Two men are accused of using skateboards like axes to destroy art in downtown D.C. that showed a tiki torch and mocked former President Donald Trump’s remarks in 2017 about the white supremacist march in Charlottesville, Virginia.
One suspected vandal was arrested in Freedom Plaza on Wednesday evening and a second man was able to get away, D.C. court records say.
Permitted public art designed to look like it was made of bronze showed a hand grasping a tiki torch with a flame. A plaque explained the statue was “The Donald J. Trump Enduring Flame.”
“This monument pays tribute to President Donald Trump and the ‘very fine people’ he boldly stood to defend when they marched in Charlottesville, Virginia,” a plaque said. “While many have called them white supremacists and neo-nazis, President Trump’s voice rang out above the rest to remind all that they were ‘treated absolutely unfairly.’ This monument stands as an everlasting reminder of that bold proclamation.”
Officers responded to a call about vandalism in the 1300 block of Pennsylvania Avenue NW at about 6:15 p.m. Wednesday. They were told to look out for two men on skateboards, including one wearing all black and a cowboy hat.
The man in the cowboy hat was detained and arrested for alleged felony property destruction. The second man took off on his skateboard.
Balarama-Dasa Adebisi, 34, is accused of “using his skateboard to chop apart pieces of the statue in a wood chopping motion,” court documents say. He was found with a small bag of what tested positive for crack cocaine, police said.
No information was released on what may have motivated the suspected vandals.
The same group that got a permit from the National Park Service to temporarily display the tiki torch also got a permit to display a replica of Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s desk topped by a swirl of poop, NBC News reported.
That art on the National Mall mocked Trump and supporters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
"This memorial honors the brave men and women who broke into the United States Capitol on January 6th, 2021 to loot, urinate, and defecate throughout those hallowed halls in order to overturn an election,” a plaque on the poop art said.
