WASHINGTON — An Indiana man has been ordered to pay more than $3,000 after he pleaded guilty to defacing the Washington Monument in September.
Editor's Note: The video above was published in September 2022.
According to a release from the office of the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia, 44-year-old Shaun Deaton, of Bloomington, Indiana, was sentenced to a year of probation and ordered to pay $3,034.99 in restitution to the National Park Service.
On Sept. 20, Deaton used red paint to deface an area at the base of the monument. Officials say he was arrested with the paintbrush still in his hand and red paint on his clothes and body.
Deaton was charged with destruction of federal property, he pleaded guilty to the misdemeanor in October.
In September, locals and tourists came out to the monument to see the vandalism. Reactions to the painted message were mixed.
"No matter what people think and feel, they have no right to destroy historical property like this," one woman said.
"I don't know how someone could just walk up and completely vandalize the Washington Monument, of all things," a man said.
"Not that I support this, but I understand that sometimes you got to make a statement," one woman said.
Deaton's graffiti was not the first time a monument has been vandalized. In 2013, someone splashed green paint on the Lincoln Memorial's steps. Charges against the woman suspected of the vandalism were eventually dropped. Park Service crews also had to remove red graffiti from one of the Lincoln Memorial's columns in 2018.