Orange-Oseola County State Attorney Monique Worrell announced Friday that all charges have been dropped in cases involving six people who were arrested last year for chalking over or near the formerly rainbow crosswalk outside the Pulse nightclub.
The crosswalk, first installed and approved by the Florida Department of Transportation in 2017, served to memorialize the victims and survivors of the 2016 mass shooting at Pulse, most of whom were LGBTQ+.
Two of these people arrested last year were specifically cited by state troopers for “aggressively” chalking the word “Resist,” in response to the state’s decision to paint over the rainbow crosswalk in the dead of night last August without notice to the community. All six arrests involved a charge of interfering with an official traffic control device — a third-degree felony under state statutes that Worrell said her office couldn’t substantiate.
During a press conference Friday, Worrell argued that — due to a number of factors, including lack of cooperation from state agencies — moving forward with prosecution in these cases “would almost certainly not survive constitutional scrutiny.”
She said her office’s decision not to prosecute “ is the right outcome,” adding, “I stand fully behind it.”
The Democrat has been accused by Florida’s Republican attorney general and governor of being soft on crime and has been targeted before for suspension. Worrell — who was removed from office by Gov. DeSantis in 2023, before being reelected by voters to her seat in 2024 — stated plainly Friday that the prospect of being targeted by state leaders was “not a consideration in the decisions here today.”
She explained that the third-degree felony charge of interference with an official traffic control device — in this case, a state-owned crosswalk — requires proof of “actual property damage” of $1,000 or more. All six arrests at the Pulse crosswalk, however, involved the use of chalk, which washes away with rain.
“Sidewalk chalk is water-soluble,” Worrell noted. “It is designed to wash off outdoor surfaces. It does not permanently alter, etch, stain or structurally impair a surface.”
TIMELINE
Aug. 21, 2025: Rainbow crosswalk outside of Pulse was painted over by FDOT.
Aug. 29, 2025: Orestes Sebastian Suarez is arrested for chalking the bottom of his shoes to walk across the Pulse crosswalk.
Aug. 31, 2025: Three people — Maryjane East, Zane Aparicio, Donavon Short — are arrested for applying chalk to the crosswalk as part of a larger group action that, notably, involved elected officials who were photographed but not arrested.
Nov. 23, 2025: Two people – James Houchins and Austin Trahan — are arrested for “allegedly defacing” the crosswalk. Or, according to their arrest affidavit, “aggressively” chalking.
Subsequent cost estimates that the state submitted in association with the arrests also failed to substantiate any actual damage to the crosswalk. Invoices submitted by the state were cleaning invoices, Worrell said, not repair costs.
“My office sent FDOT a detailed questionnaire, asking it to substantiate these figures. FDOT did not respond,” Worrell stated.
Orestes Sebastian Suarez, a 29-year-old from Georgia, was the first to be arrested at the crosswalk site on Friday, Aug. 29, for applying chalk to his shoes and walking over the formerly rainbow-striped crosswalk, leaving colorful shoeprints. The Florida Department of Transportation cited an estimated $2,627 in combined labor and equipment costs for “washdowns” afterward, but it’s unclear whether those washdowns were actually related to Suarez’s actions.
“No sworn testimony, photographic evidence, or documented cost breakdown specifically attributes any portion of these expenditures to the chalk attributable to Suarez,” a memo from assistant state attorney Mark Wixtrom reads.
Similarly, FDOT cited $1,562 in cleanup costs for arrests on Aug. 31, where three individuals were arrested as part of a group chalking action. A heavy downpour of rain, in this case, actually washed away chalk marks made by local protesters before state troopers even arrived at the scene.
Worrell also alleged these cases demonstrated “selective enforcement,” as neither Florida Highway Patrol nor FDOT explained why these three people were arrested, while others who participated in chalking colors over the crosswalk area — including public officials — were not.
“Law enforcement was present and observed this conduct without intervening. When asked how many others he saw chalking who were not arrested on August 31 the trooper said he could not advise on that number. That answer, combined with the documented presence of others chalking freely is the very definition of selective enforcement,” Worrell said.
Another $1,723 in combined labor and equipment costs were cited by FDOT for the arrests of James Houchin and Austin Trahan at the crosswalk on Nov. 23, according to Worrell’s office. Both were accused of “defacing” the crosswalk — an allegation they later denied, when questioned.
Similarly, Worrell argued that these costs were for a “cleaning operation,” not repairs, and that there is no evidence the chalking resulted in permanent harm.
An arrest affidavit for Houchins, specifically, had also noted that Houchins was observed moving a FDOT barricade. However, “there’s no evidence that the barricade was damaged, stolen or even missing, and no evidence of what consequence, if any, followed from its movement,” Worrell said. “That conduct does not provide an independent basis for a felony charge.”
Her press conference Friday comes just a few weeks after a defense attorney representing Houchins and East questioned why there had been continued radio silence on the crosswalk arrest cases.
Worrell explained Friday, with “apologies to the community,” that there was “no precedent” for these cases, as partial cause for the delay.
“It was very important that we reviewed each case and looked at the law, looked at the evidence for which there were lots of videos — public videos, law enforcement videos — and then we needed to get additional information from the agencies that also took quite a bit of time to retrieve,” she said.
Worrell warned however that locals shouldn’t take this dropping of charges as a cue to copy-cat.
“The decisions here are in regards to these specific cases with these specific facts. It doesn’t mean that it’s open season to go out and use chalk however you feel like doing it,” she said.
“It doesn’t mean that it’s open season to go out and use chalk however you feel like doing it”
State Attorney Monique Worrell
There are other statutes that could be implicated if someone chose to go back and chalk, she added — providing a charge of blocking traffic as an example. In that case, “they may be arrested and then prosecuted as a result of that.”
The formerly rainbow crosswalk outside Pulse was painted over by FDOT following a change the agency made in roadway safety policy to ensure Florida’s roadways “are not utilized for social, political, or ideological interests.” Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer at the time described the paint job as “callous,” while Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis claimed Florida’s state roads were “being commandeered for political purposes.”
U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy similarly blasted “rainbow crosswalks” last summer, claiming they served as a distraction. “Taxpayers expect their dollars to fund safe streets, not rainbow crosswalks,” Duffy wrote in a post on the social media platform X.
The rainbow crosswalk at Pulse, however, was approved by FDOT in 2017 as part of a broader $9 million state-funded improvement project on South Orange Avenue, intended in part to increase safety. The Orlando Sentinel found that FDOT had deleted a social media post last year in which the agency had previously praised the crosswalk for “enhancing safety for pedestrians with new lighting and decorative crosswalk features.”
Rainbow crosswalks in other Florida cities such as St. Petersburg, Key West and Delray Beach were also forcibly removed by the state last year amid the DeSantis and Trump administrations’ efforts to erase sites of LGBTQ+ representation and crack down on diversity, equity and inclusion.
Digital editor Chloe Greenberg contributed to this report.
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