A Florida man was charged with “criminal mischief and reckless driving,” and fined more than $1,000 for allegedly leaving tire tracks across an intersection painted in the rainbow colors of the LGBTQ pride movement. He also faces a possible felony charge related to “evidence of prejudice,” Miami CBS reported.
Alexander Jerich, 20, turned himself in to police in Delray Beach, Florida, on Thursday. Jerich was seen on Monday allegedly pulling into the intersection in a pickup truck and spinning his rear tires for around 15 seconds, leaving black streaks across the rainbow stripes, and sending clouds of smoke into the air.
Fox13 reported that police documents claim that Jerich “intentionally accelerated the vehicle in an unreasonable unsafe manner in a short amount of time, commonly referred to as a ‘burnout.'”
An eyewitness described the vehicle as having a blue “Trump” flag that was leaning off the tailgate. The witness said the vandalism affected him, not only as a community member but as a gay man, police documents state. He also claimed he heard a man yell something like “Adam, tear up that gay intersection!”
Two days prior to the alleged crime, city officials unveiled the rainbow road as a mural dedicated to the victims of the Pulse Nightclub shooting in Orlando five years ago. It cost the local government upward of $16,720, police said. The display consists of 11 colors, including black and brown, which symbolize people of color, in addition to light blue and pink, colors that resonate with transgender people.
Nicholas Coppola, one of the leaders behind the “artwork,” said that the deliberate burnout was clearly tantamount to a “hate crime,” and that he was “saddened but not surprised” about the video. “There’s a part of me that expected it,” Coppola said. “People think this is a skid mark, but we’d had so many of trans-children killed in these past few years in a short period of time, so this is a much deeper problem.”
Local LGBTQ activists piled on Jerich. The Palm Beach County Human Rights Council told local media that they “requested the charges include defacing a memorial — a recently enacted law that would require this crime to be treated as a felony. If convicted of this offense, the perpetrator would be responsible for reimbursing the City of Delray Beach for the cost of repairing the damages in addition to the severe penalties for committing a felony.”
The group refers to Florida’s “Combating Public Disorder Law,” which makes defacing a memorial a third-degree felony — an offense punishable by up to five years in prison, a $5000 fine, and five years of probation for the act of “willfully and maliciously defac[ing], injur[ing], or otherwise damag[ing] by any means a memorial or historic property.” The law was signed by Governor Ron DeSantis in April to protect historic monuments against the vandalism from Black Lives Matter and its ilk that defaced and ruined hundreds of monuments during the riots and protests in 2020. That includes a beheaded statue of Jesus Christ in Miami, numerous religious statues in Punta Gorda, the Lee Square Confederate Memorial in Pensacola, the Monument to the Women of the Southland, Jacksonville, and others.
Palm Beach rights group founder Rand Hoch told WPTV that while the law may have been passed to protect historic memorials, the LGBTQ intersection meets the law’s requirements for protection.
Under the law, “memorial” is defined under the act as any marker that “honors or recounts the military service of any past or present, or the past or present public service of a resident of a geographic area comprising the state or the United States.” Even though one must really twist oneself into knots to see an LGBTQ intersection to fall into this category, the court will decide if the mural may be considered as such.
In some parts of North America, LGBTQ crosswalks and intersections are treated almost as sacred symbols by liberals.
Last summer, when a motorist pulled off a little too quickly over a rainbow-painted crosswalk in Vancouver, Canada, police treated the incident as a “hate gesture” and launched a manhunt for the driver. It’s unclear whether the driver left tire tracks behind him intentionally, but either way, critics ridiculed the police and those responsible for placing murals on the street. “Hear me out on this… maybe don’t put symbols of Pride where it’ll be run over hundreds of times per day,” one commenter quipped at the time.
Jerich’s burnout certainly appears to be deliberate, but he wouldn’t be the first disgruntled citizen to take his anger out on a piece of woke street art. When New York Mayor Bill DeBlasio had giant “Black Lives Matter” lettering painted onto Fifth Avenue last year, police officers had to be assigned to protect the mural around the clock, after protesters against BLM.inc repeatedly spilled paint over it. As officers complained about being ordered to “babysit paint,” as shootings and homicides in the city soared to alarming heights.
