A George Floyd statue in New York has been vandalized with the name of a white supremacist group, one day before the sentencing of Derek Chauvin.
The 6-foot statue was unveiled at 1545 Flatbush Ave. as part of the Juneteenth celebration over the weekend.
According to police, Floyd’s face and the inscription were spraypainted black. The phrase “patriotfront.us” was sprayed in white on the side of the statue, an NYPD spokesperson told Newsweek. The graffiti is the web address for the white nationalist, white supremacist group Patriot Front.
Mr Floyd, 46, was murdered in May 2020 by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who will be sentenced to prison for the killing on Friday June 25.
His killing came after police officers responded to a call that he had used a counterfeit $20 bill at a convenience store in the city.
New York Police Department officers discovered the damage in the early hours of Thursday.
“There are no arrests and the investigation is ongoing,” said an NYPD the spokesperson in a statement.
Mayor Bill de Blasio took to Twitter to condemn the act.
“Last night a far-right extremist group vandalized a statue of George Floyd in Brooklyn,” he tweeted.
“A racist, loathsome, despicable act of hate. The City Cleanup Corps is repairing the statue right now and a hate crime investigation is underway. We will bring these cowards to justice.”
Lindsay Eshelman, the co-founder of ConfrontART, which partnered on the statue with the We Are Floyd Foundation, said she was “devastated” by the vandalism.
“You’re cowards. You did this at night when no one could see you. I’m restoring it in the day when everybody can see your hate,” she told the vandals.
