An attacker has been caught on camera setting fire to a San Leandro, California, gay couple’s Pride flag while they were inside their home.

Husbands Daniel Montgomery and Nick Garcia accessed the footage from their home security cameras after Montgomery looked out his kitchen window and saw their burnt rainbow flag. The video shows the attacker setting fire to the flag hanging over their garage at approximately 6:30 a.m. He then walks away from the flames, but pauses to watch the flag burn.

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“He didn’t even know that that was going to stop,” Montgomery told Fox affiliate KTVU. “That scared me because [the house] could have caught fire so easily.” The flames did go out on their own, but there were burn marks on the house.

“Even with the sensor lights going off, they didn’t have regard for it and still did it,” Garcia said. “So the mission was clear: to destroy property and make us fearful and be hurtful.”

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The couple hung a Pride flag for the first time this year so that folks in the neighborhood both saw them for who they were and knew they were a safe space amid the tense anti-LGBTQ+ political climate.

“To have someone try to take that away from us was such an act of violence that could have done a lot of damage,” Garcia said.

Neighbors have been supportive since the incident, he added, offering to buy them another flag and hang more around the neighborhood in solidarity.

Police have not found a suspect yet but are investigating the arson incident as a hate crime.

Garcia told Kron 4 he wishes the attacker would have had a conversation with them instead of burning the flag.

“If you hate me because of what I have in my front yard, that’s on you, but we still have a right to exist – just like you have a right to exist in your hateful space. Just don’t bring it around me. And I would encourage you to find a way to redirect that into something more positive because it’s going to end up taking you away.”

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