Days after their attendance at an early morning protest resulted in their arrests, four Houston activists have been cleared of all related charges.
On Monday, Oct. 21, a number of people flocked to the rainbow crosswalk at Westheimer and Taft, set on stopping the removal of the beloved Montrose road art. The rainbow crosswalk—which had just been freshly repainted a week prior after repaving work on the crosswalk had seen it disappear in September—was set to be removed on the order of Gov. Greg Abbott, who mandated that Texas cities scrub “political ideologies” from city streets or lose transportation funding from the government. Houston METRO was quick to comply, quietly arranging for the famed paint to done away with in the dead of the night.
A group of Houstonians learned of the plan and appeared at the intersection before the removal was set to begin, and an impromptu protest broke out. Two hours into the protest, when the construction crew began to work on the crosswalk, demonstrators staged a sit-in on the paint. Houston Police’s Special Response Group eventually arrested activists Michael Edwards, Kristin Donaldson, Peter Bratvedt and Ethan Hale. The four protestors were taken into police custody and charged with obstructing a highway or other passageway by the Harris County District Attorney’s Office…