At least four protesters who were arrested for daubing chalk on the former site of the Pulse memorial crosswalk in Orlando, Florida, have since been released without charge — raising the question of why they were arrested in the first place.
Orestes Sebastian Suarez, 29, Maryjane East, 25, Donavon Short, 26, and Zane Aparicio, 39, have each been booked by the Florida Highway Patrol on charges of defacing a traffic device over the last few days, according to The Orlando Sentinel.
Yet as of Monday, every single one had been released without any pending charges.
“To be threatened with something so extreme as a felony charge for protesting and showing love to your fellow human — it’s just insane in my opinion,” Suarez told local broadcaster WESH 2.
County prosecutors and the Highway Patrol did not immediately respond to questions from The Independent about why charges were dropped, or why they were filed in the first place, given that chalk can easily be washed away by rain.
The protests began when Florida’s Republican-run state government sent workers in the middle of the night on August 21 to paint over the rainbow crosswalk at the intersection of W. Esther St. and S. Orange St., which formerly memorialized the 49 victims of the 2016 Pulse shooting.
At the time, gunman Omar Mateen’s rampage through a packed LGBT+ nightclub — where he himself had reportedly danced before swearing allegiance to the Islamic State — was the worst U.S. mass shooting in modern history.
The crosswalk was removed on orders from the Trump administration, which has repeatedly sought to erase mentions of LGBT+ people, and especially trans people, from national parks, government websites, educational material, and even the U.S. census.
Police officers have now been stationed near the crosswalk for more than a week, with officials forced to repaint it at least once, due to protesters trying to restore the rainbow flag.
“My friends died here. That’s it. This is their memorial. This is theirs,” protester Robby Dodd told Click Orlando. Nearby resident Jill Hakemian said the police had repeatedly approached protesters citing “made up rules”, only to back down when asked to explain in detail.
The Pulse crosswalk was painted black and white almost two months after Trump’s Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy instructed states to “eliminate distractions” on public roads.
“Taxpayers expect their dollars to fund safe streets, not rainbow crosswalks,” he wrote on X on July 1. “Political banners have no place on public roads.”
Separately, two pastors in St. Petersburg were arrested for praying on top of the city’s “Black History Matters” mural to prevent and protest against its removal.
In Orlando, Suarez, who allegedly coated his shoe soles in chalk and then walked across the road, was initially charged with defacing a traffic device — normally used to publish those who tamper with electronic equipment such as traffic lights.
A judge found no probable cause for his arrest and ordered him released.
“We put some chalk down on the ground, and before we knew it, an officer was approaching us, saying ‘we wanna talk to you’,” Suarez told WESH 2. “I identified myself, tried to do everything the correct way, and before I knew it, I was in the back of a squad car.”
In a hearing on Monday, a judge did find probable cause to arrest the three other three defendants. But they were released without any charges pending.
“I would argue water-soluble chalk that washes away while you’re being arrested doesn’t amount to over $1,000 worth of damage,” the four’s lawyer Blake Simons told the Sentinel.
Florida’s GOP Governor Ron DeSantis, who has worked for years to restrict trans healthcare and purge LGBT+ discussion from schools, has argued that removing the rainbow pattern from the crosswalk would make drivers and pedestrians more safe.
In fact, a Sentinel analysis found that eye-catching decorations at intersections actually decreased safety problems, mirroring the findings of other studies in Tallahassee and across the nation.
