Man tried bringing loaded gun and ammo into Wilton Manors Pride fest, cops say

A Palm Beach County man was arrested when he tried to bring a loaded gun and ammunition into the Wilton Manors Stonewall Pride Parade and Street Festival Saturday night, police said.

Michael Monheit, a 31-year-old man from Loxahatchee, entered through an east security checkpoint at 8 p.m., when the Pride event’s parade was scheduled to begin, but set off the metal detectors, according to a Wilton Manors Police Department press release on Monday.

Security told Monheit to stop several times, which he ignored. Officers then detained him and found a Glock 43 9mm handgun in his waistband and two loaded magazines in his shorts pocket, police said. Monheit was charged with trespassing and unlawfully carrying a concealed firearm.

Police are investigating Monheit’s motive and intentions, “which are unknown at this time,” according to the press release. Monheit does not appear in county jail records as of Monday afternoon.

Monheit did not have a valid concealed weapons permit on his person Saturday, police said. He used to have a concealed weapons permit, but it was revoked some time in the past after he was committed under the Baker Act, a state law that allows authorities to commit a person into a mental health hospital for up to 72 hours, according to the arrest affidavit.

This year’s Wilton Manors Pride event was the first time metal detectors were installed at all entrances, said Jameer Baptiste, the president of the Wilton Manors Stonewall Pride Parade and Street Festival. In an interview with the Herald earlier this month before the Pride festivities, Baptiste said that police recommended the festival install metal detectors as an “extra layer of safety and precaution for our community.”

“There wasn’t anything in particular that occurred this year, last year or leading up that made [police] suggest having that,” Baptiste told the Herald before the event. “It’s just out of an abundance of caution.”

Baptiste declined to comment on Monheit’s arrest, citing the active police investigation.

Leading up to Saturday’s festival and parade, LGBTQ community members in Wilton Manors, known as South Florida’s gay neighborhood, told the Herald that celebrating Pride Month felt especially important this year under President Donald Trump’s second administration. Community leaders, organizers and residents criticized anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and the Trump administration’s rollback of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives— a move that led to some corporate sponsors backing out of the event.