The Florida Department of Transportation, once again, painted once again on an rainbow crossing in Orlando that was part of the memorial press after the protesters filled him with a multicolored chalk.
The transport department initially painted the Rainbow Croswalk in black and white on Wednesday night. The crossing of multicolored pedestrians was created in 2017 as part of a monument for the 49 people fatally fired by an armed man in the Pulse LGBTQ nightclub in 2016.
A spokesman for the Department of Transportation said in a statement on Thursday that the department has the duty to “guarantee the safety and coherence of public roads and transport systems” and, therefore, guarantee that “roads are not used for social, political or ideological interests.”
The spokesman added that the Department of Transportation updated his manual in uniform traffic control devices this year and that the update prohibits “non -uniform traffic control devices, such as pavement marks on state and local roads.”
Governor Ron Desantis wrote Thursday in X: “We will not allow our state roads to be commanded for political purposes.”
Hundreds of protesters appeared at the crosswalk on Thursday, many of them with rainbow flags, and used chalk to color the rainbow of crosses again. The rain washed it, but the protesters have returned every day to color it, even when the Florida road patrol soldiers stayed watching Sunday morning, according to the NBC Wesh affiliate from Orlando. The soldiers said the protesters could use Chalk along the way whenever they were not blocking the traffic and that anyone who used paint was arrested immediately, Wesh said.
However, a crew of the Department of Transportation returned to the crossing of pedestrians on Sunday night to paint it in black and white again, according to WESH, and the transport officials and the Orlando police have been parked at the crosswalk of pedestrians 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Brandon Wolf, who survived the shooting at the Pulse nightclub, wrote on Monday in X: “More officers took care of the crosswalks than the security guards looking at the main door of Pulse the night that 49 people were killed by a lot.”
As the department plans to continue painting about rainbow crosses throughout the state, protesters plan to respond. Manifestations are planned against the policy of the Department of Transportation at Rainbow Croswalks in Fort Lauderdale, Key West and Miami Beach for Monday night, according to WPLG-TV of Fort Lauderdale and Miami.
“It is an attempt to try to erase the presence of anything to do with the LGBTQ community,” said Fort Lauderdale Mayor Dean Trantalis, according to WPLG.
