The fallout over the federal government’s removal of the Pride flag at the Stonewall National Monument in Greenwich Village took a new twist Wednesday when a National Park Service worker threatened a reporter who photographed their attempt to raise an American flag on the site.
amNewYork visited the Stonewall monument at 11 a.m. on Feb. 11, just in time to see the worker — who wore a green jacket with a National Park Service emblem on the sleeve — walk over to the flag pole where the rainbow colors had flown above the monument just days earlier. The Trump administration had ordered the Pride flag removed from the Stonewall site.
The worker had Old Glory in their possession and appeared to make an effort to raise it on the pole in place of the Pride flag.
When the worker noticed the amNewYork reporter snapping images, they became enraged.
“Don’t take my picture,” she roared! “I will bash your head.” The worker then furled the American flag, placed it in a carrier bag, and got in the photographer’s face.
When the worker noticed the amNewYork reporter snapping images, they became enraged.Photo by Dean Moses
“I am not putting this up, there is a guy taking photos of me, have someone else do it,” the worker could be heard telling their boss on a cellphone call.
A member of the National Park Service abandons trying to replace the Pride flag with the American Flag outside of the Stonewall in Wednesday morning after they see me taking photos. They also threaten to “bash my head” for snapping the moment. pic.twitter.com/pT9RAZ0zpn
— Dean_Moses (@Dean_Moses) February 11, 2026
The Stonewall Monument is federal parkland and public property. Reporters and photographers have First Amendment rights to photograph and record there.
amNewYork reached out to the National Park Service for an explanation and is awaiting a response. The American flag was ultimately raised several hours after amNewYork’s visit on Wednesday morning.
Village residents fume over Pride flag removal
This comes as the Greenwich Village community remains outraged after the Pride flag was taken down on Friday.
According to Tim Sutton, a local community member, he spotted two members of the National Parks Department removing the flag on Feb. 6, but didn’t realize exactly what was happening.
“I was doing the same route to work at about 10 a.m. and there were three uniformed Park members who appeared to be lowering the flag. I’m standing right here and I think, ‘What are they doing?’ I thought, well, that’s strange. I’ve never seen them lowering anything before,” Sutton recalled. “It’s an insult.”
Shaun Fletcher is a proud member of the LGBTQ+ community and welled up with tears upon seeing the flag removal.
“I am kind of amazed on a number of levels, like at the ballsiness of taking this and thinking that no one would notice that,” Fletcher said. “It’s one of those things that you just think it’s over. You can put the flags away. We’re done with that. No, it’s an ongoing battle. It just seems silly in 2026 and this is an issue that he picks.”d.
The National Park Service told Gay City News, a sister publication of amNewYork that first reported the Pride flag’s removal, on Feb. 9 that the rainbow colors had been removed in accordance with new policies adopted during the Trump administration restricting what kinds of flags can be flown on public property.
“Under government-wide guidance, including General Services Administration policy and Department of the Interior direction, only the US flag and other congressionally or departmentally authorized flags are flown on NPS-managed flagpoles, with limited exceptions,” a spokesperson for the National Park Service told Gay City News on the evening of Feb. 9. “Any changes to flag displays are made to ensure consistency with that guidance. Stonewall National Monument continues to preserve and interpret the site’s historic significance through exhibits and programs.”
But local elected officials and advocates argue that the removal of the Pride flag from Stonewall — the site where the LGBTQ+ civil rights movement took off following the Stonewall Riots of 1969 — was an act of historical erasure and revision by the Trump administration, which has pushed policies considered hostile to the LGBTQ+ community.
“This is a deliberate act of erasure,” Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal, state Sen. Erik Bottcher, and Assembly Member Deborah Glick told Gay City News in the joint statement. “The Pride Flag is history, resistance, and Pride born at Stonewall itself. Taking it down does not diminish our community. It exposes an administration afraid of visibility and truth. Our history will not be erased, and our Pride is not theirs to take down.”
Reverend Matthew F. Heyd, the 17th Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New York ALs commented on the removal.
“The administration ordered the Pride flag removed from the Stonewall memorial— another desperate attempt to erase our history. It won’t work. The lesson of Stonewall is our dignity cannot be erased and that our people cannot be silenced,” Heyd sai
A protest has been planned for Thursday afternoon, when locals have planned to re-raise the Pride flag in defiance of the Trump administration’s order.
With reporting by Matt Tracy and Robert Pozarycki
