It's part of a strategy to attract the best employees and the widest range of customers. They are plastering their social media avatars with rainbows and sponsoring Pride parades. Major corporations, meanwhile, are eager to communicate that they are allies of the LGBTQ community. There are new laws prohibiting teachers from acknowledging the existence of LGBTQ people, new policies targeting trans kids and their parents, and new bans on books with LGBTQ characters. Over the last year, anti-LGBTQ politicians have relentlessly targeted the community with harmful legislation and other policy initiatives. Jones later told the Post that detectives were speaking to the boat owners “to determine if a crime occurred”.June is Pride Month, and this year's celebration has particular resonance. “We would like to know more, and once we can interview people, we will be able to know more without relying solely on a brief video,” he said. In a statement posted to Facebook, Jones confirmed that his office was investigating, but needed information about the identities of those involved. Then, their boat literally blew up!” Robbie said in a tweet accompanied by the hashtag #KarmaIsReal. “These people harassed my family because we were flying gay pride flags in Moses Lake, Washington, by racing around us and shouting gay slurs. “The passengers were quite rude, shouting over us, ignoring my about their wellbeing when on the 911 call and smoking a vape pen on our boat without even so much as asking if they could,” Robbie told the Post.Ī second clip shows the conclusion of the incident: the rescued boaters speeding away on a friend’s boat while the crew of a police vessel attempts to douse the flames by churning up water with its propellers, then towing it away. The woman is heard shouting: “Help us, we’re burning.” Subsequent footage shows the three occupants of the burning boat swimming towards the one with the pride flags, and being urged to climb onboard, while one of the rescuers calls the emergency 911 service number. “Holy crap! They blew up!” a man purported to be Robbie’s brother says on the video. The boat sped away, he said, and seconds later they heard an explosion and saw black smoke rising from the other vessel. The video shows a woman in the boat flipping her middle finger as they sped by, and according to Robbie the boat made a sharp turn and then circled around them at least six times, spraying water on to them and causing their boat to rock.
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“I could clearly hear the words gays and flags being shouted from their boat,” he told the Post. He said their boat was displaying a variety of gay pride and rainbow flags.Īt about 7pm he said they noticed another boat passing by with its occupants yelling at them. “We got them out of the water safely, we were nicer than they were,” the video’s author posted alongside the clip, noting that the three people rescued, two men and a woman, did not offer any thanks.Īccording to an account of the incident in the Washington Post, a boater named Robbie, who did not give his last name for fear of retaliation, was enjoying a day on the lake swimming, tubing and listening to music with his brother and two friends.
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Video of last weekend’s happenings has gone viral on TikTok, amassing more than 8m views and prompting an investigation by the Grant county sheriff, Tom Jones.