Fort Lauderdale, FL - Police in South Florida are investigating after a pride flag street mural was defaced with tire marks last month.
Fort Lauderdale Police are investigating the incident in which a truck was captured on video doing a burnout on a 150 foot long pride flag street mural on Sebastian Street on February 28th.
According to police, a surveillance camera captured the driver of a Ford F-250 pickup truck doing a burnout along the length of the mural before leaving the scene.
The video showed the truck pulling up to the mural and a person getting out of the passenger seat to film the burnout.
The incident has been described as "completely senseless" and "completely filled with hate" by Miik Martorell, president of Pride Fort Lauderdale.
The cost of the damage is over $1,000, and the tire marks do not appear to be able to be washed off without causing damage to the paint.
Officials say the installation had been on display for less than a month before it was defaced.
Fort Lauderdale Mayor Dean Trantalis spoke about the vandalism, telling the culprits to "take your hate somewhere else. We do not want you or anyone like you to be in our city. That's not what we are about here in Fort Lauderdale."
Police are also reviewing surveillance video captured by a resort's cameras to determine whether the flag was intentionally defaced on a second occasion.
The video shows three young men on bicycles circling the flag, leaving several tire marks behind.
The police were reviewing the video and will decide whether they believe this was also an intentional act of vandalism.
"The Fort Lauderdale Police Department is deeply disturbed this incident took place," Fort Lauderdale Police Chief Patrick Lynn said in a statement. "We stand in support of our LGBTQ community and will continue to gather details surrounding this vandalism."
Anyone with information is asked to call police at 954-828-5771.