Police looking for suspect of 9/11 mural vandalism in West Philly
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Police are searching for the person or persons who vandalized a West Philadelphia 9/11 mural. The vandalism happened sometime between Friday night and early Monday morning.
The woman who commissioned the mural noticed it on her way to work.
"There's Tom Crotty we met his brother," Elsie Goss-Caldwell said.
At the corner of 56th and Thompson Streets in West Philadelphia, one wall of Elsie Goss-Caldwell's tax practice is a living memorial of some of the lives lost on 9/11.
"There's Sean and then Peter," Goss-Caldwell said. "Peter and Kenny went to William Penn Charter."
Kenny is Caldwell's son, Kenneth Marcus Caldwell, who was working on the 102nd floor of the north tower. He never made it out.
"He had like a really warm heart and if you met him he would make you feel like you knew him forever," Goss-Caldwell said.
Her personal connection with the faces and families of those on this mural is what makes what happened so hurtful.
"Someone spray-painted our mural," Goss-Caldwell said. "I just stood there and looked at it for a while."
This past weekend, vandals used green spray paint to deface the picture of a firefighter and a police officer.
"This is Darrell Proctor. He was a part of our church at Our Mother of Sorrow," Goss-Caldwell said. "Ray Drummond, he was in vice."
Along with the American flag painted to honor Penn Charter graduate Peter Ortale.
"How heartless could somebody be?" Goss-Caldwell said. "This is not just a mural our 9/11 support group has it belongs to the community too."
While it's still not clear why these specific images were targeted Caldwell says she's already working with an artist to repaint the defaced pictures, determined not to let hate win.
"One of my friends said it's personal I said what do you mean it's personal?" Goss-Caldwell said. "Because they only did the police officer and they only did the firefighter. We're not letting it go, it's going to stay, it's going to always always be here."
Caldwell did file a police report and officials are asking anyone who may have seen anything to come forward.
