Over 150 rainbow flags lining New York City’s Stonewall National Monument for LGBTQ Pride Month were vandalized this week — for the second year in a row — police said Friday.
Someone broke 160 flags both inside and outside the monument, in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village neighborhood, between Thursday evening and Friday morning, a spokesperson for the New York Police Department said in the statement.
The vandal climbed a fence to gain access to the monument, the spokesperson said. No arrests have been made.
New York City Councilmember Erik Bottcher, who is gay and whose district includes Greenwich Village, posted photos of the snapped flags on Instagram and X on Friday.
“Anyone who thinks this will intimidate or silence our community is badly mistaken,” Bottcher said in a text message. “Hateful acts like this merely strengthen our resolve.”
New York City Mayor Eric Adams condemned the vandalism in a statement, saying "hate has no place in our city."
"Our administration wants every member of our LGBTQ+ community to know: we are here for you and our administration will always have your back," Adams said. "We will work in close coordination with the NYPD to identify and hold accountability whoever committed this heinous act.”
Adams celebrated Pride Month on Thursday evening, hosting LGBTQ activists and lawmakers at a reception at the mayor’s official residence, Gracie Mansion.
The Stonewall National Monument is made up of Christopher Park, where the vandalism took place, and the Stonewall Inn, the gay bar across the street that was the site of the June 1969 riots generally considered to be a turning point in the modern gay rights movement. LGBTQ Pride Month is celebrated globally in June in commemoration. The bar and park became a national monument in 2016.
The monument vandalism is the latest in a slew of attacks on Pride flags and other Pride-related symbolism in recent weeks.
In the days leading up to June, more than 200 pride flags were stolen from a town center in Carlisle, Massachusetts. In the early hours of June 1, 14 Pride banners were slashed in Poulsbo, Washington. And last week, a pride flag displayed at a library in Newberg, Oregon, was shot at with a pellet gun.
It's also the second year in a row that rainbow flags lining the Stonewall monument were vandalized during Pride Month. Police arrested three men last year.
Throughout last year’s Pride Month, there were at least 145 incidents of harassment, vandalism and assault directed at LGBTQ people and events nationwide, according to the LGBTQ media advocacy group GLAAD.
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