A Pride flag was taken down and burned outside of a City Hall building in Tempe, Arizona, officials said Tuesday.
The flag — which flew alongside the American, Arizona state and Juneteenth flags — was raised this month to commemorate LGBTQ Pride Month.
City officials confirmed that the act of vandalism is under investigation by police.
“This act of aggression does not represent our community. Hate has no place in Tempe,” City Manager Andrew Ching said in a statement. “We are committed to championing diversity, inclusion and equity and ensuring that our community is safe and welcoming for everyone.”
The flag-burning comes months after a bomb threat was made to an LGBTQ-owned coffee shop in Tempe, a city of 186,000 people that’s about 10 miles east of Phoenix.
In February, police evacuated Brick Road Coffee 20 minutes into a Drag Story Hour event. The popular national storytelling program, where drag performers read children’s books to kids at libraries, schools and other venues, has drawn particular ire from right-wing extremists.
The shop’s co-owner, Gabe Hagen, said that no bomb was found, but that detectives had told him far-right extremists were in the area that day, according to KPNX-TV, an NBC affiliate that serves the Phoenix area.
“That was an unfortunate instance of hate,” Hagen said, regarding the bomb threat. “It’s just misguided, unfortunately, and that’s disappointing to see.”
Hagen told KPNX that authorities informed him that the investigation had been recently turned over to the FBI.
The threats and acts of violence toward the queer community in Tempe come amid a surge in similar anti-LGBTQ demonstrations across the country.
Since June 2022, there have been an average of 39 anti-LGBTQ protests nationwide each month, compared with just three per month from January 2017 through May 2022, according to a recent report by the Crowd Counting Consortium, a research group that tracks the size of political protests.
Even liberal enclaves such as New York City have faced several anti-LGBTQ attacks, including a Pride flag that was set ablaze outside of a Manhattan restaurant in February.
Officials in Tempe said Tuesday that a new Pride flag had been raised at City Hall.
“Cities are great because of the people who live in them,” Tempe Mayor Corey Woods said in a statement. “We will not stand by while someone tries to threaten, bully and intimidate members of our community. We will continue our efforts to make our city stronger, even more welcoming, and even more inclusive. We support our LGBTQ+ community. We stand as one with them.”
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
