'They’ll never find me as long as I’m smart,' wrote St. Paul man charged in anti-LGBTQ vandalism spree
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Ramsey County prosecutors on Wednesday charged a self-described “right wing libertarian” in connection with a summertime vandalism spree that targeted LGBTQ+ Pride flags and anti-Trump signs in St. Paul’s Highland Park and Macalester-Groveland neighborhoods.
George Thomas Floyd, 23, of St. Paul is also charged with smashing windows at a bookstore, coffee shop and St. Paul Academy and Summit School that cost more than $14,000 to repair altogether.
Floyd faces two counts of felony property damage. He was released without bond Wednesday after a brief court appearance.
Floyd did not enter a plea to the latest charges, but he pleaded not guilty previously to a count of possessing burglary tools that prosecutors filed in July. In that initial incident on June 6, Floyd allegedly approached a Pinehurst Avenue house in the middle of the night with a bandana over his face and used a large knife in an attempt to pry open a screen door. Behind the door was a sign that read “we will not obey.” The homeowner chased Floyd away after getting a doorbell notification.
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St. Paul police arrested Floyd at his Highland Park home about a half mile away on July 3 when officers executed a search warrant. In addition to clothing that Floyd had worn on June 6, police allegedly recovered a cell phone that included extensive text messages and location-tagged photos that documented more than a dozen acts of vandalism.
In the latest criminal complaint, prosecutors say that an entry in the notes app on Floyd’s phone created June 4 “contained a list of 69 separate addresses in the Highland Park and Macalester-Groveland areas.” Residents of six of those homes reported property damage to St. Paul police.
The charging document details more than a dozen residential properties where there were damaged Pride flags and Black Lives Matter signs. The list is based on time- and location-stamped photos that Floyd allegedly took at each home after carrying out the vandalism in the early morning hours of June 23, 24 and 26.
Prosecutors say that Floyd shared many of the photos with a woman whom they named in the complaint but did not charge with a crime.
At 2:33 a.m. on June 24, Floyd allegedly texted the woman: “A cop drove by on the opposite side of the median while I was cutting some signs in half so I bolted home. I don’t think he saw me, but better safe than sorry. I wish I had a mobile police scanner so I could know if ive [sic] been reported.”
Minutes later he added: “I know they’ll never find me as long as I’m smart,” before sending a photo of a boarded-up window at Half Price Books on Ford Parkway, where police took a report about a broken window in front of a Pride-themed display around 7 a.m. on June 23.
Prosecutors say Floyd returned to the store that afternoon to take the photo and sent it to the woman with a text that read “The message was not received” along with a photo of a can of black spray paint taken in the basement bedroom of the home that he shares with his father.
The next day, Floyd allegedly broke another window at the bookstore and spray painted “groomer” on the building. According to the complaint, Floyd also smashed a window at a Randolph Ave. coffee shop nearby. Security video from St. Paul Academy and Summit School shows a masked man riding a blue bicycle near St. Paul Academy and Summit School in June 24.
The school later reported that windows where a Pride flag had been displayed were broken and the word “groomers” was spray painted in black on the building.
After the woman asked Floyd about his political ideology, he texted her “I think im [sic] closely aligned with a right wing libertarian.”
Prosecutors allege that Floyd also searched for “no kings counter-protest” on his phone ahead of the June 14 anti-Trump protest at the Minnesota Capitol.
After the rally, Floyd wrote: “Well, it was less exciting than I was hoping for. I had a few people insult me when I heckled a man pretending to be a woman and called him a pedophile, but otherwise nobody really bothered me. I had a decently long conversation with one person about why I supported Trump, but I don’t think I got to her :(”
According to the criminal complaint, Floyd also attended Pride festivities in Minneapolis on June 29.
“It appeared that Floyd had helped make a batch of cookies a few weeks before the event, and he took them to sell at the Pride festival,” prosecutors write. “It is not clear if Floyd adulterated the cookies he helped make and sold at the festivities.”
Floyd also allegedly texted his father, who’s a physician, an article about sex education for children.
“I implore you to speak out with your colleagues about protesting the WHO’s [World Health Organization] standards on sex education,” Floyd wrote. “As a pediatric doctor, you are a primary voice to defend children against grooming.”
After sharing a KARE11 article about the vandalism with the woman mentioned in the complaint, Floyd allegedly texted her “Looks like I’m done for the year.”
“When social or political views of any kind lead to violence or infringes on another’s property rights, it crosses the line and will not be tolerated in Ramsey County,” said Ramsey County Attorney John Choi in a statement Wednesday.
Choi added that St. Paul police “easily spent over 500 hours on this investigation,” and that he’s considering seeking an enhanced sentence “to incorporate allegations of bias motivation.”
