ORLANDO, Fla. – Orlando Police Chief Eric Smith is speaking out after LGBTQ-friendly businesses were vandalized Wednesday, and with this being the second attack concerning specific communities, he says any hate of any form will not win.
“No crime against you will be tolerated,” said Smith as he addressed the LGBTQ community.
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District Dive and Southern Craft in the Southern Nights complex were vandalized Wednesday morning.
“What he did is a criminal mischief, right now it’s illegal, it can’t be done and it will not be tolerated and we need to find him, and that’s why we need the communities to help,” said Smith.
Smith says it’s too early to call this a hate crime, but he has shared surveillance video which shows the suspect shattering windows.
This latest act against a specific community comes after antisemitic messages were displayed on a building in downtown Orlando on New Year’s Eve.
Keith Dvorchik, who is the CEO of Shalom Orlando, talked with News 6 after those messages were displayed.
At that time he said, “We’ve talked about this far too many times, Jewish people remain the only people it’s OK to hate.”
Leaders in the Jewish community have criticized the lack of response from city and state leaders.
Within hours after the Southern Nights complex was vandalized, Orlando police and other elected officials sent out statements condemning the act.
Leaders in the faith community note they have seen slower responses.
At the time when the antisemitic messages occurred, it took three days for Orlando’s mayor Buddy Dyer and some elected leaders to respond to the messaging.
State Rep. Anna Eskamani, D-Orlando, did address the slow response at that time, saying, “I assume the lack of response from other elected officials may be due to the holiday break.”
“That’s the way hatred goes, they pick one and then they move on to the next, and then they move on to the next unless we decide together to put an end to it,” Dvorchik said.
Smith says his department has been and will continue getting results for all communities.
“We’re here to protect all of our communities, but that was specific to the Jewish community,” Chief Eric Smith said. “We’re there to protect them as well. We’ve got some information on that case, but we’re there to protect them with any type of crime against that community.”
Both the investigations of what happened at the Southern Nights complex and the antisemitic messaging are still ongoing.
If anyone has information for either case, you are encouraged to call Orlando police.
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