Vandals in Little Rock deface government buildings

Fallen-police memorial also marred

Sherrie Ribaudo and her husband, Tommy, of Maumelle clean graffiti off the fallen police officers’ memorial Thursday outside Little Rock Police Department headquarters after vandals struck overnight. More photos at arkansasonline.com/94graffiti/.
(Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/Thomas Metthe)
Sherrie Ribaudo and her husband, Tommy, of Maumelle clean graffiti off the fallen police officers’ memorial Thursday outside Little Rock Police Department headquarters after vandals struck overnight. More photos at arkansasonline.com/94graffiti/. (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/Thomas Metthe)

Several government buildings in Little Rock were defaced late Wednesday or early Thursday with spray-painted phrases that included "Defund the police" and "Charge killer cops," and local officials quickly decried the vandalism that's tied to recent protests against racism and police brutality.

Outside the Little Rock Police Department headquarters, the graffiti appeared on a memorial to officers killed in the line of duty, as well as on the ground nearby. Two police vehicles also were spray-painted, according to an incident report.

Additionally, graffiti was sprayed on the exterior of the nearby Little Rock District Court building and the South Spring Street office of Pulaski County Prosecuting Attorney Larry Jegley.

At the prosecutor's office, graffiti read, "Fire Jegley" and "Arrest Starks," a reference to Charles Starks, the Little Rock police officer who was fired and later reinstated after his fatal shooting of 30-year-old Bradley Blackshire in February 2019. Jegley declined to charge Starks, arguing that the shooting was justified.

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In a statement, while acknowledging "the pain and anger many feel as a result of police brutality and misconduct across the country," Little Rock Mayor Frank Scott Jr. said vandalism of the memorial was "not acceptable" and not the way to achieve systemic change.

Scott said the city is already leading in police reform.

"We are always looking to do more to ensure justice and accountability here in the city of Little Rock," he said.

In another apparent act of vandalism targeting police, the North Little Rock Police Department said that around 3:20 a.m. Thursday officers found a Ford Explorer patrol vehicle in flames at a substation at 4609 E. Broadway.

Tires on several police vehicles also had been slashed, according to a spokesman for the department. In all, four vehicles were damaged, and damage to one resulted in a total loss, officer Joseph Green said in a news release.

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During a news conference Thursday morning outside Little Rock police headquarters, as a crew of workers scrubbed the graffiti off the memorial and the pavement, Police Chief Keith Humphrey said the memorial to fallen police officers had been "desecrated" and called the vandalism "a cowardly act."

Across the front of the memorial where the names of the fallen officers are listed, "Defund the police" was scrawled in large orange letters.

Below the memorial on the ground, someone had sprayed the name of Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old Black emergency medical technician who was shot and killed by police in Louisville, Ky., in March.

"I'm very emotional right now, because to me, as a 32-year law enforcement professional, I've never seen anything like this before in my life," Humphrey said.

In a few days, he said, residents will see that authorities have "zero tolerance for any type of desecration of any type of monument, any type of property."

"We would take this just as serious if this was someone's house," Humphrey said. "People don't have a right to vandalize anyone's property. And you definitely don't have the right to vandalize something that memorializes officers who gave their lives protecting the streets of this city."

Humphrey said police are reviewing video footage from the incident -- "I think there's video at all the facilities," he said -- but he said he did not know whether one or more individuals were responsible for it.

The chief said authorities plan to pursue felony charges against the culprits.

Humphrey also suggested that the people responsible could face charges under Little Rock's new hate-crime ordinance, which establishes penalties for certain bias-motivated misdemeanor offenses. City directors approved the ordinance in July.

Language in the ordinance outlaws targeting government buildings or public monuments. However, it's unclear if the vandalism Thursday qualifies as a hate crime under the ordinance, which specifies crimes against a certain class of individuals based on categories such as religion, race or sexual orientation, and gender identity.

Additionally, according to the ordinance, the decision to pursue a misdemeanor hate-crime penalty lies exclusively with the city attorney, in consultation with law enforcement.

Scott said Thursday that he would have to check with City Attorney Tom Carpenter to see if the vandalism can be considered a hate crime under the ordinance.

"It was clear vandalism, and we have an investigation underway," Scott said.

Carpenter did not respond to an emailed request for comment Thursday.

In a statement Thursday morning, the Little Rock Fraternal Order of Police, a union representing officers in the department, said, "Last night criminals decided to deface a memorial to officers who gave the ultimate sacrifice in service to the citizens of LR and to the very same freedoms that allow protesters the right to free speech."

"This despicable act is disrespectful to their families and their memory," the statement from the union said.

Similarly, U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., in a statement Thursday condemned what he called the "egregious" vandalism of the memorial to fallen officers.

"To the families of the police officers whose names are enshrined on this memorial: your loved ones gave their lives in the service of their fellow man and have forever earned the love and appreciation of Arkansans," Cotton said. "No pathetic act of vandalism will ever change that fact. The criminals who defaced their memory -- and their politically-motivated supporters -- will be lost to history, but the names of our fallen officers will always be honored and remembered."

Asked about the damage to police vehicles in North Little Rock, a spokesman for Mayor Joe Smith said Smith was disappointed over the destruction of public property.

In an emailed statement provided by spokesman Jim Billings, Smith said authorities are "aggressively looking for the perpetrators, and I'm confident that our police department will find them and arrest them soon."

"All of our police agencies in Central Arkansas have a great relationship, and I feel very confident that Little Rock's investigators and ours will remain in contact with each other to see if these crimes are related," Smith said.

Like hundreds of other locales around the country, Little Rock experienced a wave of protests and demonstrations after George Floyd died while in police custody May 25 in Minneapolis.

Although demonstrators often gathered peacefully at the Capitol for hours in the early days of the protests, some individuals smashed windows of nearby buildings and sprayed graffiti on the Capitol grounds. On multiple occasions, nights turned chaotic and officers dispelled demonstrators by using tear gas, flash grenades and other so-called nonlethal weapons.

The nightly protests eventually petered out, but earlier this week demonstrators urged members of Little Rock's board of directors during a Tuesday meeting to redirect police funding and issued other demands.

Asked Thursday about any discussions or efforts related to changes in the Police Department in light of the Floyd protests, Humphrey pointed to the city's newly appointed Citizen Review Board that is tasked with evaluating police actions, the mayor's executive order in July that banned neck restraints and the recent reaccreditation of the Police Department.

The department is always talking about enhancing its cultural diversity training, Humphrey said, and the command staff meets twice a week to discuss issues.

"It's an ongoing process," Humphrey said. "It's not just things that we've done since the George Floyd incident. We have been doing things like that here for years."

Information for this article was contributed by Rachel Herzog of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

Donald Holt of Little Rock Building Services paints over graffiti Thursday at the Little Rock District Court building. The building was vandalized overnight, along with several other government buildings and police vehicles in Little Rock and North Little Rock.
(Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/Thomas Metthe)
Donald Holt of Little Rock Building Services paints over graffiti Thursday at the Little Rock District Court building. The building was vandalized overnight, along with several other government buildings and police vehicles in Little Rock and North Little Rock. (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/Thomas Metthe)
“I’m very emotional right now, because to me, as a 32-year law enforcement professional, I’ve never seen anything like this before in my life,” Little Rock Police Chief Keith Humphrey said Thursday about the damage caused by vandals overnight.
(Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/Thomas Metthe)
“I’m very emotional right now, because to me, as a 32-year law enforcement professional, I’ve never seen anything like this before in my life,” Little Rock Police Chief Keith Humphrey said Thursday about the damage caused by vandals overnight. (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/Thomas Metthe)
Retired Little Rock police detective Tommy Hudson and Lt. Cristina Plummer clean up graffiti Thursday in front of the fallen police officers memorial outside Little Rock police headquarters.
(Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/Thomas Metthe)
Retired Little Rock police detective Tommy Hudson and Lt. Cristina Plummer clean up graffiti Thursday in front of the fallen police officers memorial outside Little Rock police headquarters. (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/Thomas Metthe)

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