'My heart sank': 3 sought for vandalizing Pride Flags outside NYC's Stonewall Inn

Three men vandalized the Pride flag display at the Stonewall National Monument in the West Village over the weekend, the NYPD said Monday.

The group was walking past the monument in Christopher Street Park at 3 a.m. on Saturday, June 10 – just as Pride Month was getting underway – when they began to break multiple Pride flags that were attached to a fence there, police said. The NYPD released video of the three men walking near the monument, and confirmed the department is investigating the incident as a possible hate crime.

Another video obtained by the NY Post shows the men snatching the flags down from the display as they walk by.

Steven Love Menendez is the creator of the more than 250 flag display and visits it daily to replace the occasional missing flag. But when he arrived on Saturday, he found 50 to 60 flags were taken off the fence.

“And since the flags were broken off and just left hanging there and thrown down on the ground, I realized it was an act of vandalism as opposed to someone trying to take a flag as a souvenir or something,” Menendez said.

Menenedez said he keeps a stock of flags and was able to immediately replace them, but the incident left him angry and upset.

“This is the sixth year that this installation has been going up and this has never happened before, and so it just kind for me, it's kind of a statement about the climate right now towards the LGBTQ community with all the hateful political rhetoric that's going on attacking the drag and trans communities especially,” he added.

Councilmember Erik Bottcher, who has been outspoken about hate crimes against the LGBTQ community and was the target of vandalism himself, tweeted pictures Menendez took of the broken flags on the floor, and a video of the fence showing the gaps between rainbow flags.

“I got a call on Saturday from the volunteer who puts these flags up every year, and he sent over photos of the flags, sticks, snapped in half on the ground, and my heart sank,” said Bottcher, who is gay. “Because this is just the latest example of people trying to act out against our community.”

The monument sits across the street from the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar widely considered to be where the gay rights movement began in 1969.

“The Stonewall National Monument is the heart and soul of the LGBTQI movement so it's tremendously important that this space is looked at as sacred, that it is kept protected and that it is respected,” Menendez said.

Police are asking for the public's help in identifying the three men. Anyone with information about the incident is asked to call the NYPD's Crime Stoppers hotline.

In February, Manhattan resident Angelina Cando was arrested and charged with arson, criminal mischief and reckless endangerment as hate crimes after she allegedly set fire to a Pride flag outside Little Prince, a restaurant in lower Manhattan. She appeared in court earlier this month, but was found mentally unfit for trial, according to ABC 7 New York.

“The truth is that acts like this, whether they’re large or small, are intended to strike fear into our community,” Bottcher said. “We’re not going to go back into the closet. We’re going to continue to fight for equality in this country and assert our rights to exist as our true, authentic selves.”

This story has been updated to correct the spelling of Steven Love Menendez.