Florida removes rainbow crosswalk honoring victims of Pulse nightclub shooting

A rainbow crosswalk designed to honor victims of a mass shooting at a LGBTQ+ nightclub in Orlando was painted over by the Florida state government on Wednesday night.

The abrupt erasure of the memorial street crossing, which honored the 49 people killed at the Pulse nightclub in 2016, was described as a “scandalous act of betrayal” by one Florida state senator.

Florida has seen numerous anti-LGBTQ+ laws and measures passed in recent years by the Republican governor, Ron DeSantis.

“We are devastated to learn that overnight the state painted over the Pulse memorial crosswalk on Orange Avenue,” Buddy Dyer, the mayor of Orlando, said on Thursday.

“This callous action of hastily removing part of a memorial to what was at the time our nation’s largest mass shooting, without any supporting safety data or discussion, is a cruel political act.”

Dyer added: “While this crosswalk has been removed, our community’s commitment to honoring the 49 can never be erased.”

The crosswalk was installed in 2017 by the state, ABC News reported. A Florida gunman opened fire in the Pulse nightclub on 12 June 2016, killing 49 people and injuring a further 53. At the time it was the deadliest mass shooting in US history. The shooter, a 29-year-old man from Florida, was killed on the scene by police.

Carlos Guillermo Smith, a Democratic state senator from Orlando, said the “DeSantis administration has engaged in a hostile act against the city of Orlando”.

“They did this in the middle of the night because they were scared of the resistance because they knew what they were doing was wrong,” Smith said.

Brandon Wolf, who survived the Pulse shooting and is now national press secretary at the LGBTQ+ equality group Human Rights Campaign, wrote on social media:

“In the dark of night, they came to erase our show of solidarity, our declaration that we will never forget. The cowards who feel threatened by our lives should feel lucky they didn’t have to bury the ones they love – then watch the state come & desecrate their memory.”

DeSantis, who holds presidential aspirations, has a lengthy track record of anti-LGBTQ+ actions. He has signed a slate of anti-LGBTQ+ bills in the state, including a “don’t say gay” bill and a ban on gender-affirming care, which has since been overturned by a federal judge.

DeSantis said in a social media post: “We will not allow our state roads to be commandeered for political purposes.”