Colorado city’s Pride flags removed and replaced with Confederate flag
Louisville, Colo., installed the Pride flags to commemorate Pride Month and support LGBTQ residents
A Colorado city has affirmed its support for the LGBTQ community after a display of Pride flags was vandalized and replaced with the Confederate flag.
Louisville, Colo., installed dozens of Pride flags at a major intersection to commemorate the start of Pride Month.
However, police were called after witnesses spotted a 74-year-old man removing several of them from the ground, FOX affiliate KDVR reports.
Police issued the man with a municipal citation, but couldn’t confirm whether he had also planted a Confederate flag which was found in place of the removed Pride flags.
City councilor Kyle Brown, who helped plant the initial display with Mayor Ashley Stolzmann, assisted in replanting the removed Pride flags. However, within days a number of flags were again removed.
“This is really just a wonderful place where people should know, and do know, that regardless of who they love or what their gender identity is, they’re welcome here,” Brown told KDVR.
He said it was “surprising” that people were targeting the flags, as well as others in the Boulder area which have reportedly been torn down and burned.
Related: Boat catches fire after owners allegedly harass people flying Pride flags
Out Boulder County, which supplied the flags for the display as well as approximately 3,000 others that were distributed to residents, said they would continue to replace the stolen flags.
“We have a closet full of flags right now, and as many as we can get out, we will get out,” Juan Moreno said. “We want folks to know that we’re here.”
Moreno said it has “really amazed me that this year a lot more folks have come out and decided to do more destructive acts like these.”
“We have more flags than they have to burn,” Moreno added, “so we’ll just keep replenishing and make sure that they stay up.”
Last week, residents in Rochester, N.Y, reported that Pride flags outside their homes had been stolen, torn, bent, and, in one case, a resident had their flag set on fire on their front lawn.
At the start of Pride Month, karma struck a group of boaters who attempted to harass people flying Pride flags after their boat caught fire and sank, forcing them to seek help from the same people they had been attempting to intimidate.
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