Police in Martinez, Calif., are looking for two white people who decided to spend the 4th of July holiday defacing a Black Lives Matter mural painted on a street in front of a courthouse. When you think about it, it’s a fitting way to celebrate the 4th since Black lives didn’t matter on the original Independence Day either, but it’s a safe bet that historical symbolism isn’t what these vandals were going for—these wypipo were just mad.
According to the New York Times, Martinez resident Justin Gomez obtained a permit to paint the mural on the street in front of the Wakefield Taylor Courthouse. The couple—who are apparently Trump supporters (shocking, I know) based on the fact that one of them was wearing a red cap that reads “Trump, Four More Years”—defaced the mural less than an hour after it was finished.
Video footage of the incident shared on social media shows a white woman (let’s call her “Klan-ish Karen”) using black paint and a roller to paint over part of the mural while the white man (let’s call him “MAGA Mike”) recorded the angry onlookers who had gathered. (He also recorded himself and his partner committing a crime. It’s like wypipo don’t know how to do anything right.)
“We’re sick of this narrative,” MAGA Mike can be heard saying. “The narrative of police brutality, the narrative of oppression, the narrative of racism. It’s a lie. It’s a lie.”
It’s always infuriating when white people dismiss the lived experiences of millions of Black people and decide for themselves that racism isn’t happening as if they would know. These white people took things even further by insinuating that Black oppression in America died with the Emancipation Proclamation and that Black people owe the same people who enslaved us a “thank you” for setting us free.
From the Times:
The woman, using two expletives, tells onlookers to “keep this” in New York, adding, “This is not happening in my town.”
At one point, the man in the red shirt tells onlookers: “Keep America great again, that’s right. Why don’t you guys learn about history, the Emancipation Proclamation Act?” and “You’re only free because of our forefathers.”
A woman can be heard off-camera telling the man he is not “from America” and that he is a “colonizer.”
“Your ancestors aren’t from here,” she says.
“You don’t know nothing,” the man in the red shirt replies.
Fortunately, these idiot criminals left police plenty of clues to aid in their pursuit. At one point in the video, Klan-ish Karen can be heard telling MAGA Mike to get another can of paint and he was recorded going to his truck which put the truck’s license plate in clear view.
From CBS San Francisco:
The vehicle was a Nissan pickup truck with the word “NICOLE” on the right side of the tailgate in silver lettering. The truck has a camper shell and the license plate is 52701B1.
The case is currently under investigation and if any members of the public can identify the male and female involved in this incident please call our Dispatch Center at 925-372-3440 with the information.
On Sunday, the Martinez Police Department released the following statement:
On July 4th, community members obtained a permit from the City to paint Black Lives Matter on Court Street in downtown Martinez. Once the mural was completed, an unidentified white male and white female arrived. While the male made comments to a group of onlookers his companion began painting over the mural with black paint. At one point she made a statement that this was not, “…happening in my town.” She also asked the male to get her another can of paint to continue with the act of vandalism. It appeared that the couple came to the mural with cans of paint and a roller with the specific purpose of vandalizing over the mural. The community spent a considerable amount of time painting this mural only to have the suspects destroy it by dumping and rolling paint over part of the message.
According to the Times, the mural has been restored but, apparently, the Racist Wonder Twins aren’t the only ones in Martinez who are salty over it.
ABC 7 reports, that on Sunday a man was arrested for pulling a gun on a member of a crowd who was watching over the mural to make sure it wasn’t defaced again.
“He rolled by us and yelled at everybody. And flipped us off. So I got on my skateboard to just kind of follow him to get the plates,” the crowd member who wishes to remain anonymous told ABC. He said the man then “made a U-turn, came back at me and pointed the gun in my face. [He] said, ‘Do you want to do something?’ That’s it. Immediately a cop was behind him and pulled him over. Thank God!”