Sacramento County residents ‘don’t want to back down to hate’ after vandals burn Pride flags

Johanna Martinezmoles had an ominous feeling someone would try to vandalize her rainbow-colored Pride flag when she first placed it last year outside her Antelope home.

She said she knows raising a flag to show she and her family are allies to the LGBTQ+ community would unintentionally become a lightning rod to criticism from the intolerant, even in their Sacramento County suburban neighborhood.

So it came with little surprise this year to Martinezmoles when her home became the target of vandalism, which is now being investigated as a hate crime. Her family’s Pride flags have been yanked from the small flag installation just outside her front door three times in the past year; burned twice in an intimidating manner.

But it hasn’t stopped the Martinezmoles family from placing a symbol or message of inclusiveness and tolerance in front of their home this month during LGBTQ+ Pride Month.

“You do not want to risk the safety of your family or your house,” Martinezmoles said. “But you also don’t want to back down to bullies. You don’t want to back down to hate.”

Her home was most recently targeted on June 7. That same week, Pride flags were taken down and burned at two other Antelope homes in the area, said Sgt. Amar Gandhi, a Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office spokesman.

“We take these crimes seriously,” Gandhi said. “These are not some teenage pranks. These are hateful crimes against a marginalized group protected under state law.”

Sheriff’s investigators had not yet identified any suspects, but Gandhi said detectives were still collecting video and trying to find other possible witnesses.

The preliminary information gathered indicates the suspects were likely teens in groups of up to eight, all of them wearing masks, Gandhi said.

“They’ve been seen casing neighborhoods, possibly looking for targets,” Gandhi said. “We need people to report these types of incidents, so we can try and contact and identify them.”

First Pride flag was burned last year

Martinezmoles was at home in March 2022, not long after her family installed their first Pride flag, when she spotted two boys in front of her house. One of the boys was recording video with his cellphone — the flag was already on the ground. She went outside and the boys ran off in different directions.

“I did not call police at the time, thinking they were just dumb kids,” Martinezmoles said.

The family placed the Pride flag back up. A week later, her youngest son arrived home and found the charred Pride flag on their front porch. After watching security videos from neighbors, Martinezmoles learned a group of boys had torn down the Pride flag, burned it on the street behind their home and placed it under a rock on her porch.

“It was burned somewhere else and brought back,” Martinezmoles said. “It was very clearly intentional.”

This time, she called the Sheriff’s Office and reported the crime. She said deputies arrived at her home and collected evidence. She later heard that investigators had a juvenile “person-of-interest,” but no arrests were made.

The most recent incident at her home occurred around 7:30 p.m. June 7. The Pride flag, which is rotated with an American flag, had only been up for about four days when a group of vandals pulled down the Pride flag and burned it on the street in front of the home.

A neighbor across the street the commotion, spotted the vandals, yelled at them and scared them away, according to Martinezmoles. The neighbor’s husband grabbed the scorched Pride flag and returned it to the Martinezmoles’ front lawn.

“My heart kind of sunk, because this had happened before,” Martinezmoles said. “I think it’s the same group of kids.”

Antelope neighbors support family

The incidents have brought her closer to her neighbors, who showed support in the wake of the latest crime. Martinezmoles says she hasn’t raised another Pride Flag because the vandals left behind wall damage after yanking at the flag pole. Instead, the family placed a sign where the Pride flag would be with the message: “We have decided to stick to love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.”

It’s a slight variation on a quote from Martin Luther King Jr.

“I think it’s really the message of tolerance,” Martinezmoles said. “Everyone is allowed to have what beliefs they have. This is my belief on my property, and you can just walk by.

“It’s not bothering you.”

Shannon Gentry, who lives about a mile away from Martinezmoles, continues to replace her Pride flags, even though the flags were taken down and burned on the street twice in four days. Gentry’s Antelope home was among the three that were targeted earlier this month.

Like her neighbors, Gentry believes the same group of youths are responsible. In the incidents June 8 and 12, her security cameras captured one of the vandals jumping her 3-foot front yard fence, grabbing the Pride flag and take to the rest of the group on the street where it was burned. The video shows the vandals using a lighter fluid to start the fire.

Gentry said she lives among welcoming neighbors who have been supportive in the aftermath of the attacks. Martinezmoles contacted Gentry after the attacks, and the two have become friends.

Gentry encouraged other Antelope residents or anyone else with information about these hate crimes to call the Sheriff’s Office at 916-874-5115. She hopes the attention these crimes have received doesn’t go away after Pride month ends.

“We really want our home, just as any home, to be respected,” Gentry said to the vandals. “We fly our Pride flags throughout the year, not just in June, and your hate nor intolerance will not stop us from continuing to be allies nor sharing our love and desire for equality.”