A man responsible for tire tracks left on a rainbow-coloured crosswalk to honour Pride celebrations in Saskatoon has come forward, according to Pride festival co-chair Danny Papadatos.

The man’s father recently contacted OUTSaskatoon and spoke with Papadatos.

The vandal’s father told Papadatos his 20-year-old son purposely created the tire marks on the rainbow crosswalk but didn’t realize the crosswalk symbolizes the Pride festival.

It was “a very emotional call” and the father seemed sad and embarrassed, Papadatos told CTV.

“I know that it couldn’t have been easy for him to make those phone calls today,” he said. “And it couldn’t have been easy for the vandal to come forward — especially with everything that’s been going on social media — so the way we started was just to talk about the courage that that took.”

Who left the skid marks or why wasn’t clear until the family spoke with Papadatos. Many on social media believed the move was an intentional attack on the LGBTQ community.

The vandal’s family is expected to release a public statement in the next couple of days and is taking care of costs associated with cleaning up and painting over the tire marks, according to Papadatos.

About 50 people gathered Tuesday evening to paint over the skid marks. Sherwin-Williams, a paint company, donated some of the supplies needed to clean up the vandalism.

Papdatos said it wasn’t an easy decision to do the cleanup and noted there was discussion of leaving the tire marks as a reminder of the work that needs to be done when it comes to inclusivity. Eventually the decision was made to paint over the vandalism, but Papadatos said it’s not to brush it under the rug.

“The community needs to know that we are behind them and that this isn’t us just brushing over someone’s mistake. This is us getting ready to celebrate love in the city of Saskatoon,” he said.

While the vandal’s family says it wasn’t an intentional attack on the Pride festival, Papadatos says it’s brought numerous discriminatory and hateful comments made on social media toward the LGBTQ community to the forefront.

“It just shows and proves that we have a long way to go,” he said.

The crosswalk was one of two painted in rainbow colours on 23rd Street over the weekend. The week-long Saskatoon Pride Festival kicks off Friday.

“We’re going to go on louder and prouder than ever,” Papadatos said.