February 21, 2023
Arson Attack Targets Restaurant's Pride Flag, Sparks Hate Crime Investigation
Kilian Melloy READ TIME: 2 MIN.
A female suspect was captured on security video setting fire to a New York City restaurant's Pride flag in an arson attack that is being treated as a hate crime by police.
The New York Times reported on the content of the security video, which recorded the events that unfolded in front of Little Prince restaurant on Prince Street in SoHo a little after 1:35 a.m. on the morning of Feb. 20.
The camera recorded "a white SUV stopping in front of the restaurant and waiting while a woman gets out, approaches the building, pulls out a lighter and touches it to a rainbow-colored flag," the Times recounted.
"After igniting the flag, the woman hops back into the passenger side of the vehicle, which drives west on Prince Street," the article goes on to say.
"The restaurant was closed at the time, and no one was injured in the fire, the police said. It caused minor damage to the facade and none to the interior."
Even so, the blaze prompted a massive response, with a dozen units and more than 60 firefighters and first responders rushing to the scene of the blaze.
The property crime is suspected to have been motivated by anti-LGBTQ+ hate, and New York's police are investigating the arson attack as such, the Times noted, adding that the NYPD's Hate Crime Task Force has released an image of the suspect and asked the public for help in identifying her.
The report also noted that the restaurant quickly made repairs, with "workers... busy inside and outside the restaurant, painting, moving chairs and tables and replacing windows." City Councilman Erik Bottcher, who represents Manhattan, was on hand to help install a new, and larger, Pride flag at the front of the establishment. Bottcher declared that the perpetrator's "plan has backfired and backfired badly."
One resident – 77-year-old out gay Vietnam vet Al DiRaffaele, a neighbor to the restaurant – decried the crime, declaring "This is war here in America against the L.G.B.T. group," and saying that a hate crime such as the one the camera recorded "affects me, being a gay man."
"It's a slap in my face, along with every gay person in the world," DiRaffaele said.
Kilian Melloy serves as EDGE Media Network's Associate Arts Editor and Staff Contributor. His professional memberships include the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association, the Boston Online Film Critics Association, The Gay and Lesbian Entertainment Critics Association, and the Boston Theater Critics Association's Elliot Norton Awards Committee.
