\n Dallas Police arrest man accused of misdemeanor graffiti of crosswalk | Image by FOX4Terry\/Paige Ellenberger\/Facebook <\/p>\n
A 25-year-old man was arrested early Tuesday after police caught him attempting to repaint a rainbow crosswalk in the Oak Lawn neighborhood, less than 24 hours after the city began removing the decorative markings to comply with a state order.<\/p>\n
Dallas officers spotted Joseph Whiteside at the intersection of Cedar Springs Road and Knight Street around 3:30 a.m. He had outlined a rainbow design and planned to fill it in with chalk, according to authorities. <\/p>\n
Officers allegedly found<\/a> him with a bag containing paint and colored chalk. <\/p>\n He was charged<\/a> with misdemeanor graffiti and taken into custody on two outstanding felony warrants from Farmer\u2019s Branch, Dallas Voice reported.<\/p>\n The arrest came one day after city crews began removing<\/a> 30 decorative crosswalks, including the rainbow ones in Oak Lawn, as The Dallas Express reported.<\/p>\n The removals follow a directive from the Texas Department of Transportation labeling the designs as \u201cpolitical messaging\u201d and a potential distraction to drivers. Last year, Gov. Greg Abbott ordered cities to eliminate such markings or risk losing state funding.<\/p>\n TxDOT first notified Dallas in October 2025 that the crosswalks did not meet the standards set forth in the Texas Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices. On January 15, the state denied<\/a> the city\u2019s request to keep the non-standard pavement markings.<\/p>\n Officials expect all 30 crosswalks \u2014 which also include a Black Lives Matter design in Fair Park \u2014 to meet state requirements by April 28. The city aims to finish the work within three weeks.<\/p>\n Constitutional lawyer David Coale said the state\u2019s action appears legal if applied without exceptions, according to Fox.<\/p>\n \u201cIf they have a rule that purports to be about anything in a crosswalk, but they only enforce it against certain kinds of crosswalks, there might be some argument there,\u201d Coale said. \u201cBut generally speaking, when the state spends money, it gets to put conditions on it.\u201d<\/p>\n