Updated at 5:50 p.m.
BURLINGTON — A person threw two chunks of concrete into the Pride Center of Vermont’s headquarters early Tuesday morning, unsettling members of the LGBTQ+ community amid a rash of hostile incidents in recent weeks.
Security camera footage of the incident obtained by VTDigger shows a person in dark clothes and a cap walking up to the center’s glass door around midnight and throwing two solid objects into it. The person then hurries away from the center’s South Champlain Street office.
Other tenants of the building who arrived around 7:45 Tuesday morning discovered the shattered door and found two chunks of concrete inside the office’s entryway. Burlington police are investigating the incident.
Staffers at the Pride Center are treating the damage as an act of vandalism, said Mike Bensel, the center’s executive director.
“We’re the physical representation of the LGBTQ+ community,” Bensel told VTDigger. “When the center is targeted with violence, it’s personal for them.”
Bensel sees the damage to the center as part of a string of incidents that have marked a “shift in the climate in Vermont,” they said.
The center began receiving more hate mail earlier this month after Fox News host Laura Ingraham ridiculed a Burlington School District webinar on sexuality, Bensel said. Shortly after, Vermont Republicans called out legislators who supported a bill that would allow children to seek out certain types of medical care affirming their gender without parental consent.
Bensel also pointed to the killing of Fern Feather, a transgender woman, as a further act of violence against LGBTQ+ Vermonters.
“It just seemed to intensify,” Bensel said of anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment.
There did not appear to be anything stolen or damaged inside the center’s office, Bensel said.
“From a preliminary walk-through, it doesn’t seem like anybody entered,” they said.
State Rep. Taylor Small, P/D-Winooski, characterized the incident as “devastating vandalism” in a tweet on Tuesday morning.
“I cannot fathom the hate it took to commit such an act, but love will always be more powerful than hate,” wrote Small, who also serves as the Pride Center’s education program manager.
I am holding my #LGBTQ Community in my heart this morning following the news of the devastating vandalism that occurred at @PrideCenterVT. I cannot fathom the hate it took to commit such an act, but love will always be more powerful than hate ?️?? pic.twitter.com/uXgLIvNoT6
— Rep. Taylor Small (@TaylorSmallVT) April 26, 2022
Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger also condemned the incident, vowing to use the city’s “full resources to investigate who committed this crime and why.”
“I was very troubled and angered to learn about the vandalism at the Pride Center of Vermont this morning,” Weinberger said in a statement. “Burlington must continue to be a safe and welcoming city for the LGBTQ+ community.”
This is not the first time someone has broken windows at the Pride Center. In 2007, a brick was thrown into the organization’s former office on Elmwood Avenue. On Tuesday morning, Bensel found that brick in the center’s library and put it on a table for a VTDigger reporter to see.
By noon, the shattered window had already been covered up by a piece of plywood. As the center’s sign still dangled by a thread to its post above the door, Bensel taped a transgender pride flag and a progress pride flag over the plywood.
While they remain unsure of how the center will respond to the incident, Bensel said their organization will not be deterred by hateful words or actions.
“I know that we’re resilient,” they said.
This story will be updated.
