One summer afternoon, a Pismo Beach resident noticed their Pride flag was mysteriously missing from the front of their home.
Security footage revealed that a young man had come onto their property, grabbed the rainbow flag that hung near their kitchen window, tore it, and threw it in a trash can just off the side of their house.
“I was really upset by this for a couple reasons. Firstly, it just felt like my personal space had been invaded. It made me feel unsafe that somebody had been right up next to the house doing this,” said the Pismo Beach resident, who requested to remain anonymous. “Then it was even more distressing to me because I was flying that flag as an ally of the LGBTQ-plus community because they’re under so much attack and experiencing so much hatred at this point in America. I wanted to show my support for them, and then somebody took it upon themselves to actually say the opposite.”
Initially investigated as a hate crime, the San Luis Obispo County District Attorney’s (DA) Office eventually dropped the charge and ordered the subject to participate in a misdemeanor diversion program instead. And while that Pismo Beach resident said they didn’t want to see the man go to jail, they did believe that the DA had mishandled the case, which they view as an LGBTQ-plus targeted offense.
According to District Attorney Dan Dow, the resident contacted the Pismo Beach Police Department about the incident on July 4, and it was investigated as a hate crime.
But after police determined that the man had a cognitive disability and didn’t show any animosity toward the LGBTQ-plus community, the act did not meet the elements of a hate crime, he said via email.
According to the police report, when questioned by police, the suspect said that the Pride flag was a symbol of love and that he had no hate toward the community.
“When asked which community he was referring to, he said he has gay aunts and that he loves people,” the report read.
“We agreed with their conclusion based on all of the available evidence. We do not minimize the intrusion to the victim and how offensive the conduct was,” Dow told New Times via email. “However, we can only pursue what the applicable law and evidence supports.”
Instead of being charged with a hate crime, Dow said the office admitted the subject to the state’s misdemeanor diversion program that includes learning courses like “victim impact,” and “theft/property violation.”
“Bottom line: We believe that the facts of this case warranted our decision to offer our pre-filing misdemeanor diversion program because it will have a more significant impact on the offender and is more likely to lead to a better outcome (less likely to recidivate),” he said.
The Pismo Beach resident told New Times that they didn’t understand how the flag vandalism wasn’t considered a targeted offense.
“It’s not like he came on the property and trampled in my garden or broke one of my garden gnomes or something like that. It was specifically targeted at the Pride flag, and only the Pride flag,” they said. “And during the interview, the officer or the detective asked him if he had any animosity towards the LGBTQ community, and he just said, ‘No, I’ve got gay aunts,’ which the fact that they exist doesn’t mean that he loves them or supports them, … and [police] moved on without even trying to probe it.”
The resident also alleged that the DA violated their rights as a victim under Marsy’s Law, a law that promises victims be informed of case proceedings.
“I learned of Marsy’s Law independently through ChatGPT,” they said.
They weren’t upset about the subject going into misdemeanor diversion, but they did at least want the opportunity to have a say in what type of training the vandal would receive.
“I think it’s very important that he gets some kind of bias training or diversity education so that he understands why this was so hurtful,” they said. “I don’t want them to go to jail or anything like that, but it’s important to me that this not happen to anyone else in the future, or maybe some more violent crimes against people in the LGBTQ community.”
Dow said that the DA’s Office is making changes based on this resident’s complaint.
“We have implemented a new internal process change based on this victim’s experience to ensure that we notify future victims of our ‘intent’ to provide misdemeanor diversion prior to actually offering the diversion to the individual,” he said. “This will provide victims the opportunity to weigh in and be heard before we make our decision instead of only being informed after the decision was made without their input being considered.”
Gala Pride and Diversity Center Program Manager Linnea Valdivia said she’s also been following the case and doesn’t believe that the DA’s Office is treating the case as it should.
“I am deeply troubled by the fact that it does not seem to be being treated with the seriousness it deserves in terms of how bias is playing out, especially in the context of what is happening in our country right now and in our county, with all that’s happening with Pride flags,” she said. “If you let things like this—somebody coming onto somebody’s property and destroying a symbol of inclusion—and just letting that go, if it’s just another misdemeanor, that’s deeply troubling to me, that is deeply troubling as an individual that’s representing an organization that’s serving the LGBTQ community here in this county.”
Valdivia said it’s not only this specific case that concerns her—it’s the numerous, and seemingly escalating, instances of removal and destruction of the Pride flag.
In June, the city of Morro Bay decided it’d be the last year the Pride flag would fly over City Hall after Councilmember Jeff Eckles suggested the American flag should fly for all groups of people. The June before that, Atascadero decided it wouldn’t fly the Pride flag or declare June as Pride Month. In 2021, Paso Robles High School students had defecated on a flag and attempted to flush it down the toilet.
“In our county, a lot of conservative voices are openly arguing that people should be allowed to burn or remove Pride flags and have pushed for leniency for people that do target Pride symbols, like flags. And that rhetoric, I think, can really easily normalize attacks on LGBTQ people and visibility in general,” Valdivia said. “I think that really easily starts to slip into normalizing hate, discrimination, and violence against LGBTQ people in our community.” ∆
Reach Staff Writer Libbey Hanson at lhanson@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in Oct 2 – 12, 2025.
The same DA Dan Dow who spoke at the Charlie Kirk memorial at Cal Poly last week and spread his Christian-Nationalist, anti-trans, pro-gun rhetoric?
Well of course District Attorney Dan Dow would downgrade this Hate Crime to a misdemeanor.
It could be that the parents taught their child, the person that shredded a private person’s LGBTQ flag in their yard, to hate the LGBTQ community. And from the reporting it sounds like the family and perpetrator is part of Dow’s prayer group who agree with CK’s distorted and discriminatory interpretations of Jesus’ teaching.
The act is on video. That with the great reporting, and Pismo PD’s first impressions of their investigation that this looked like a hate crime to them.
Hopefully DA Dan Dow will let the perpetrator go after a day of diversion.
There really should be a second opinion from DA Dow’s mistaken conclusion. It should be given back to the City of Pismo Beach Police Department and their investigators, and maybe a special investigator.
Dan Dow cannot “separate church and state” in his interpretation of the evidence and “the Rule of Law.”
* Correction: Hopefully DA Dan Dow will NOT let the perpetrator go after a day of diversion, with a slap on the hand.
(this new comment site isn’t as functional as it was before. Couldn’t edit this comment for a few minutes after posting.)
The victim seems satisfied with the punishment imposed on the suspect, and doesn’t want him jailed, etc, but they and the other commenters are mainly concerned with the broader social picture, such as pride flags no longer being flown in Moro Bay and Paso Robles. A central tenet of the law is that individuals are only subject to punishment for their own transgressions, and not those of others or because others are unhappy with governmental policy decisions.
Did you even read the article? That’s a complete mischaracterization.
” I don’t want them to go to jail or anything like that”.
The defendant was compelled to go to learning courses as part of the diversion program. That is a more forceful sentence than normally imposed for minor property crimes. A “hate crime” requires proving intent, and most people think of things like burning crosses, etc.
From reading the rest of the article, it is clear that what the victim and his supporters really wanted was to make a political point, as evidenced by the references to flying the pride flag in Paso Robles and Moro Bay.