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George Floyd Memorial Statue In NYC Vandalized Again

NEW YORK (AP) — A statue honoring George Floyd in New York City's Union Square Park was vandalized on Sunday, police said.

According to police, a video showed an unidentified man on a skateboard throwing paint on the statue at approximately 10 a.m. then fleeing. Nearby statues of late Congressman John Lewis and Breonna Taylor, a Louisville, Kentucky, woman shot and killed by police last year, apparently weren't touched.

Sunday's act wasn't the first example of vandalism to the statue memorializing Floyd, whose killing at the hands of police in Minneapolis last year galvanized a racial justice movement across the country.

Social Justice Art Installation Goes On Display In Union Square
NEW YORK, NEW YORK - SEPTEMBER 29: The new public art project entitled SEEINJUSTICE by the group Confront Art is installed in New York's Union Square on September 29, 2021 in New York City. The social justice art installation features sculptures made of wood of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Congressman John Lewis. Both Floyd and Taylor were killed by police setting off large social movements around the world. Artist Chris Carnabuci created the works which will be on display starting on October 1st. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

The statue was unveiled on the Juneteenth holiday in a spot on Flatbush Avenue, in Brooklyn, and it was vandalized five days later with black paint and marked with an alleged logo of a white supremacist group.

Members of the group that installed the statue cleaned it, and local residents and one of Floyd's brothers gathered in July as it was prepared to move to Union Square, in the heart of Manhattan.

(© Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

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