingly popular with members of Leicestershire Police’s Tactical Dogs & Firearms Unit, who posted several photos to Twitter of armed officers backing the campaign.
In one of the photos, officers wearing rainbow laces are seen geared up in gas masks and assault rifles, while in another, a police dog is shown wearing laces next to his handler.
The division of Leicestershire Police, which handles all firearms and police dog responses in the area, tweeted: “We believe it’s our differences that unite us. The more diverse, the more effective we are.”
Police sergeant Carl Mee told PinkNews: “We are not arrogant enough to think that we will change opinion, we just want to support the campaign and get people talking about the issues.
“We were asked to support the campaign as the LGBT lead for our force felt that a unit such as ours would send the strongest message of support as the perception of units like us is that we are ‘macho’ and elitist and wouldn’t support such a campaign.
“By doing so we challenge those stereotypes and at the same time promote discussion and debate and bring the issues to the forefront of people’s minds.”
The campaign is also supported by Premier Inn, who are renaming as Premier Out in all communications for the day, HTC/Carphone Warehouse, Playstation, Sega, Relish Broadband, KLM, Heineken, Pepsico,Lastminute.com, Dr Martens, BT Broadband / BT Sport, Starbucks, Fiat and Jersey Tourism are just some of the brands involved.
The Rainbow Laces campaign is advertised on PinkNews this week.
(Photos: Leics Police TDFU)
