On Sunday morning, a statue of George Floyd, whose death sparked a summer of protests last year, was vandalized in New York City. In a surveillance video released on Monday by the New York Police Department, an unidentified man approached the statue in Union Square Park while riding a skateboard before throwing gray paint onto the monument in broad daylight.
Here’s the video obtained by Pix11 News:
Police say the man appears to crouch behind the monument mixing the paint before throwing it. Cleanup efforts are currently underway.
This is the second time the statue has been vandalized in a show of cowardly racism. The Root reported that it was covered with black paint and marked with a white supremacist group’s logo on June 25, a week after being unveiled on Juneteenth in Brooklyn, N.Y.
NBC News reports that the paint was cleaned by hand using toothbrushes before its move to Union Square Park last week. Police are investigating the first incident as a hate crime but have not made any arrests.
From Pix11:
Video shows the vandal riding off on his skateboard, fleeing the area northbound on the west side of the park.
The NYPD said its Hate Crime Task Force was investigating the incident.
Authorities described the suspect as a man with a medium build, last seen wearing a black hat, dark green jacket, a neon green T-shirt, black shorts, black and white sneakers, and a green backpack.
The statue was unveiled at its new location in the park on Sept. 30 as part of the “SeeInJustice” art installation created by Chris Carnabuci. The installation also includes statues of Breonna Taylor, who was shot and killed by Louisville police last March, and the late civil rights leader, Georgia Rep. John Lewis.
According to ABC 7 News, Carnabuci did not make a statement however Confront Art, the organization behind the exhibition, and We Are Floyd issued this joint response:
“It takes a lot of courage to display the 3 statues we are exhibiting in Union Square. It also takes a good deal of courage to vandalize a statue on a global stage in broad daylight. This continues to bring light to our mission that art is a conversation catalyst, a place for public discourse, and through these acts we can hopefully overcome hate and find unity for the future. We continue to be inspired to create and display public art to further this important mission.”