The suspects (L) and the LGBT(Photo NYPD)
Aug. 18, 2021 By Michael Dorgan
Police are looking for two hate-filled teens involved in ripping down a pride flag from a home in Fresh Meadows earlier this month and stomping on it.
Video footage released by the NYPD shows the suspects on a motorized scooter pulling up outside a house, located on 190th St., on Aug. 3 at around 5:40 p.m.
The passenger gets off the bike and calmly walks up to the house – through the lawn – and starts pulling on the LGBTQ flag that is hanging on a pole at the front of the building.
The teen pulls the flag to the ground and then appears to stomp on it with both feet, according to the footage. He then falls slightly backward before going back to the flag and trampling on it again.
Meanwhile, the driver of the scooter can be seen recording the incident on his cell phone.
The perpetrator then runs back to the bike, hops onto the back of the scooter and they both ride off.
The footage shows the passenger of the bike wearing a navy t-shirt with gray shorts while the driver is wearing a dark-colored t-shirt and is carrying a yellow bag.
Police said the flag was damaged in the incident and both suspects are wanted for criminal mischief.
The investigation is being carried out by the NYPD Hate Crime Task Force.
Anyone with information in regard to this incident is asked to call the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782). The public can also submit their tips by logging onto the CrimeStoppers website at http://crimestoppers.nypdonline.com/ or on Twitter @NYPDTips.
All calls are strictly confidential.
3 Comments
How do they have clear video footage, three years in a row,of these teenage vandals,and the NYPD has failed to target and arrest them for these insidious and anti-gay acts of terror? Whom are they protecting here? They know exactly who they are looking for and something stinks on ice here! Is the father an NYPD officer or higher brass of any of these mischief makers? Had it been an anti-black, Jewish ,or other protected minority crime incident like this,one can rest assured these crimes would have resulted in arrests and been solved a long,long time ago!
Ripping down a rainbow flag is a hate crime but if one rips down an American flag burns it then it is “freedom of speech”? I don’t understand any of this.
Completely different scenarios you are describing here. Generally speaking people are burning American flags in protest (Something I don’t agree with, but the Supreme Court case United States v. Eichman declared that flag burning was constitutionally protected free speech). Here you have someone trespassing and destroying private property. Hate crime comes in since the flag represents a protected characteristic (including race, color, religion, ethnicity, gender, age, disability, ancestry, sexual orientation)