DENVER — The Denver Police Department is looking for a suspect after a LGBTQ community center was vandalized early Saturday morning.
Security camera footage from that morning shows someone throwing an object at The Center on Colfax before leaving. The organization operates the largest LGBTQ+ community center in the region.
The windows are now boarded up, with messages like "love is love" and "love is stronger than hate" written across them.
Kim Salvaggio, CEO for The Center on Colfax, said the windows have tempered glass, so they didn't shatter. However, her concern reaches far beyond the broken glass, as the emotional toll on the community weighs heavily.
"This is not something for the history of LGBTQ people that we're unfamiliar with," Salvaggio said. "We know that there are targets sometimes to our persons and to our community spaces and our buildings. We're familiar with this, and we have filed, obviously, a police report, and there is an open investigation into the vandalism and what the intent may have been to our building."
Parasol Patrol, a nonprofit dedicated to shielding kids and families from protesters at LGBTQ+ events, claims at least three other LGBTQ-friendly businesses in the same area were vandalized over the weekend. However, the organization declined to share details of the three other alleged attacks, saying the businesses are not "being publicly named for safety reasons."
The organization said it believes the acts of vandalism are "a message to an entire community. The message is meant to silence. Our position is equally clear: Denver cannot and must not normalize this."
Denver police have not said if they believe the other alleged acts of vandalism are connected to Saturday's Center on Colfax attack.
