Luckily they missed that person, but unfortunately, they hit two other people.”Īt the time Trantalis made the statement, there was no evidence to suggest his claims were in any way true. It was deliberate, it was premeditated, and it was targeted against a specific person. “This is a terrorist attack against the LGBT community,” Trantalis told WPLG.
Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) “by inches” and called the incident a “terrorist attack. Within moments of the tragedy and before any information was known, Democrats and the media began treating it as a deliberate attack on the LGBT community.įort Lauderdale Mayor Dean Trantalis, a Democrat, was at the parade and claimed the truck narrowly missed Rep.
One man was killed while another was injured when the driver of a pickup truck accelerated and ran them over. when the first gay pride event was held after a 1969 police raid of a gay bar in New York City’s Greenwich Village. “As the facts continue to be pieced together, a picture is emerging of an accident in which a truck careened out of control.A tragic accident at the Stonewall Pride Parade in Wilton Manors, Florida, was turned into a political weapon by Democrats and their media supporters. The Portland Pride parade returns for the first time since 2019. A driver who plowed into a Pride parade near Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on Saturday, killing one person and critically injuring another, accidentally crashed into the crowd, officials said Sunday. I feared it could be intentional based on what I saw from mere feet away,” he said in a Twitter statement Sunday. Trantalis, who is Fort Lauderdale's first openly gay mayor, initially told reporters the act was deliberate, adding to the confusion Saturday night. Flowers lie at the scene where a driver slammed into spectators at the start of a Pride parade Saturday evening, killing one man and seriously injuring another, Sunday, June 20, 2021, in Fort. “I was getting phone calls from people I knew at the other end waiting for the parade saying, ‘Is this true? Is that true, do we have anything to worry about?’ You don’t know at that point.”įort Lauderdale Police said no arrests have been made saying they are conducting a thorough investigation with the FBI, nothing in a statement they are “considering and evaluating all possibilities.” Police and firefighters respond after a truck drove into a crowd of people injuring them during The Stonewall Pride Parade and Street Festival in Wilton Manors, Fla., on Saturday, June 19, 2021. “People were really distraught and some people were crying,” said Rolli, who explained that the crash happened in an area where the floats were lining up, so there weren’t as many parade-goers. In the confusion, it was unclear what happened. Rolli was on the other side of the float and didn’t witness the crash, but jumped off immediately and ran to the victims. Several hundred people attended the event, including Owen Recker, of Fort Dodge, at left, who came to offer. The driver continued across all lanes of traffic, ultimately crashing into a fence on the other side of the street, police said. The Fort Dodge Pride Festival Parade makes its way down Central Avenue Saturday morning. Trantalis said the driver of a pickup truck suddenly accelerated when he was told he was next in the parade, crashing into the victims. The driver of a pickup truck accidentally struck and killed one man and injured another as marchers were getting ready to begin a Pride parade in South Florida.
Rolli was on the float in front of the chorus truck along with Fort Lauderdale Mayor Dean Trantalis and other city officials at a staging area where the floats were being readied. Florida Pride parade crash that killed one appears unintentional, officials say Statement clarified initial speculation that it was a hate crime directed at the gay community One person died and. To my knowledge, this was not an attack on the LGBTQ community,” President Justin Knight said in a statement Sunday, calling it “an unfortunate accident.” “Our fellow Chorus members were those injured and the driver is also a part of the Chorus family. The driver and the victims were a part of the Fort Lauderdale Gay Men’s Chorus family, a small 25-member group of mostly older men.