When a clothing store opened in Cedar Glen, Calif., in the summer of 2021, the owner hung a Pride flag at the entrance, her friends recalled. Whenever someone would tear down the flag, owner Laura Carleton would raise another one.

But after someone complained about the flag on Friday, the encounter turned deadly.

A man arrived at the store, Mag.pi, around 5 p.m. and criticized Carletonā€™s Pride flag before he shot her, according to the San Bernardino County Sheriffā€™s Department. Carleton, 66, was pronounced dead at the scene.

The shooter, whom authorities have not publicly identified, died following ā€œa lethal force encounterā€ with deputies after the shooting, the sheriffā€™s department said in a statement.

Community members have since rallied around Carletonā€™s store, placing Pride flags, flowers, candles and photos of Carleton in front of it. Matthew Clevenger of Lake Arrowhead LGBTQ+ said Carleton was a strong ally of the LGBTQ+ community.

ā€œShe was a fierce protector of everybody being who they wanted to be,ā€ Clevenger told The Washington Post.

Carleton, who went by Lauri, began working in fashion as a teenager at her familyā€™s business, Fred Segal in Los Angeles, according to Mag.piā€™s website. After graduating from the ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena, Calif., Carleton worked at a retail store before joining Kenneth Cole in the 1980s. Carleton worked for the fashion company for more than 15 years as an executive.

In 2013, Carleton founded her clothing store, Mag.pi, on Ventura Boulevard in Studio City, Calif. She added a second store in Cedar Glen in 2021. While she built her career, Carleton married her husband and took pride in their blended family of nine children, her storeā€™s website says.

Carleton was one of the largest donors to Lake Arrowhead LGBTQ+ and attended the organizationā€™s Pride boat parade in June, Clevenger said. A section of Mag.pi was dedicated to rainbow-colored products, and she displayed rainbow candles by the cash register, he said.

Carleton helped create a culture in which the LGBTQ+ community felt accepted, Clevenger said. But some community members were still resistant, he added, and took down Mag.piā€™s Pride flag multiple times.

After making ā€œdisparaging remarksā€ about the Pride flag on Friday, a man shot Carleton before fleeing, according to the sheriffā€™s department. He was holding a handgun when deputies found him on a nearby road, where he later died, officials said.

  • TheHiddenCatboy@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Iā€™m kinda new here, so I donā€™t have much of a posting history, but let me set this up immediately.

    Calls for a war of any kind in a nuclear-armed country is hella-damn dangerous. I donā€™t care what kind of war it is. Civil War, Revolution, whatever, the bottom line is that even if we donā€™t get mushroom clouds out of it, there are plenty of dirty bombs worth of nuclear material that could be employed by ideologically and hate-blinded assholes with an agenda and the unbending but quite wrong notion that they are not only RIGHT but are backed by their concept of goodness itself, the Almighty. And while I agree with the other poster that the entire US military isnā€™t a seething pool of Neoconfederate fucksticks, that doesnā€™t mean there arenā€™t enough to appropriate and attempt to launch nuclear weapons against ā€˜dins of sinā€™ as they might call large, liberal cities.

    Iā€™m not going to go dig through some posterā€™s posting history. You wanted DadWagonDriver to say heā€™s against righties calling for war? You got it in the post youā€™re replying to. Bam. There, heā€™s on record now for saying the Neoconfederates should fuck off already. That should be good enough for you, and that should be enough to set you straight. Enough with the calls for naked warfare. The way to fix our country is in the ballot booth, not on the battlefield. War always has been and always will be the weapon of last resort. Be ready to protect yourself, but donā€™t be looking for a fight. Why? Because wars rarely lead to the outcomes you want. Look at Iran when they overthrew the Shah. The Left then quibbled amongst themselves while the religious fanatics that were the Leftā€™s ally during the war stole the reins of power and then outlawed being a leftist, among many, many other things.

    Oh yeah, and in closing? The battlefield of today is a thermonuclear battlefield, and the thing about Thermonuclear War is that it is a most strange game to play. The only winning move is not to play!

    • fabulousflamingos@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      You wanted DadWagonDriver to say heā€™s against righties calling for war? You got it in the post youā€™re replying to. Bam.

      That is just a lie he told to disarm anybody reading and it clearly worked on you. He doesnā€™t feel that way, otherwise he would have been doing it in the first place. You need to learn to read context and really think about other peopleā€™s actions, approaches in debates, and what theyā€™re really saying.

      Just because you agree with him doesnā€™t make him or you right, and it doesnā€™t change the fact heā€™s manipulating you, is acting with ulterior motives and youā€™re falling for it.