Police: Motorist hits Delaware gay pride parade organizer

Police say a 90-year-old Delaware man refused to detour around a gay pride parade and plowed into an organizer trying to wave him away.

The motorist’s pickup knocked down the 43-year-old man, who suffered leg injuries after the Saturday morning confrontation, the Dover Police Department said in a news release.

Police say they’ve charged Reuben Salters of Dover with third-degree vehicular assault.

Officers say Salters disregarded barricades blocking off the parade route as he navigated his pickup truck near where a large crowd had gathered about 45 minutes before the event’s start. The parade route was through the downtown of the Delaware state capital.

Salters got out of his vehicle to move cones blocking the street. Police say when the organizer told him he couldn’t pass, Salters got back into his pickup, accelerated and struck the man, then drove through the crowd before stopping.

Reuben Salters served for more than 20 years on Dover’s city council before retiring in 2011, and he was a founding organizer of the city’s African American Festival, the Delaware News Journal reported.

Investigators did not believe Salters was acting from anti-gay animus, Police Master Cpl. Mark Hoffman said.

“This was probably more a case of road rage than anything,” Hoffman said.