Angelina Cando ‘religious’ NYC woman charged with hate crimes for burning Pride flag outside Soho restaurant along with vandalizing police vehicles in a series of arrests since the start of the year.
‘Jesus is King’. A NYC woman has been charged with hate crimes after video captured (see below) her setting a Pride flag on fire outside a Soho restaurant in Manhattan on Tuesday.
Angelina Cando, 30, was arrested and charged with arson, criminal mischief and reckless endangerment — all as hate crimes.
The Pride flag, which read ‘Make America Gay Again,’ was set on fire early Monday morning at The Little Prince restaurant in SoHo, NY’s Action News reported.
The tongue-in-cheek phrase is believed to have set off the suspect who is seen in surveillance video taking out a lighter and setting the flag on fire before driving off in her white SUV.
The fire led to a temporary evacuation of the apartments above the Prince Street restaurant.
‘Jesus is King’
‘Can’t imagine someone would have that much hate to do something like this,’ restaurant regular Charlotte Wynn told the outlet. ‘Especially not knowing if it could physically hurt someone as well.’
The restaurant owner said an employee was inside the restaurant at the time of the incident and quickly called 911.
‘To be a part of it, and to witness it, and to work here and to have that happen, like this is my job,’ the employee told ABC7NY. ‘This is where I make money and this is also where I have a home. So to have that taken away, I’m confused and I’m hurt, and I don’t know how to feel about it.’
Fortunately, no one was injured in the fire. The fire led to some cracked windows and external damage. D and C Landscaping donated their services to replant flowers in front of the business to replace the ones that were burned in the fire.
But there was more to come.
Cando also allegedly scrawled ‘Jesus is King’ on the back of two NYPD patrol cars parked on Varick Street between Ericson Place and North Moore Street, two days earlier on Sunday night, cops said.
For that crime, the ‘religious’ woman was booked with criminal mischief for possession of graffiti tools the nypost reported.
Menacing society cause of prejudice
The womens’ arrests are the latest of several for Cando this year. The 30 year old was arrested in January for assault and in February for menacing, sources told the nypost.
The owner of Litte Prince said the Pride flag was stolen in the past, with the most recent denigrating act leading to an outpouring of support from the community.
‘What we saw in the video was a hate crime,’ Councilmember Erik Bottcher told ABC7NY. ‘Someone who intended to strike fear into our entire community.’
A plan Bottcher said didn’t work. On Monday, he helped the business install another Pride flag, this one larger than before.
‘Our resolve is only strengthened when acts like this happen,’ Bottcher said. ‘We are standing up in the face of this hate and reasserting our pride in ourselves and our community. That’s why we hung the flag again.’
