The name of a far-right small group was scrawled Thursday on a statue honoring African-American George Floyd, inaugurated days ago in New York, police said.
The statue, a bust of Floyd, woke up Thursday covered in black paint with the inscription “Patriot Front” (Patriot Front), a US neo-Nazi group, said the New York police, who are investigating a possible racist crime.
Killed by a white police officer in May 2020 during his arrest in Minneapolis, George Floyd became the symbol of the fight against police violence and discrimination in the United States.
Former police officer Derek Chauvin, 45, will learn of his sentence for Floyd’s murder on Friday, two months after he was found guilty.
Authorities released a video Thursday showing four individuals, one of them spraying paint, walking around the monument in the Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn.
Made of wood by artist Chris Carnabuci, the statue was unveiled on Saturday in the presence of Terrence Floyd, George’s brother who lives in New York. In a few months, it will be moved to Union Square in Manhattan.
“I’m going to be absolutely clear with the neo-Nazi group that did it: Get out of our state!” New York Governor Andrew Cuomo tweeted, announcing the deployment of specialized agents for the investigation.
“We will bring these cowards to justice,” New York Mayor Bill de Blasio commented on that social network.
Another statue of George Floyd, located in front of the Newark (New Jersey) city hall, also appeared hours before covered in paint with the inscription “Patriot Front”, according to the information portal NJ.com.
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