\u201cI wasn\u2019t hurting anybody,\u201d Whiteside, who is queer, told The Dallas Morning News Tuesday. \u201cI didn\u2019t damage anything. I literally just put back the same things that had been there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Crime in The News<\/p>\n
By signing up, you agree to our\u00a0Terms of Service<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Privacy Policy.<\/a><\/p>\n Related<\/p>\n Shortly before 3:30 a.m., Whiteside was painting near the intersection of Cedar Springs Road and Knight Street, when two police officers walked over. <\/p>\n Whiteside recalled a series of exchanges that went like this: <\/p>\n \u201cHey, buddy, what are you doing?\u201d one of the officers asked. <\/p>\n \u201cWhat does it look like I\u2019m doing?\u201d Whiteside replied. <\/p>\n He was then asked if he realized that what he was doing was a crime. <\/p>\n \u201cAm I under arrest?\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cNo,\u201d both officers said. <\/p>\n So Whiteside told them he was leaving, that it was his right, but said the officers wouldn\u2019t let him go. <\/p>\n \u201cYou just told me I\u2019m not under arrest,\u201d Whiteside said. <\/p>\n \u201cWell, you are now.\u201d<\/p>\n Mason Whiteside of Carrollton shows his artwork that he painted on an Oak Lawn crosswalk following the removal of rainbow crosswalks, Tuesday, March 24, 2026, in Dallas. <\/p>\n Chitose Suzuki \/ Staff Photographer<\/p>\n Police officials told The News in an email that Whiteside was detained for unrelated, outstanding warrants. According to Whiteside, he was only informed of a speeding ticket and failure to appear in court out of Farmers Branch, an incident from more than three years ago. <\/p>\n Whiteside was taken Tuesday to a Dallas County jail, then to the City Marshal\u2019s office, and finally to Farmers Branch, he said, where he paid $972 to be released. He left at 10:35 a.m.<\/p>\n Mason Whiteside of Carrollton poses for a photo in front of the Oak Lawn United Methodist Church, Tuesday, March 24, 2026, in Dallas. <\/p>\n Chitose Suzuki \/ Staff Photographer<\/p>\n Tuesday afternoon, Whiteside tried to distract himself. He worked in his garden, tending to his peonies. <\/p>\n It was a feeble effort. <\/p>\n He thought about why he moved to Dallas in the first place. It was 2023 and he\u2019d had enough of Amarillo, his \u201csmall-minded\u201d hometown, he said. He wanted to start over, to grow up, to find some bigger dreams. <\/p>\n \u201cThis isn\u2019t the Dallas that I came to love,\u201d Whiteside said. \u201cAnd how much longer until it\u2019s not just crosswalks? Until they take our spaces \u2014 our actual spaces? There are a series of dominoes that could fall.\u201d<\/p>\n He\u2019s disappointed. Angry. Scared, even. But he\u2019s not discouraged. <\/p>\n \u201cEvery single time they try to take it away,\u201d he said, \u201cI\u2019m going to put it right back.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was already dark when Mason Whiteside finished his workday at a Deep Ellum brewery. By the time…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":218839,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[294,102,104,103,287,27,1499],"class_list":{"0":"post-218838","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas","8":"tag-crime","9":"tag-dallas","10":"tag-dallas-headlines","11":"tag-dallas-news","12":"tag-politics","13":"tag-texas","14":"tag-u-s-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218838","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=218838"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218838\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/218839"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218838"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218838"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/M6KWSBUL35AI7JZ6R3BAF2A72M.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Mason](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/3CDGKLQR3ZDCLJKHGS6C7FOF3I.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Mason](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/SRZQGFC6JRFUHJGK5O54CS6QNU.jpg\")
<\/p>\n