President Donald Trump said the “two Anarchists who threw paint on the magnificent George Washington Statue in Manhattan” will be prosecuted.
The president tweeted Tuesday morning that the two vandals “will be prosecuted and face 10 years in Prison based on the Monuments and Statues Act.”
The president urged the statue defacers to turn themselves in.
“We have them on tape,” Trump wrote.
Two people tossed balloons filled with red paint at two George Washington statues located on Washington Square Park’s arch early Monday, the New York Post reports.
One of the statutes depicts Washington as president, the other as a general of the Revolutionary War forces.
According to surveillance video, the incident took place at 3:20 a.m EST. One of the suspects is a woman who was dressed in all white with a white bow in her hair. The other, a man, was clad in a black shirt and black shorts. They fled the scene on Citi Bikes, according to police.
The suspects left behind a blue plastic cooler on wheels where they stored the balloons. In addition to throwing the paint balloons, they used white spray paint to draw outlines of 24 bodies around the park’s fountain. They then threw the paint balloons to make it look as if the bodies were shot, the newspaper reports.
Trump has taken a strong stance to protect statues and monuments from being defaced or destroyed. Nationwide, there has been a push to remove historical figurines that have ties to racism.