A Democratic prosecutor in Florida will review if the state has wrongly arrested people redrawing the Pulse crosswalk in rainbow chalk.
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Orlando State Attorney Monique Worrell said she will consider community sensitivities when deciding whether to pursue charges after arrests. She made that clear the same day Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis vowed to continue arrests of individuals drawing in the road after the Florida Department of Transportation painted over a crosswalk that pays tribute to victims of the 2016 Pulse shooting.
“The rainbow crosswalk is more than a street marking. It is a memorial to the 49 lives taken at Pulse and a symbol of love and resilience for our community,” Worrell said in a press statement. “Its removal has sparked deep emotion, and we recognize the significance this site holds for so many.”
But DeSantis, a Republican, has continued to insist the crosswalk serves as political messaging and that people using chalk to refill in colors on the crosswalk are vandalizing public property.
“You don’t have a First Amendment right to commandeer someone else’s property,” DeSantis said during a press conference in Orlando, as reported by Florida Politics. “You have a First Amendment right to paint your own property. Knock yourself out if that’s what you want to do. But when you have a state crosswalk or a state road … you do not have a right to take somebody else’s property for your messaging purposes.”
But a judge earlier this week released a Georgia man, Sebastian Suarez, who had been arrested by the Florida Highway Patrol on charges of defacing a traffic device for chalking the crosswalk, as reported by an NBC affiliate in Orlando. The judge found no probable cause for the arrest of Suarez, who said he didn’t see a sign warning that defacing the crosswalk was prohibited.
However, another judge found probable cause to arrest three other protesters a day later.
Worrell and DeSantis have publicly feuded in the past. She was one of two Democratic state attorneys suspended by the governor allegedly for failing to aggressively prosecute cases. Worrell won her job back in the November election.
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