Orange-Osceola State Attorney Monique Worrell announced Friday that she is not charging the six protesters arrested last year for chalking the crosswalk at the Pulse massacre site in Orlando.
State workers had painted over the rainbow colors put there previously by the Florida Department of Transportation. The crosswalk honored the memory of the 49 people killed in a mass shooting at the LBGTQ+ nightclub in June 2016.
The protesters were arrested on three different occasions by Florida Highway Patrol troopers on felony criminal mischief for allegedly interfering with a traffic control device and causing more than $1,000 dollars in damage.
"The evidence did not support these charges, and it didn't even come close," Worrell said during a press conference. "And this office will not use the power of prosecution as an instrument of political enforcement, not against this community, not against anyone."
Worrell said two senior attorneys with her office spent a hundred hours working on the unprecedented cases. They found selective arrests, uncooperative troopers and state agencies, and no actual damage or defacement from the chalk.
"There is also a First Amendment problem that would shadow any prosecution, even if the other elements could be satisfied," Worrell added. "This conduct occurred at a recognized memorial site, used a medium chalk that is temporary and non-damaging, and took place in a traditional public forum. A prosecution that survived the damage and defacement arguments would almost certainly not survive constitutional scrutiny."
That was not her reason for declining to charge, Worrell said, "but is part of the full picture my prosecutors were required to consider."
She said questions remain about the arrests themselves and the state of Florida''s decision to erase the LGBTQ+ symbol.
"The cases are closed," she said. "The questions are not."
'A sigh of relief'
Twenty-eight-year-old James Houchins was one of two men arrested in November.
The pending felony charge complicated his life, Houchins said. He lost the place where he was living and his contract jobs like driving for Uber.
His accounts were suspended, Houchins said. "You don't have time to explain that it's just for chalk. All they see is a pending felony for criminal mischief with damage greater than $1,000 and you're done."
Friday's decision brings "a sigh of relief," he said. "And I think this is a win for the whole community to show that, you know, come back out, chalk, stand up. And, I mean, personally, our little group, we're not going to stop. We've been at it for 246 days, and ... I mean, until they come back and paint it, we're not going to stop chalking."
Democratic State Sen. Carlos Guillermo Smith was at the State Attorney's Office for the press conference.
The situation at Pulse -- the removal of the rainbow crosswalk and the arrests -- was "wrong in so many ways," Smith said.
"It's just really unfortunate," he said, "that this is where our politics is, that we have an administration that decided that they were going to weaponize something that was sacred."
Emails seeking comment from Gov. Ron DeSantis's office and the Florida Highway Patrol had not been answered as of Friday afternoon.
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