Stolen, damaged pride flags in Boise North End: Police say they’ve had enough

Every June, the Boise Pride Festival hangs colorful LGBTQ+ flags on Harrison Boulevard in the North End neighborhood to celebrate Pride Month. The flags, hung in coordination with the North End Neighborhood Association, aim to send a message of “peace and love” in one of the most progressive neighborhoods in Idaho, said Donald Williamson, the festival’s executive director.

But for the fourth year in a row, the symbols of “peace and love” have been torn down, stolen and even destroyed.

“We know at the end of the day, it doesn’t speak for the overwhelming feeling of the Boise community,” Williamson told the Idaho Statesman in an interview. “You know, it’s a true testament to that sense of community, is the fact that the community bands together every time this happens and gets them right back up again.”

The thefts have become more frequent each year, and this summer Boise police are making it a priority to find and punish those responsible.

The Boise Police Department began investigating reports of stolen Pride flags on Harrison Boulevard on June 11, spokesperson Haley Williams told the Statesman in a text message. Since then, Boise police opened investigations on three separate theft incidents of flags on the poles that line Harrison Boulevard. Police said loss estimates from the most recent theft incident are over $1,000, which could make this particular crime a felony.

“This is never OK! What a miserable way to express yourself and your views, destroying and stealing the property of another,” Boise Police Chief Ron Winegar wrote in a news release Sunday. “If you disagree with someone or something, you can find a productive way to express your feelings and opinions.”

No one has been arrested in relation with the thefts and vandalism, but police are asking anyone with video evidence of the crimes to come forward. After four years of thefts, local authorities are committed to making sure those responsible face legal action, the Boise police news release read.

“This is your warning: Do not engage in this type of criminal activity or you will be caught and prosecuted,” Winegar wrote in the release. “It is not right, and it is never acceptable to act in this manner.”

In 2021, an 18-year-old was arrested and sentenced to 10 days in jail for stealing flags, the Statesman previously reported. The following year, 35 flags went missing less than two weeks into Pride Month, Boise police said in a news release at the time.

The thefts also escalated to vandalism. Last year, two flags were “torn up and left on the ground,” and 23 flags were stolen across two separate incidents, the Statesman previously reported.

Boise police “will never tolerate stealing or damaging something that doesn’t belong to you,” Winegar wrote in a statement to the Statesman. “We treat these types of reports as a priority because, in addition to this crime being against the law, we also want to help restore that feeling of safety to anyone who may be impacted.”

North End neighbors help support Boise Pride

Boise has long been a largely Democratic city supportive of LGBTQ+ rights in a red state. But even in Boise, the reminder that LGBTQ+ pride continues to be a target of theft and vandalism is worrisome to people like Erik Hagen, board president and planning and zoning chair of the North End Neighborhood Association.

Hagen has had a personal run-in with protesters. Earlier this summer, the Pride flag displayed on Hagen’s front porch was stolen. A porch camera captured the incident, and he was able to file a police report right away, Hagen said. The investigation is still ongoing.

“It keeps happening because there’s ignorant and bigoted people in this state that can’t handle someone living life differently than them,” Hagen told the Statesman in an interview. “Unfortunately, that’s a part of America we can’t get rid of, it’s always going to be there.”

Boise police have spoken with neighbors in the area who have cameras and strategized on other potential prevention options to deter similar incidents from happening again, Winegar said in his statement.

The Boise Pride Festival has no plans to stop putting up more flags along Harrison Boulevard.

In the meantime, residents of the neighborhood continue to replace the Pride flags on their own. When the flags are ripped down, the poles holding them up are also destroyed and left unusable. So a group of North End residents bought new metal to create brand-new flag poles on Harrison Boulevard. Jill Giese. alongside other neighbors, cut, drilled and deburred poles to replace the damaged ones, Giese wrote in a Facebook post.

“No matter how many they pull down, we will put them back up,” Giese wrote in the Facebook post.

The LGBTQ+ community in Boise is no stranger to threats, thefts and other attacks, Williamson said.

Last year, an Oregon man was sentenced to three years in prison for federal hate crimes against LGBTQ+ people in Boise. He pleaded guilty to crimes that involved threatening to stab a transgender library employee, trying to hit two women who he believed were lesbians with his car, and punching a man after calling him a slur.

The Pride flags are a means for the LGBTQ+ community “to get together to recognize the fact that they do have support,” Williamson said. “So putting them in touch with whatever resources that particular member needs at the time, that is what we do.”