Police say that more than 200 pride flags were stolen from a display in a town outside of Boston, Massachusetts, just a few days before a Pride event and the start of Pride Month.
The flags were taken from the circle in the middle of Carlisle, close to where Lowell Street, Bedford Road, and Westford Road meet, the Carlisle Police Department said in a news flash Friday. The last time they were seen was on May 26. Police say they were stolen between Sunday and Monday night.
Officials from the town of Carlisle said that the flags were legally allowed to be there and that they were there to celebrate the start of Pride Month.
“Taking property and threatening free speech is a cowardly act that has no place in our town,” the Carlisle Select Board told the town of more than 5,000 people. “We are saddened by this act and for the harm it has caused.”
The police said they are actively looking into the theft and have asked for help from the people.
“This is very important to us,” Carlisle Police Chief Andrew Amendola said in a statement. “It is unfortunate, as Carlisle is an inclusive community, and we want everyone to feel safe and welcomed here.”
This is the latest attack on the LGBTQ+ group. In the past few years, there have been a lot of attacks and laws passed that limit LGBTQ+ rights. Rights groups like the American Civil Liberties Union and the Human Rights Campaign said that last year there were a high number of anti-LGBTQ+ bills introduced in state legislatures across the United States.
The Human Rights Campaign, the biggest gay rights group in the country, says that more than 500 bills that would have hurt LGBTQ+ people were introduced in 2023. The group declared a “state of emergency” in June 2023 after more than 75 anti-LGBTQ+ bills were passed into law in different states. This was more than twice as many as in 2022.
NBC Boston and CBS Boston reported that people in Carlisle quickly worked together to replace the hundreds of flags before the pride event on Friday afternoon. According to WCVB-TV and CBS Boston, a lot of people came out to the event on Friday. It has become more famous over the past few years.
Pride event organizers told WCVB-TV that they were determined not to let the incident get in the way of their work.
“In fact, it’s made people much more interested in this. Carlisle always has love to say back. That’s pretty cool. “A few years ago, someone wrote something against LGBTQ+ rights, and the whole town flew Pride flags,” Rachel Freed, who runs the Pride event, told the TV station.
Last year, there were many thefts or destructions of pride flags in many states. Someone broke into an elementary school in North Hollywood, California, in May 2023, and set a small LGBTQ+ flag on fire that was in a flower pot. This happened before a Pride Day meeting.
Police say that pride flags were stolen, cut, or burned in at least five states in June 2023. These states are California, Utah, Arizona, Nebraska, and Pennsylvania. The month before, similar things happened in California and New York. For example, in Manhattan, a man urinated on a pride sign.
On June 2, a masked man in Omaha, Nebraska, set fire to a pride sign that was outside of a house. The police said that in April, a pride flag had been stolen from the house.
Police nabbed a teenage boy the next day on suspicion that he tore a pride flag as he was taking it down from a home in Huntington Beach, California. Then, on June 6, police said someone took down and burned a pride sign outside of Tempe, Arizona’s city hall.
In August, a man from Colorado was arrested and charged with destroying and taking down pride flags at Stonewall National Monument in New York City. Stonewall is the first national monument in the United States that is dedicated to LGBTQ+ history and rights.
There have also been violent incidents, like the time in August 2023 when a shop owner in Southern California was shot and killed because of a pride sign outside her store.
