VIDEO: Naval Academy graduate charged with hate crime for tearing down LGBTQ+ pride flag

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From the Associated Press: A U.S. Naval Academy graduate ripped down a tattoo shop’s LGBTQ+ pride flag and put it in the trash, Annapolis police said in documents charging him with a hate crime.

Charlie Garrett, co-owner of the Dapper Dog Tattoo Shop, told police Friday morning that the store had been vandalized. He said it was the third time someone had removed the flag, which reads, “ABIDE NO HATRED.” In response, Garrett said he installed a security camera.

Closed-circuit video footage showed a man in a black puffer-style vest walking toward the store at approximately 1 a.m. Friday, police said, before he “forcefully ripped” the flag from above the shop’s awning. According to charging documents, the man was then seen putting it into a trash can.

Caroline Norman Frost, an attorney representing the man, told The Associated Press that her client “certainly does not have any dislike or ill will towards the groups involved in this case, and this is a misunderstanding, and I think that that will all come to light when this case is complete with a disposition.”

According to Fox5DC, the man was identified as Benjamin Michael, who served in the U.S. Marine Corps from 2004 to 2013.

Dapper Dog Tattoo posted surveillance video footage of Michael ripping down the LGBTQ flag, and touted, “We will always be a safe place for every human that walks through this door, no exceptions. We take being the friendliest shop very seriously and will stop at nothing to protect that.”

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