Florida despatched employees within the evening to paint over the Satisfaction stripes of the memorial crosswalk outdoors the Pulse homosexual nightclub, the place 49 revelers have been murdered in a 2016 mass capturing. The Trump adminstration has demanded the removing of all such LGBTQ+ symbolism by native governments, claiming they’re a waste of public cash, and Florida governor Ron DeSantis eagerly complied. However there’s an issue: locals maintain portray it again. So now police are assigned to look at the crosswalks.
The subsequent morning, although, residents confirmed up with chalk, restoring the colours by hand. By night, the crosswalk was painted again in rainbow hues. “We refuse to be erased. We is not going to let hate win,” mentioned Nadine Smith of Equality Florida.
Florida’s Division of Transportation as soon as once more despatched crews to clean out the rainbow colours. The next day, residents returned to re-chalk the Pulse memorial crosswalk. However this time, they have been met with one thing new: a line of cops stationed on the web site, watching to make sure no shade could be laid down. In a recording obtained by CNN, Rep. Anna Eskamani approaches officers who justify their presence by calling the crosswalk “security challenge.”
Locals filmed the cops, one in all whom supplied the unlikely declare that coloring within the crosswalk with chalk is unsafe. The officers ultimately relented and allow them to achieve this, as proven within the CNN video embedded beneath.
