George Floyd memorial statue in New York City defaced again
In this Thursday, Sept. 30, 2021, file photo, a sculpture of George Floyd, one of three sculptures as part of the "SEEINJUSTICE" art exhibition that also feature the likenesses of Breonna Taylor and John Lewis, is unveiled as Floyd's brother Terrence, second from left, looks at Union Square in the Manhattan borough of New York. The statue honoring Floyd was vandalized on Sunday, Oct. 3, police said.[John Minchillo/Associated Press]
A statue honoring George Floyd in New York City’s Union Square Park was vandalized on Sunday, police said.
According to police, a video showed an unidentified man on a skateboard throwing paint on the statue at approximately 10 a.m. then fleeing. Nearby statues of late Congressman John Lewis and Breonna Taylor, a Louisville, Kentucky, woman shot and killed by police last year, apparently weren’t touched.
Police have not released the video.
Sunday’s act wasn’t the first example of vandalism to the statue memorializing Floyd, whose killing at the hands of police in Minneapolis last year galvanized a racial justice movement across the country.
The statue was unveiled on the Juneteenth holiday in a spot on Flatbush Avenue, in Brooklyn, and it was vandalized five days later with black paint and marked with an alleged logo of a white supremacist group.
Members of the group that installed the statue cleaned it, and local residents and one of Floyd’s brothers gathered in July as it was prepared to move to Union Square, in the heart of Manhattan.