PORTLAND, OR (KPTV) -
Wells Fargo Bank won't be participating in this year's Portland Pride Parade because of safety concerns, a company spokesman confirmed Friday.
The decision comes just two days after vandalism at a Wells Fargo Bank branch on Northeast Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, where it appears there was an attempt to throw a molotov cocktail through a window. Arson investigators and police responded, but it turned out there was no fire.
A gay rights activist group claimed responsibility for the vandalism in an email to FOX 12. The reason for the vandalism, the email said, was that Wells Fargo funds a prison industrial complex where a transgendered woman is serving a sentence in a men's prison. The group said this puts the woman at a higher risk of sexual assault.
A Wells Fargo spokesman said the company doesn't want to put employees at risk of assault or the company's replica stagecoach at risk of vandalism during the parade.
Wells Fargo workers will still have a booth at the Portland Pride Parade and Festival, and a spokesman said the company hopes to return next year.
Anyone with information about this vandalism, which happened overnight from Tuesday to Wednesday, is asked to contact Arson Investigator Rick McGraw at (503) 823-3797.
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