Security video footage shows a man nearly catching himself on fire after drowning a pride flag in a flammable liquid.

Sometime late Monday / early Tuesday morning a man was captured on video walking up to a pride flag that was mounted on the "Welcome to Lansing's Eastside Neighborhoods" sign near the corner of East Michigan Avenue and South Mifflin Avenue.  You can see the suspect cover the pride flag with a flammable substance from a small bottle in one hand, then light the flag with the other hand.  An explosion of flames completely covers the area for a split second.  The man, still holding the bottle that contained the flammable liquid is lucky to walk away seemingly unhurt.  The whole incident took place in less than 19 seconds.

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Chief Ellery Sosebee of the Lansing Police Department had this to say about the incident according to WILX,

The Lansing Police Department strives for every citizen to feel safe in the city of Lansing.  Our goal is to assure the City of Lansing is a safe place to live work and visit for everyone, including the LGBTQ+ community. The Lansing Police Department will not tolerate any act of hate and intimidation and will seek the appropriate prosecution for any of these crimes.

This isn't the first time that pride flags had been stolen or vandalized during pride month this year.  The TikTok channel thefamilyssouptv talks about the many attempts to remove or destroy the pride flags in the video below.  Lansing police are investigating the arson and hope to find out if the other incidents were done by the same person.

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