Heroes Stand Watch Overnight To Prevent Pride Crosswalk From Being Defaced

Because there are pieces of shit who have already vandalized them twice

Crosswalks in Lethbridge, Alberta were painted with colors to help celebrate the city’s Pride parade. And then those crosswalks were defaced, multiple times.

So on the weekend before the parade, a group of heroes stayed up all night to make sure it didn’t happen again.

On June 13th and then again on June 15th, the city’s Transgender and Rainbow flag crosswalks were vandalized, once with skid marks, once with paint and piles of manure. Because 2017 is apparently trying to compete with 2016 to be the worst.

The city spent $1000 to sandblast the crosswalks and repaint them, and in order to prevent further vandalism, a group of locals spent this past Friday night keeping watch.

According to Lethbridge News Now, a half-dozen University of Lethbridge athletes and local citizens took it upon themselves to protect the Pride symbols on the eve of the celebration.

“There’s been people popping in and out all night long. We’ve been up as high as 15 people, and some people getting off work at 3 am and joining in. So it’s been a great night,” Peter Millman, one of the good Samaritans, told the paper.

Buzzfeed spoke with Mike Morrison, a Calgary blogger who happened upon the group and initially wasn’t sure of their intentions.

“In my head, I thought they’re either there for a really good reason or a really bad reason,” Morrison said. “I went over and asked what they were doing. They said, ‘Oh, these were vandalized this week so we’re just going to spend the night watching it.’ They said they just wanted to make sure everyone had a great Pride, and then I just started bawling.”

The crosswalks survived.

Millman told Lethbridge News Now that it wasn’t always just the six of them.

“There’s been people popping in and out all night long. We’ve been up as high as 15 people, and some people getting off work at 3 am and joining in. So it’s been a great night.” Some appreciative people even dropped off coffee to help the crosswalk defenders make it through the night.

Mike Morrison was overwhelmed by what he saw. “I’m so happy I saw it,” he told Buzzfeed Canada. We know the feeling; we’re so happy to learn about it too.

Despite 2017’s horrible track record, there’s always a silver lining. Or a pristine rainbow.