A United States Postal Service (USPS) employee was apprehended on Sunday following a social media threat to carry out a mass shooting at a Pride parade in Texas, as per an announcement from the FBI on Monday.

Michael Thompson, a resident of Clovis, New Mexico, was detained after a tip-off alerted authorities to a potential mass casualty incident planned for a Pride event in Lubbock, Texas.

“This weekend’s arrest in Lubbock, Texas, exemplifies the exemplary teamwork between the FBI and our law enforcement partners, effectively averting a potentially lethal attack,” stated FBI Director Kash Patel. “Our agents, intelligence teams, and state and local partners in Texas acted promptly and thwarted the plan before any harm could occur.”

Authorities reported that Thompson confessed to posting and later deleting the threatening messages on social media. He also confirmed his employment with the USPS. News outlets have contacted the USPS seeking a statement.

Authorities said they recovered four firearms from Thompson’s residence. He is legally prohibited from owning firearms due to a prior felony domestic violence conviction, according to the FBI.

Thompson is charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm as well as transmitting threatening interstate communications.

“More lives saved thanks to good cops being cops,” Patel added.

Investigators continued to interview Thompson on Monday, and he was expected to make his initial court appearance later that day.

Lubbock hosted its LubbockPRIDE festival over the weekend without incident, according to local reports.

“Yesterday was filled with so much love, fun, and community, and we couldn’t have asked for a better celebration,” organizers wrote on Facebook following the event. “Thank you to everyone who came out and made it so special!”

In a separate incident in Brunswick, Georgia, a man was arrested earlier this month after police said he threatened to attack attendees at a local LGBTQ+ Pride event. Christopher Waller, 25, was charged with making terroristic threats stemming from comments posted in a local Facebook group on June 9.

Seattle’s Pride Parade, celebrating its 50th anniversary, has found itself at the center of a heated debate after a participant was seen with a flag that merged elements from the transgender and Palestinian flags.

The parade saw nearly 300,000 people gathering in downtown Seattle, commemorating decades of activism and the ongoing fight for LGBTQ+ rights in Washington state.

On Sunday, conservative outlet TPUSA Frontlines posted a video on X appearing to show a woman marching with the Seattle Mariners’ official Pride contingent, igniting fierce debate online. 

A video captured during the event reveals the woman alongside others as she marched with the distinctive hybrid flag, intermingling with those who were carrying traditional, smaller Pride flags.

This footage quickly amassed over half a million views and attracted hundreds of comments. Many criticized the flag, calling it ‘stupid,’ and highlighted the treatment of LGBTQ+ individuals in Gaza as a point of contention.

In Gaza, homosexuality is still criminalized under a law dating back to the British Mandate in 1936, according to The Human Dignity Trust, and reports indicate that this regulation remains enforced.

The offense carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison, though it applies only to sexual activity between men. 

But the long-running event featured strong expressions of support for the Palestinian cause, with Seattle Pride issuing a statement backing Palestinians and calling for a ceasefire. 

In a statement shared Tuesday, the organization wrote: ‘Seattle Pride stands in unwavering solidarity with Palestinian people, who are undergoing a genocide.’

‘Since October, more than 37,000 Palestinians have been killed, and thousands are lying underneath the rubble, following more than 70 years of systemic oppression, occupation and apartheid,’ it added.

‘Criticizing the actions of the state of Israel is not tantamount to discrimination against Jewish people, as Jewish people are not synonymous with the Israeli government.’

Several pro-Palestinian and Jewish advocacy groups took part in the march, but the short clip still triggered intense controversy, with critics highlighting conditions for LGBTQ+ people in Palestinian territories. 

The law remains in force in Gaza, but is not enforced elsewhere in Palestine, with little evidence of it being actively applied and appearing largely obsolete in practice.

Same-sex sexual activity between men was decriminalized in the West Bank in 1951, with several LGBTQ civil society organizations later emerging in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, according to a report published by Outright International. 

Registering as openly LGBTQ, however, remains challenging. 

Enforcement has been rare, though it has been reported on a few occasions. In a 2017 case, an author was allegedly threatened with prosecution over a novel containing LGBT themes, according to The Human Dignity Trust.

In February 2017, the Palestinian Attorney General reportedly attempted to prosecute writer Abbad Yahya while also banning his novel, Crime in Ramallah.

Yahya was accused of threatening morality and public decency through his work, which explored themes of politics, religion and homosexuality through its protagonists, according to the outlet.

In 2019, Palestinian police banned LGBTQ groups from holding events and activities in the West Bank, a move later reversed after intense backlash.

According to Outright International, Palestinian-led organizations have also faced challenges registering in Israel. 

The UK FCDO Human Rights and Democracy Report from 2022 found that attacks on people perceived to have links to the LGBT+ community increased in the West Bank.

In June of that year, members of a Fatah-affiliated movement stormed a concert organized by an LGBT+ Palestinian artist. 

The following month, a theater festival with British, Swedish and Irish nationals was attacked after a street parade was mistaken for a Pride event, according to the report.

In one of the most violent reported cases in Palestine, police arrested a man suspected of murdering and beheading a 25-year-old gay man, according to the BBC. 

According to the outlet, LGBT activists in Israel, where Ahmed Abu Murkhiya had sought refuge, said the young man had received threats over his sexuality.

Activists said Murkhiya had spent the past two years in Israel waiting for a decision on his asylum application after receiving a number of death threats from his community.

Friends of the victim said he was kidnapped and taken to the West Bank, while his family said he regularly visited the area for work and described the motive as ‘rumors.’ 

Murkhiya’s decapitated body was later found in the West Bank, with police arresting an unnamed suspect. 

Despite scrutiny after the now-viral clip from Seattle’s Pride Parade earlier this week, some supporters rallied behind the decision to display the blended flag.

Many, including the organization, said the display was meant to show solidarity with Palestinians amid ongoing violence in the region and to denounce ‘pinkwashing.’

‘We strongly denounce pinkwashing and homonationalism – propaganda tactics that attempt to justify or distract from state violence and oppression by promoting a facade of LGBTQIA2S+ tolerance,’ the group said in their statement.

‘We reject any attempt to exploit LGBTQIA2S+ rights as a cover for human rights abuses,’ they added.

Seattle Pride’s explanation for the hybrid flag was included in a statement echoing the United Nations Independent Commission of Inquiry’s latest report, released on Tuesday. 

The report confirmed that Israeli authorities and security forces have ‘deliberately targeted Palestinian children, resulting in genocide and atrocity crimes in the Gaza Strip and war crimes in the West Bank.’ 

Seattle Pride shared statistics, including that one million Palestinians have fled Rafah since Israel issued ‘evacuation orders’ there on May 6. 

‘We echo the United Nations Security Council’s demand for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza,’ the statement read.

‘We also stand against the ongoing genocides happening in Sudan, Myanmar, Congo, Turtle Island, China, Ethiopia, Iraq, Syria and to all Indigenous peoples worldwide.’

The organization also reiterated that they ‘unequivocally’ stand against antisemitism, adding that they ‘firmly reject the notion that supporting the people of Palestine equates to antisemitism.’

‘We are actively in conversation with local queer Palestinian and Jewish organizers to best understand the desired response on a local level,’ they wrote.

‘We have donated to organizations that lead direct relief initiatives for Palestinian people to help ensure that immediate needs are met and essential services are provided to those most affected by the crisis.’

The same figures were included in the UN’s latest report, which covered the period following Hamas’ October 2023 attack on Israel that killed about 1,200 people and resulted in around 250 hostages.

Meanwhile, Israel’s subsequent war in Gaza has killed more than 70,000 Palestinians in the territory, according to the data.

‘Even after the October 2025 ceasefire, children continue to be killed and seriously injured, with continued disregard by Israel for the ceasefire and for the protection owed to Palestinian children under international law,’ Srinivasan Muralidhar, chair of the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, said.

More than 20,000 Palestinian children have been killed and around 44,000 injured since October 7. Reports also described arrests, torture, starvation and severe abuse in Israeli prisons.