DOT repaints Pulse crosswalk for a second time. Florida Highway Patrol and police watching site

Natalia Jaramillo, Orlando Sentinel on Aug 24, 2025

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A Florida Department of Transportation crew early Sunday painted the Pulse crosswalk back to black and white for a second time as supporters continued to try to restore the rainbow-colored crossing. Now, police agencies are monitoring the site.

Spectrum News 13, the Orlando Sentinel’s news partner, reported that the DOT repainted the crosswalk on Esther Street at South Orange Avenue after colored paint was used on the crossing on Saturday. Previously, supporters had been using chalk to draw back the rainbow colors, but rain washed that away.

A squad of Florida Highway Patrol and Orlando Police Department officers surveilled the dozen people who were using chalk on the rainbow crosswalk on Sunday. Advocates said it was an intimidation tactic.

Last week saw hundreds gather to repaint the rainbow crosswalk in chalk after state transportation officials removed it in the middle of the night without warning. The crosswalk was part of the state’s most significant sites for the LGBTQ community after the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting that killed 49. Despite pointed rhetoric about “political” rainbow crosswalks from U.S. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy and Gov. Ron DeSantis, as well as a state ban on rainbow lights on bridges earlier this year, the Florida Department of Transportation said it was purely procedural.

Demonstrators began around 9 a.m. Sunday, through sprinkles of rain that washed away the chalk, to color the crosswalk and cover the sidewalk in drawings and phrases like “FHP go away”. By Sunday afternoon roughly four FHP trooper vehicles and three OPD cars were parked at the Dunkin Donuts next to the crosswalk. OPD told the group they could not impede traffic or they would risk arrest. Despite the threat, the group continued to use chalk on the crosswalk while FHP and OPD vehicles drove in and out keeping watch.

“It’s silly,” said State Rep. Anna Eskamani, who was at the crosswalk in support. “The amount of money and time being spent by the state on a crosswalk when there’s so many better uses for it to fix potholes for example.”

Eskamani said she wasn’t intimidated and argued the state was making it political. She has received dozens of boxes of chalk in the mail from around the world in support and people on vacation from other states have stopped by to help, she said.

“You’re creating controversy over a sidewalk,” Eskamani said. “No one cared about it before you made it a deal.”

For 34-year-old Robby Dodd this was personal. Dodd lost many friends during the 2016 shooting at Pulse. On Sunday he was at the site around 9 a.m. with a $25 box of 160 rainbow colored chalk from Amazon. He said FHP and OPD’s presence is “ridiculous”.

“It feels weird because there could be anything else they could be doing right now other than watching us color,” Dodd said. “I mean it’s chalk, it’ll wash away and we understand that too but meanwhile taxpayer dollars are putting state troopers and OPD out here.”

Dodd said he will keep coming back to repaint the crosswalk for the memory of his friends.

“This was kind of our second home in a way,” Dodd said “There’s no reason to take that crosswalk away, it was part of the memorial, other than political reasons.”

Orlando isn’t the only target in the state. On Friday the state ordered Fort Lauderdale to remove the section of a street near the beach painted in the colors of the LGBTQ+ progress pride flag, a location near what is widely known as the unofficial LGBTQ+ section of Fort Lauderdale beach.

Eskamani said the community will fight back and she hopes local leaders and local businesses will too.

“I want to see our local governments fight back,” Eskamani said. “I think that there’s plenty of opportunities to challenge some of these actions coming out of the state in court.”

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