Tucker Alden Kemp was arrested over his anti-LGBTQ+ tirade. (Pinellas County Jail)
A Florida man has reportedly been arrested after violently ripping down a Pride flag in a local Starbucks, demanding the staff display the American flag instead.
31-year-old Tucker Alden Kemp reportedly went on a major anti-LGBTQ+ tirade inside a branch of the international coffee shop in St Petersburg, Florida.
According to an arrest affidavit, Kemp entered the shop and told the manager the flag was offensive and should be replaced with the Star Spangled Banner.
After being told it is store policy to display the Pride flag, Kemp allegedly threw tea on the flag, ripped it off the wall, and threw it in a nearby rubbish bin.
Tucker Alden Kemp was arrested at the Starbucks in Florida. (not pictured) (Getty)
He was then arrested and taken to the Pinellas County Jail where he was kept for six hours before being released on a $500 bond. Police have charged him with criminal mischief, a misdemeanor.
The incident cost the Starbucks branch at least $210 worth of damage to the wall and the flag, according to local outlet FOX13.
The Smoking Gun reports that Kemp, the father of a young girl, is a registered Republican and works as a sales manager at a funeral home chain.
Anti-LGBTQ+ hate crimes involving vandalism or destruction/damage of property are increasingly prevelant in the US, according to statistics from the FBI.
Over the past year, there have been at least 160 reported criminal acts of vandalism motivated by anti-LGBTQ+ views, making it the most common offence type ahead of assault, of which there have been 154 reported incidents.
Florida has become a centre-point for anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric, in large part due to Republican governor Ron DeSantis’ continually homophobic political actions.
The state’s Department of Transportation (FDOT) has, over the past few months, removed several rainbow crosswalks in Miami Beach, Fort Lauderdale, Boynton Beach, and Key West, over what it called “social, political, or ideological messages.”
After a rainbow crosswalk dedicated to the victims of the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting was removed by state officials, activists in the area came together to colour it back in using chalk.
Activist and survivor of the shooting, Brandon Wolf, branded the government’s actions as “cowardly,” adding in a post on X/Twitter: “A memorial to my dead brothers isn’t political. But your cowardly, dead-of-night erasure of it sure is.”