*A Southern California business owner was shot and killed Friday by a man who objected to an LGBTQ+ Pride flag displayed at her clothing store, officials said.
San Bernardino County sheriff’s deputies responded to the Mag.Pi clothing store in Cedar Glen, Calif., at around 5 p.m. local time for reports of a shooting.
Deputies discovered the victim, 66-year-old Laura Ann Carleton, suffering from a gunshot wound. Carleton was pronounced dead at the scene, the San Bernardino Sheriff’s Department said in a news release.
The suspect, who was not identified by officials, fled the scene on foot.
According to deputies, the man made “several disparaging remarks about a rainbow flag” that stood outside Carleton’s store before ultimately shooting her.*
May Laura Ann Carleton rest in peace. She risked her life to support the LGBT community. Her death should not be in vain. Every motherfucker going on about grooming or drag queens or pro-LGBT indoctrination has blood on their hands. Whoever killed her needs to understand the consequences of what they did.
I don’t think she really risked her life for it. Nobody puts up a rainbow flag expecting to become a martyr.
What happened is that a crazy person used a flag as an excuse to focus their anger onto someone who had nothing to do with whatever the source of that anger was. It could have been a Joe Biden campaign sign or a marijuana poster that set them off. It just so happens that this time it was a rainbow flag.
I guess my point is that putting up a flag isn’t “risking your life,” it’s just a flag. I see absolutely no reason for Ms. Carleton to have even considered that putting up that flag was a risk. She was an innocent victim of a crazy-person, and that’s more terrifying to me than thinking that putting up a flag was risky behavior.