ST. PETERSBURG, FL –
A man using a flamethrower set fire to a pan-African flag flying on a pole outside the headquarters of the Uhuru Movement, a black international socialist group based in Florida, on Saturday.
Security video released by the group shows the driver of a white Honda sedan pulling up outside the group’s headquarters in St. Petersburg, pulling a flamethrower from the trunk and firing a fire turret at the flag, which is flying about 30 feet (9 meters) above the ground. The group says the man stopped when a worker in the building yelled at him. The video shows him putting the flamethrower back in the trunk and then driving off. A photo provided by the group shows the flag with a large hole.
Police in St. Petersburg said they are investigating the fire and working to identify a suspect.
The Uhuru Movement is part of the African People’s Socialist Party, which says it “unites the African people as one people for liberation, social justice, self-reliance and economic development.”
Akile Akai, the group’s campaign and advocacy director, said the attack was in the same vein as the May killing of 10 black men at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York. Police say the suspect arrested in the Buffalo massacre is a white nationalist.
Akai said such attacks were caused by the decline of “a social system and a facade of normalcy based on oppression, colonialism and exploitation”.
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