<div class="css-s99gbd StoryBodyCompanionColumn" data-testid="companionColumn-0"><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">A rainbow crosswalk that was part of a memorial to the 49 people killed in a 2016 mass shooting at a popular gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla., was painted over this week by the state of Florida, raising outcry from city officials and the community.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">The removal of the mural outside the Pulse nightclub, a crosswalk that resembled the L.G.B.T.Q. Pride flag, appeared to be in response to a federal directive issued last month, the latest example of President Trump’s crackdown on what his administration perceives as political demonstrations on public land, particularly those that criticize his policies.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">The state’s action came as a surprise to city officials and residents, who said they woke up on Thursday to find the mural gone.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Mayor Buddy Dyer of Orlando said <a class="css-yywogo" href="https://www.facebook.com/orlandomayor/posts/we-are-devastated-to-learn-that-overnight-the-state-painted-over-the-pulse-memor/1314700003355369" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" title="">in a statement</a> on Thursday that the colorful blocks of the crosswalk had been covered up with black paint overnight.</p></div><aside aria-label="companion column" class="css-ew4tgv"></aside></div><div data-testid="Dropzone-1"></div><div class="css-s99gbd StoryBodyCompanionColumn" data-testid="companionColumn-1"><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">A video <a class="css-yywogo" href="https://www.orlandosentinel.com/2025/08/22/in-34-minutes-under-cover-of-darkness-the-pulse-rainbow-crosswalk-was-erased/?clearUserState=true" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" title="">obtained by The Orlando Sentinel</a> showed a road crew painting after 11 p.m. on Wednesday.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">“This callous action of hastily removing part of a memorial to what was at the time our nation’s largest mass shooting, without any supporting safety data or discussion, is a cruel political act,” Mr. Dyer said.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">The memorial appeared to have been removed by the Florida Department of Transportation, following a letter that the Trump administration sent last month to all the states.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">The letter, signed by Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, cited traffic fatalities, which he admitted have been trending downward, in saying that crosswalks should be kept “free from distractions.”</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">He neither specified what those distractions were nor ordered their removal. But in a social media post where he replied to news coverage of the letter, Mr. Duffy suggested it was targeting L.G.B.T.Q. murals.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">“Taxpayers expect their dollars to fund safe streets, not rainbow crosswalks,” Mr. Duffy <a class="css-yywogo" href="https://x.com/SecDuffy/status/1940149175108440264" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" title="">wrote</a>. “Political banners have no place on public roads.”</p></div><aside aria-label="companion column" class="css-ew4tgv"></aside></div><div data-testid="Dropzone-3"></div><div class="css-s99gbd StoryBodyCompanionColumn" data-testid="companionColumn-2"><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">The federal Department of Transportation did not immediately respond to questions about the mural’s removal on Saturday.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">While the Trump administration didn’t appear to have a direct hand in the removal of the mural, it has in recent months removed or sidelined L.G.B.T.Q. <a class="css-yywogo" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/18/us/yosemite-biologist-fired-transgender-pride-flag-el-capitan.html" title="">flags</a> and <a class="css-yywogo" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/23/arts/design/trump-targets-smithsonian-museums-chilling-effect.html" title="">art</a>.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">The memorial was painted by the city of Orlando at <a class="css-yywogo" href="https://www.wesh.com/article/rainbow-crosswalk-installed-outside-of-pulse/12822752" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" title="">the intersection of Orange Avenue and Esther Street, just south of the Pulse site</a>, in 2017, after thousands of people signed a petition in favor of it.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">It was <a class="css-yywogo" href="https://www.wesh.com/article/rainbow-crosswalk-installed-outside-of-pulse/12822752" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" title="">approved</a> by the state’s Transportation Department at the time, according to local television station WESH2.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Mr. Dyer said in his statement that the mural “enhanced safety and visibility for the large number of pedestrians visiting the memorial,” as well as serving “as a visual reminder of Orlando’s commitment to honor the 49 lives taken.”</p></div><aside aria-label="companion column" class="css-ew4tgv"></aside></div><div data-testid="Dropzone-5"></div><div class="css-s99gbd StoryBodyCompanionColumn" data-testid="companionColumn-3"><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">The massacre at Pulse during Pride month in 2016, which also left 53 wounded, was the country’s deadliest mass shooting at the time.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">It <a class="css-yywogo" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/13/us/orlando-attack-roils-gay-community.html?rref=collection%2Fnewseventcollection%2F2016-orlando-shooting" title="">roiled the city’s gay community.</a> Nine years after the shooting, the nightclub is permanently closed and the building is <a class="css-yywogo" href="https://www.orlandosentinel.com/2025/06/17/a-look-inside-orlandos-pulse-nightclub-before-demolition/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" title="">set to be demolished</a> later this year, though plans for a multimillion-dollar memorial at the site were <a class="css-yywogo" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/02/arts/planned-museum-to-honor-pulse-nightclub-victims-canceled.html" title="">scrapped in 2023</a>.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">On Thursday, a Democratic state senator posted a video from the site of the painted-over crosswalk. In response, Gov. Ron DeSantis <a class="css-yywogo" href="https://x.com/GovRonDeSantis/status/1958583393714667572" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" title="">said</a> in a social media post that he would not allow the state’s roads “to be commandeered for political purposes.”</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Another local television outlet, WKMG News 6, reported on Friday that the state had sent city officials a list of almost 20 other pavement markings that needed to be removed, but the rainbow crosswalk outside Pulse was reportedly <a class="css-yywogo" href="https://www.clickorlando.com/news/politics/2025/08/22/florida-officials-sent-orlando-a-list-of-crosswalk-art-to-be-removed-pulse-wasnt-on-it/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" title="">not on that list</a>.</p></div><aside aria-label="companion column" class="css-ew4tgv"></aside></div><div data-testid="Dropzone-7"></div><div class="css-s99gbd StoryBodyCompanionColumn" data-testid="companionColumn-4"><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">The city of Orlando directed all questions about the removal of the mural to the state’s Transportation Department, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Saturday.</p></div><aside aria-label="companion column" class="css-ew4tgv"></aside></div><div data-testid="ImageBlock-9"><div data-testid="imageblock-wrapper"><figure aria-label="media" class="img-sz-medium css-d754w4 e1g7ppur0" role="group"><div class="css-1xdhyk6 erfvjey0" data-testid="photoviewer-children-figure"><span class="css-1ly73wi e1tej78p0">Image</span><div class="css-nwd8t8" data-testid="lazy-image"><div data-testid="lazyimage-container" style="height:257.77777777777777px"></div></div></div><figcaption class="css-gbc9ki ewdxa0s0" data-testid="photoviewer-children-caption"><span class="css-jevhma e13ogyst0">Demonstrators waving flags during a protest by a crosswalk that was painted over by the Florida Department of Transportation, near the building that was the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Fla., on Thursday.</span><span class="css-14fe1uy e1z0qqy90"><span class="css-1ly73wi e1tej78p0">Credit...</span><span><span aria-hidden="false">Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel, via Associated Press</span></span></span></figcaption></figure></div></div><div class="css-s99gbd StoryBodyCompanionColumn" data-testid="companionColumn-5"><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Brandon Wolf, a survivor of the shooting at Pulse, <a class="css-yywogo" href="https://x.com/bjoewolf/status/1958718992421396889" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" title="">on social media</a> accused Mr. DeSantis’s administration of having “snuck in and tried to quietly erase the state-approved crosswalk.”</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">“A memorial to my dead brothers isn’t political,” Mr. Wolf wrote.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Mr. Wolf also shared a photograph of him and Mr. DeSantis during what he said was the governor’s visit to Pulse in 2019, the year Mr. DeSantis was elected. </p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">The governor’s office did not immediately respond to questions on Saturday. Mr. DeSantis has previously <a class="css-yywogo" href="https://www.politico.com/states/florida/story/2019/06/12/desantis-does-about-face-after-omitting-lgbtq-from-pulse-proclamation-1058537" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" title="">been criticized</a> for his statements about commemorations of the Pulse shooting and <a class="css-yywogo" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/01/us/politics/desantis-video-lgbtq-trump.html" title="">the state’s L.G.B.T.Q. community</a>.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">In protest of the repainting, people were seen on Thursday scribbling the colors of the rainbow over the black lines of the crosswalk with bright-colored chalk.</p></div><aside aria-label="companion column" class="css-ew4tgv"></aside></div><div data-testid="Dropzone-11"></div><div class="css-s99gbd StoryBodyCompanionColumn" data-testid="companionColumn-6"><div class="css-53u6y8"><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">“We will NOT be erased,” Carlos Guillermo Smith, the state senator whose video Mr. DeSantis responded to, <a class="css-yywogo" href="https://x.com/CarlosGSmith/status/1958591858185007232" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" title="">said in a separate post</a>.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Mr. Smith, an advocate for the rights of the L.G.B.T.Q. community and whose district includes part of Orlando, was seen crouched over the crosswalk with others on Thursday, chalk in hand.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">On Friday evening, as a second night of protests was underway, the crosswalk had been <a class="css-yywogo" href="https://www.fox35orlando.com/news/defiant-protesters-repaint-pulse-memorial-crosswalk-rainbow-colors-after-state-covers" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" title="">fully repainted</a> in the rainbow colors.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">Mr. Wolf <a class="css-yywogo" href="https://x.com/bjoewolf/status/1959087422848852312" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" title="">shared an image on social media</a> of a rainbow in the sky above the crosswalk.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">It’s unclear if the new rainbow paint pattern of the crosswalk will stick around. But people left messages in chalk between the lines.</p><p class="css-at9mc1 evys1bk0">“Not going anywhere,” one read.</p></div><aside aria-label="companion column" class="css-ew4tgv"></aside></div><div data-testid="ImageBlock-13"><div data-testid="imageblock-wrapper"><figure aria-label="media" class="img-sz-medium css-d754w4 e1g7ppur0" role="group"><div class="css-1xdhyk6 erfvjey0" data-testid="photoviewer-children-figure"><span class="css-1ly73wi e1tej78p0">Image</span><div class="css-nwd8t8" data-testid="lazy-image"><div data-testid="lazyimage-container" style="height:263.5777777777778px"></div></div></div><figcaption class="css-gbc9ki ewdxa0s0" data-testid="photoviewer-children-caption"><span class="css-jevhma e13ogyst0">State Senator Carlos Guillermo Smith helping Dallas Perdew color a crosswalk with chalk in Orlando on Thursday, after the rainbow memorial at the site had been painted over.</span><span class="css-14fe1uy e1z0qqy90"><span class="css-1ly73wi e1tej78p0">Credit...</span><span><span aria-hidden="false">Willie J. Allen Jr./Orlando Sentinel, via Associated Press</span></span></span></figcaption></figure></div></div><div data-testid="RelatedLinksBlock-14"><div data-testid="lazy-loader"></div></div>