Most of the paint that had been splashed on a rainbow crosswalk in Surrey has now been cleaned up, but not before leaving some residents upset over the possible statement being made by defacing what’s known as a symbol of equality and support for pride.
“That’s a pretty terrible thing to do… it’s probably someone really against pride,” a passerby told Global News.
The crosswalk, which was painted just a week-and-a-half ago, at Old Yale Road and University Drive, was defaced over the weekend.
READ MORE: Surrey’s brand new rainbow crosswalk has already been defaced
It was installed as part of the city’s pride celebration on June 30.
“It’s very sad actually, like government is trying to make the city beautiful but people are not taking care of it and we are equally responsible to handle all these kinds of things… to maintain it and just try and protect all those kinds of things… it’s sad to see,” another passerby said.
The motive behind the white paint being splattered on the brand new crosswalk is not known but it’s not the first rainbow crosswalk to be damaged and doesn’t come as a surprise for some.
“I expected it, there’s a lot of people in this area who… are really angry, they’re pissed off with a lot of things, with our government and local government and… there’s just a lot of angry people,” a separate passerby said when asked what they thought about the white paint on the crosswalk.
City crews used a high-pressure steam cleaner to get rid of the vandalism, which is being investigated by Surrey RCMP as an act of mischief.
“At this time there is nothing overtly to say the person wasn’t just protesting the city’s spending on this crosswalk… maybe it is paint that fell out of a truck, we don’t know… it looks like it’s probably a case of vandalism, we are still looking into it,” Cpl. Elenore Sturko told Global News.
Surrey RCMP is asking anyone with information to contact them.