A bust sculpture honoring police shooting victim Breonna Taylor was smashed by vandals over the weekend, prompting a probe by Oakland police, according to reports.
The memorial, installed two weeks ago in downtown Latham Square, was smashed in several places sometime Saturday, ABC affiliate KGO-TV reported.
The bust includes a plaque that reads: “Say Her Name, Breonna Taylor,” the station said.
“At first I was stunned and shocked and hurt and angry,” artist Leo Carson, who created the sculpture, told the outlet.
“Just a whole bunch of emotions,” he said. “It felt like I was personally attacked and also they attacked Breonna Taylor and the BLM movement.”
Taylor, a 26-year-old EMT technician, was shot and killed in her home in Louisville, Kentucky, during a botched raid on March 13.
Taylor’s death, and the May 25 police-custody death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, were among the catalysts that sparked massive Black Lives Matter protests throughout the world, including in the Bay Area city.
Oakland police said in a statement that a report had been filed in the vandalism of the Taylor bust and that police were investigating the incident, the Mercury News said.
Carson said he paid for the statue “out of my own pocket.”
He hopes to raise enough money to repair the statue and have it bronzed to make it more durable. He’s launched a GoFundMe page with a goal of $5,000.
Source: New York Post
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