DeSantis Admin Sends TEN State Trooper Vehicles to Rainbow Crosswalk Chalk Protest

How many Florida Highway Patrol troopers does it take to supervise one guy chalking a crosswalk?

I learned the answer Friday night as I stood on a sidewalk on the south side of downtown Orlando and watched ten Florida Highway Patrol vehicles arrive at the scene.

Ten Florida Highway Patrol vehicles. Ten.

It was a typical August evening for Central Florida, as the sun drifted down and pulled the temperatures finally below the 90s. The city’s nightlife scene was kicking off, the theme parks were ticking down to their closing time fireworks, thousands of locals and tourists were battling for their lives on I-4 — and ten vehicles’ worth of FHP troopers were diverted to provide “protection” at a Dunkin’ Donuts parking lot at the corner of S. Orange Avenue and W. Esther Street.

That intersection is important because it is the location of one of the deadliest mass shootings in U.S. history. On June 12, 2016 around last call, a gunman entered Pulse, a gay nightclub that was hosting its Saturday “Latin Night,” and killed 49 people and wounded dozens more. Orlando locals talk about Pulse like New Yorkers who were in the city for 9/11; it feels everyone knows someone we lost or is friends with someone who did.

The site has become a memorial to Orlando’s “49 angels,” with their names and photos displayed along the fencing that surrounds the lot, a still-open wound just south of the heart of the city.

The year after the shooting, an online petition gathered nearly 3,000 signatures asking the city to install a rainbow crosswalk at Pulse to honor the memories of the victims. After receiving approval from the Florida Department of Transportation under then-Gov. Rick Scott (R), the crosswalk was painted in rainbow colors by the state. It was maintained that way until last year.

On Aug. 21, 2025, as The Orlando Sentinel reported, state officials “under cover of night” painted over the crosswalk “apparently as part of state and federal transportation officials’ aim to wipe ‘political banners’ from public roadways.”

The clandestine paint job shocked and enraged many Orlandoans, especially since the rainbow crosswalk was viewed as a memorial site, not a partisan political statement, and the paint job had been done by the state government in the first place.

Orlando residents and elected officials came to Pulse to protest the repainting and brought colored chalk to redraw the rainbow. Various people have re-chalked it daily, even after FHP arrested several of them.

The charges were later dropped and locals have continued to bring chalk to the Pulse site and color in the rainbow, along with other messages.

 

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James Houchins, 29, was one of those arrested. On his Instagram page this week, he announced that he would be returning Friday evening to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the repainting and chalk it yet again.

 

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I arrived at the crosswalk location Friday shortly after 7 pm ET. As is typical for our weather this time of year, it had rained in the afternoon and a rainbow was stretching across the sky, a sign the small group gathered there viewed as a serendipitously positive omen.

 

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Houchins had brought a collection of supplies with him. He explained to me that he uses both chalk and a “chalk paint” powder he mixes with water. The chalk paint washes off like regular chalk so it avoids invoking new criminal charges, and but it goes on thicker and with a more vibrant hue.

FDOT has placed signs at the street corner that read “DEFACING ROADWAY PROHIBITED.”

Among the slogans written on the sidewalks were “WE WON’T STOP” and a Straight Outta Orlando triple F-bomb expression of government critiques: “F*CK ICE,” “F*CK FHP,” and “F*CK FDOT.”

Along the crosswalk itself, Houchins had written “1 Year & Counting” and “PAINT IT BACK.” He began coloring in the crosswalk as a local attorney, a University of Central Florida student filming a documentary, and several other supporters observed.

Before long, a Florida Highway Patrol vehicle showed up. Houchins pointed out the multiple surveillance cameras on light poles that were installed around the site after it was repainted black by FDOT. It is a common occurrence for law enforcement officers and government officials with FDOT and other state agencies to show up shortly after anyone begins chalking, he said.

Houchins emphasized that he has not had problems with the Orlando Police Department; he had actually called OPD before he headed over to Pulse that Friday to give them a heads up.

The one FHP vehicle was soon joined by another. And then another. And another. We watched as several FHP vehicles initially parked across Orange Ave. from the crosswalk with their lights on, before driving over and parking in the Dunkin’ Donuts lot.

Earlier, Melissa Zeglen, an Orlando criminal defense attorney, had told the chalkers and supporters that chalking was not a crime, along with other advice if there were any arrests.

Zeglen walked over to the Dunkin’ lot to talk to FHP. When she returned, she said they had told her they were not going to stop the chalking but were concerned about “safety” and did not want anyone to get run over. The troopers were informed only one person, Houchins, would be chalking with others keeping a lookout for oncoming cars.

One of the troopers, who later identified himself as Sgt. Jose Paulino, walked over to the crosswalk to talk to Houchins and the rest of the group. He asked to see the chalk supplies to verify that it was washable chalk paint and not actual paint — a conversation that Houchins told me he has had multiple times before with FHP.

Paulino was told Houchins was the only person chalking and was almost done, with just one stripe left to color in.

“OK, well go ahead and finish it off then so we can make sure you guys are good and not in the roadway, while we are here protecting you,” said Paulino.

 

It should be noted that when the FHP vehicles first arrived, several parked across the street with their lights on, and that did seem to slow down cars that were driving by. But FHP soon moved to the Dunkin’ parking lot and turned their lights off, ending the one thing they were doing that was ostensibly “protecting” anyone chalking.

I walked over to the Dunkin’ parking lot to count the FHP vehicles. The black-and-tan patrol cars took up the majority of the parking spots and I confirmed there were ten vehicles, several of which had transported more than one trooper.

Ten vehicles of troopers who were there about an hour (based on timestamps on the photos I took on my iPhone) to watch one guy chalk the same crosswalk they know he’s chalked since last year. At no point was the gathering even a “crowd;” there were roughly enough troopers for man-to-man coverage.

The surveillance cameras allow the state government to monitor the entire area 24-7. They knew how few people were there and that Houchins was chalking as he has many days over the past year.

I confirmed with Houchins that he has never been hit by a car while chalking, and neither has anyone else as far as he knows.

“We’ve never even had a close call, even in the beginning when there would be eight to nine people chalking,” he said, adding that he “saw right through” Paulino’s claim FHP was there to “protect” him. ”

There were no traffic incidents or other reasons that needed ten FHP vehicles to be on that block Friday evening. There is no longer any nightlife in the area since a gunman murdered 49 of our neighbors, and both the Dunkin’ and Wendy’s across the street were pretty dead, seeing only a trickle of customers the whole time we were there.

Houchins finished chalking the crosswalk, and the FHP troopers drove away. I had attempted to ask multiple troopers why they brought ten vehicles for this and who had made that decision, but none would answer. Paulino was the only one who identified himself; several of the others refused to share their names and badge numbers when asked. Mediaite reached out to FHP for comment but has not received a reply.

Last year when the crosswalk was repainted, local elected officials including Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer, Florida State Sen. Carlos Guillermo Smith (D) (the state’s first openly gay Hispanic legislator who represents an east Orlando district), and Florida State Rep. Anna Eskamani (D) (whose district includes downtown Orlando and Pulse) all condemned it for being done without any notice or discussion with any of them, other city officials, or the numerous groups and volunteers who have been active supporting the preservation of Pulse as a memorial site. The crosswalk had taken on additional meaning for many after the original plans for a museum and memorial at the site were mired in delays and then eventually shelved.

The arrests of people for chalking the crosswalk further angered local residents, especially since prosecutors attempted at first to bring felony charges against some of the protesters. A judge found no probable cause for felony criminal mischief against Houchins and reduced the charge to misdemeanor, and Orange-Osceola County State Attorney Monique Worrell eventually dropped all charges against the chalkers. Worrell told reporters that state officials had failed to show evidence that the chalk had caused any property damage, since it washes away in the rain.

FDOT had argued it cost $1,723 in “labor and equipment” to pressure wash the chalk off the asphalt, but Worrell was unconvinced, citing the wording of the state statute. “This was a cleaning operation, not a damage remediation,” she told WESH, Orlando’s NBC affiliate.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) was specifically criticized because it was FDOT, an agency under his purview and which had originally approved and conducted the crosswalk installation, which had done the repainting. The governor defiantly fired back at his critics in a social media post that said, “We will not allow our state roads to be commandeered for political purposes.”

Eskamani scoffed at DeSantis’ claims the crosswalk was a political statement and pointed out that painted crosswalks “help to increase visibility and safety too.” (This is true: multiple studies across the country have shown a significant decrease in vehicle collisions with pedestrians at crosswalks that have colorful paint.)

Reached for comment Friday evening, Eskamani told Mediaite, “It’s ridiculous that the DeSantis administration continues to waste taxpayer money and public safety resources on chalk. Let it be, and let Orlando residents honor the victims of Pulse.” Dyer previously announced his plans to retire as mayor and Eskamani, who is term-limited from being re-elected to the Florida House, is running to succeed him in next year’s city elections.

On Saturday, Houchins messaged me to confirm that FDOT had once again come out to pressure wash the rainbow away, as they had done all year. FDOT had previously said it cost $1,723 each time to do the pressure washing; Houchins said they had said “$1,500” in his arrest affidavit and he believes they have been out “a minimum of 60 times,” meaning this has cost taxpayers at least $90,000 to remove chalk that would get washed away in our frequent rains anyway.

 

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Houchins remains undeterred. “I won’t stop until the colors are back,” he told me.

He has 49 reasons why:

Stanley Almodovar III, 23
Amanda Alvear, 25
Oscar A. Aracena-Montero, 26
Rodolfo Ayala-Ayala, 33
Alejandro Barrios Martinez, 21
Martin Benitez Torres, 33
Antonio D. Brown, 30
Darryl R. Burt II, 29
Jonathan A. Camuy Vega, 24
Angel L. Candelario-Padro, 28
Simon A. Carrillo Fernandez, 31
Juan Chavez-Martinez, 25
Luis D. Conde, 39
Cory J. Connell, 21
Tevin E. Crosby, 25
Franky J. Dejesus Velazquez, 50
Deonka D. Drayton, 32
Mercedez M. Flores, 26
Peter O. Gonzalez-Cruz, 22
Juan R. Guerrero, 22
Paul T. Henry, 41
Frank Hernandez, 27
Miguel A. Honorato, 30
Javier Jorge-Reyes, 40
Jason B. Josaphat, 19
Eddie J. Justice, 30
Anthony L. Laureano Disla, 25
Christopher A. Leinonen, 32
Brenda L. Marquez McCool, 49
Jean C. Mendez Perez, 35
Akyra Monet Murray, 18
Kimberly Morris, 37
Jean C. Nieves Rodriguez, 27
Luis O. Ocasio-Capo, 20
Geraldo A. Ortiz-Jimenez, 25
Eric Ivan Ortiz-Rivera, 36
Joel Rayon Paniagua, 32
Enrique L. Rios Jr., 25
Juan P. Rivera Velazquez, 37
Yilmary Rodriguez Solivan, 24
Christopher J. Sanfeliz, 24
Xavier Emmanuel Serrano Rosado, 35
Gilberto Ramon Silva Menendez, 25
Edward Sotomayor Jr., 34
Shane E. Tomlinson, 33
Leroy Valentin Fernandez, 25
Luis S. Vielma, 22
Luis Daniel Wilson-Leon, 37
Jerald A. Wright, 31

 

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This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.

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