ALAMOSA — Just a few hours before Saturday’s annual parade celebrating Pride Week was scheduled to begin in Alamosa, the Alamosa Police Department (APD) received a call reporting that all 25 of the organization’s flags had been stolen from the flag poles where they were on display in a three-block area downtown.
According to an early Monday morning press release from the city, officers with APD have recovered three of the 25 stolen flags. However, the whereabouts of the remaining 22, valued at $563, are still unknown.
This is an ongoing investigation which is currently being investigated as a bias-motivated crime, and APD is asking for the public’s assistance in identifying the subject in the photograph. Anyone who can identify this person of interest is asked to contact Alamosa police through Colorado State Patrol dispatch at 719-589-5807 or APD’s administrative line at 719-589-2548.
While the monetary value of the flags may not seem extraordinarily high, the nature of this deliberate type of crime against a specific group of people is taken very seriously by the state of Colorado.
As of January 2022, the Colorado Revised Statutes Title 18. Criminal Code § 18-9-121 Bias-Motivated Crimes states that:
regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, national origin, physical or mental disability, or sexual orientation to be secure and protected from fear, intimidation, harassment, and physical harm caused by the activities of individuals and groups.
The general assembly further finds that the advocacy of unlawful acts against persons or groups because of a person's or group's race, color, ancestry, religion, national origin, physical or mental disability, or sexual orientation for the purpose of inciting and provoking bodily injury or damage to property poses a threat to public order and safety and should be subject to criminal sanctions.
(2) A person commits a bias-motivated crime if, with the intent to intimidate or harass another person, in whole or in part, because of that person's actual or perceived race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, physical or mental disability, or sexual orientation, he or she:
(a) Knowingly causes bodily injury to another person; or
(b) By words or conduct, knowingly places another person in fear of imminent lawless action directed at that person or that person's property and such words or conduct are likely to produce bodily injury to that person or damage to that person's property; or
(c) Knowingly causes damage to or destruction of the property of another person.
According to the statute, anyone found guilty is subject to penalties that range from a first-degree misdemeanor to a fifth-degree felony, depending upon the nature of the crime.
This is the second time in as many years that some individual (or individuals) chose to deliberately interfere with the Pride parade by stealing the celebratory flags used by the organization.
Last year, someone also stole the Pride flags the night before the parade started. Last year the APD chose not to pursue the incident as the flags were found dumped outside of Alamosa City Hall. A letter also accompanied the stolen flags, but its content was not made public.
This year, the police department is choosing a different route and recognizing the theft as a crime that violates state law prohibiting bias-motivated acts.
According to a history published on the website for the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health, before the rainbow striped flag that has become so well known and symbolic of the inclusion of the Pride movement, the flag bore a pink triangle, adapted from the badge gay prisoners were forced to wear in the Nazi concentration camps.
The pink triangle also became emblematic of the gay community during the HIV/AIDS epidemic that took thousands of lives.
Then, in the late seventies, Harvey Milk – the first openly gay man to be elected to public office – asked a friend, Gilbert Baker, to design a symbol to represent the (what was called then) gay community.
Baker designed a flag comprised of eight different colors each symbolizing something different. Hot pink symbolized sex; red – life, orange – healing, yellow – sunlight, green – nature, turquoise – magic and art, indigo – serenity and violet – spirit.
Before long, difficulties with manufacturing and dying the material with hot pink and turquoise hues resulted in those colors being eliminated, paving the way for the six-colored flag so well known today.
In recent years, the community at large has grown even more expansive, as reflected in the community now being known as LGBTQI+. Many of those groups now have their own flags specific and unique to who they are.
With that in mind, the flags stolen last Saturday were much more than mere decoration for a parade. They were a symbol, a means of identification and a message to others about the beauty and power of inclusivity.
