LGBTQ flag burned at California elementary school

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An LGBTQ flag was burned at an elementary school in Southern California this month ahead of a Pride event, and police are investigating the incident as a hate crime, authorities said.

Someone broke into Saticoy Elementary School in North Hollywood during the weekend that preceded May 22 and burned the flag, the Los Angeles Unified School District said.

A Los Angeles police spokesperson said Wednesday the incident is being investigated as a "vandalism hate crime."

Alan Hamilton, a deputy chief with the police department's Valley Bureau, said in a statement Wednesday that the Pride flag was in a potted plant.

"There was a small potted plant that was set on fire on the campus and the plant had a small (4 x 6 inch) PRIDE flag inside the potted plant container. Both the plant and the flag were destroyed by the fire," he said.

"There are no suspects in custody at this time," Hamilton added.

Los Angeles School Police will provide additional patrols around the campus, the school system said in a statement.

The incident remains the subject of an “active investigation” by Los Angeles police, according to the school system.

Renato Lira, the director of the San Fernando Valley LGBTQ Center, said that a Pride Day assembly at the school is scheduled for Friday and that the organization is working with school and Los Angeles police to make sure students “are going to be safe going to school and when they’re leaving the campus.”

NBC Los Angeles reported some parents plan to keep their children home from school Friday, the day of the Pride event

The station also reported a flyer was posted on a social media account named @Saticoyelementaryparents. The account encouraged parents to keep their kids home and to “Protest against Pride Day assembly, an inappropriate topic for our kids!”

The account was created this month after parents saw a rainbow parade assembly noted on the school calendar, NBC Los Angeles reported.

People move to the West Coast to get away from people who do those things. Nobody is safe anywhere.

What else can be done short of banning religion or criminalizing hate speech?

But how can we stop it? Just wait for "old white men" to die en masse?

Police officers separated groups of protesters and counterprotesters Friday outside a Los Angeles elementary school that has become a flashpoint for Pride month events across California.

People protesting a planned Pride assembly outside the Los Angeles Unified School District's Saticoy Elementary School wore T-shirts emblazoned with “Leave our kids alone” — and carried signs with slogans such as “Parental Choice Matters” and “No Pride in Grooming.”

Los Angeles Unified School District Board Member Kelly Gonez said the assembly went on without issue. It included a reading of “The Great Big Book of Families,” which includes details about different family structures including single parents, LGBTQ+ parents, grandparents and foster parents, she said.

Outside the school, protesters against the assembly outnumbered those who were there in support. Some protesters identified themselves as parents of students in the district but would not give their full names during interviews, saying they had agreed not to, as a group, citing safety concerns. Broadly, they said they felt elementary school was too young to discuss LGBTQ+ issues.

Arielle Aldana, whose 6-year-old son attends Saticoy, said she didn’t know about the assembly until she dropped him off at school Friday morning. She joined the protest against the assembly and said it was “frustrating” that the school didn’t tell parents about the topic ahead of time.

Aldana said she doesn't feel it's age-appropriate for elementary school, but added that she thought it would be fine for when her son is in middle school. “It has to do with where he is in development,” she said.

Ray Jones, who uses the pronoun they, said they are a drag queen in North Hollywood and do not have children in the school but thought it was important to show up. Jones said they believe LGBTQ+ topics are appropriate to teach at elementary school. The demonstrators who feel otherwise, they said, are sending the wrong message to students who have LGBTQ+ parents.

District Superintendent Alberto M. Carvalho watched the protest outside the school.

“The sad reality is that over the past two weeks, individuals who work at this school have been threatened and insulted just for being who they are,” he told Fox 11. “A flag that represents many members of our community was burned. That’s just unacceptable. Over what? A reference of a book that represents families in our communities.”

Carvalho said there's no sex education in the book at issue.

Several other California elementary schools have found themselves at the center of debates over Pride Month celebrations.

In San Diego County, a proposal to fly the Pride flag at the headquarters of the Chula Vista Elementary School District initially died on a 2-2 vote with one member absent. But Francisco Tamayo, a board member who had originally voted no, later revived the proposal, saying he was concerned about hate speech directed at teachers, parents and students. The proposal passed 4-1 on Wednesday.

Elsewhere, city officials in Davis, California, last week removed a rainbow crosswalk created by elementary school students with chalk paint to celebrate Pride month. The parent of a former student complained about the project, employee Mara Seaton told the Sacramento Bee.

But the decoration was removed because crosswalk decorations are not allowed without prior approval and because it covered others lines on the crosswalk that were needed for visibility, Davis Police Chief Darren Pytel said. Rainbow crosswalks will still be allowed, as they typically are, in a local park for the city's Pride celebrations this weekend, he said.

By the end of June that flag was defaced - someone had drawn a crossed out circle over it in thick sharpie. Made me sad.

Carvalho said there's no sex education in the book at issue.

It would probably help if the bigoted parents actually read the book for condemning it.