A married lesbian couple in Solano county in California have had their rainbow pride flag defaced 5 times. The first attack on the flag was with coffee, and has escalated to motor oil. The police have not responded to the couples complaints about this hate crime. The couple has installed security cameras on their property and they and their neighbors are fearful for any possible escalation.
Contact the Vallejo Investigations Division and tell them to find the perpetrators of this hate crime
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Pride Flag Defaced 5 Times, Police do Nothing!
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8 comments:
Sigh, somehow it figures. That reminds me of a story in my parts where this guy had his garage vandalized & spray painted and it took the cops a good 6 tries to even start trying to look for the culprits (which they never found).
T.R - It's terrible, especially since criminals usually begin with small petty crimes and they escalate, its better to nip it in the bud.
Not that I don't trust your site, but you may want to consider posting links to stories like this, such as to local media.
I would rather not send an email to someone without some more facts about the case. Otherwise, we tend to lose our credibility if many of these turn out to be misrepresented incidents.
Thanks John good idea, I will link the stories to local media or try to quote and put a citation from a reputable site.
I think the police have bigger fish to go after like domestic abuse, theft, drug dealers. This crime is really petty, and although it is wrong, it is not a big deal. A much bigger deal is actual violence against gays and lesbians, which we should be focusing our energy.
Our church -- Neighborhood Church in Pasadena, California -- has a similar rainbow pride/marriage equality banner out front, next to a fairly busy thoroughfare. (You can see the banner on the right side of the church's webpage: http://www.uuneighborhood.org)
It has been defaced several times, usually by slashing.
It's a point of pride for our congregation that we put it right back up, bigger even, and have now hosted a slew of gay and lesbian marriages.
You may not like the analogy, but it's a little like Chief Bratton's "Broken Windows" plan. If the police don't tolerate public drunkenness and graffiti and broken windows that go unfixed, it sends the message that they certainly won't tolerate worse crimes.
Same goes for these kind of symbolic attacks. If we don't let our police tolerate banners being slashed -- and we as citizens won't tolerate it either -- then certainly the message goes out that we won't tolerate worse abuse.
-- Dick Price (http://www.laprogressive.com)
Dick and Sharon make a really good point. What this is is an expression of homophobia and an attempt to intimidate people back into the closet. Somehow I think if it were a Puerto Rican or Mexican or Confederate flag, a cop might find time to deal with it. (I would hope, anyway.)
Here is a link to the story. That's a local CBS affiliate and includes a video clip. Apparently, the city has recently gone bankrupt, so I'd say they definitely have other fish to fry. However, the escalating nature of the vandalism indicates that it's definitely something they should be looking into, at this point. I wouldn't expect the police to get involved over a cup of coffee, but it's good that the couple reported it and continues to report incidents so the escalating nature will be documented.
Oh, and I wrote the Investigations Division. :)
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