Two George Washington Statues in NYC Defaced With Red Paint

Two George Washington statues in New York City were defaced with red paint early Monday morning, reports The New York Post.

The incident took place at around 3:20 a.m. ET at Washington Square Park's famed arch. The two suspects – a woman dressed in all white with a white bow in her hair and a man in a black shirt and black shorts – fled the scene on Citi Bikes.

Washington's statue is one of many vandalized amid Black Lives Matter protests in the wake of George Floyd's police custody death in May. Protesters last week toppled the only statue of a Confederate general – Albert Pike – in Washington, D.C., and a group of protesters in Portland, Oregon, vandalized and tore down a statue of Washington.

The demonstrators argued Washington owned slaves and therefore should not have statues of him.

In San Francisco on June 19, protesters defaced and toppled the statue of former President Ulysses S. Grant, who led the Union Army during the Civil War.

Washington, who served as the first president of the United States, enslaved more than 100 Black people. He was ambivalent about slavery and left emancipation instructions for his slaves in his will.

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