Man accused of damaging Pride flags, Black Lives Matter signs in St. Paul
A 23-year-old St. Paul, Minnesota, man is accused of damaging several Pride flags and Black Lives Matter signs in the Highland Park and Macalester-Groveland neighborhood in June.
According to charges filed in Ramsey County, dozens of homes in the area reported property damage to the St. Paul Police Department. Residents said No Kings, Pride, Black Lives Matter and anti-Trump signs and flags were broken.
Officers executed a search warrant at the man's residence on Pinehurst Avenue in St. Paul and recovered "a trove of evidence linking him to the criminal damage to property incidents."
Charging documents said there was note on the man's phone that had a list of 69 separate addresses in the Highland Park and Macalester-Groveland areas. Six of those addresses reported criminal damage to property to police.
On his phone, police found pictures of multiple damaged and shredded Pride flags, as well as yard signs that were cut in half down the middle, documents say.
In one instance, the man texted a friend a photo of a Pride flag in the sewage drain and said he urinated on it, documents say. When the friend asked if he took down American flags, he responded that he would "never tear down American flags."
The friend, in a separate conversation, told him that he should "stop raiding random people's houses."
According to the complaint, the man sent photos of the items he damaged to the friend. In one instance he added he "smashed" two windows at a business which had a Pride flag behind the window.
A St. Paul school also reported that windows with a Pride flag behind it were broken overnight, with the cost to repair them totaling more than $11,000. Surveillance video from the school shows the man wearing clothing that matched what he was wearing in other photos involving property damage, the criminal complaint says.
Separate charging documents accuse the man of approaching a home with a fixed-blade knife and using it to manipulate hinges on the storm door. He was thwarted by he homeowner, who asked him what he was doing through his Ring doorbll camera. Inside the door was a sign that read "We will not obey," documents say.
He is charged with one count of possession of burglary theft or tools and two felony counts of first-degree damage to property.