A mural of George Floyd in Houston, Texas was vandalised with a racist phrase this week, Houston Police have announced.
Houston Police Chief Troy Finner has said police are investigating the incident after the mural, which is located in downtown Houston, was defaced on Thursday, April 22.
He told local news outlet KTRK-TV that the artist behind the mural has since covered up the racist slurs, and the painting has been restored.
The vandalism was carried out by ‘some knucklehead’ overnight, Finner said. He told CNN he doesn’t know what the motivation behind the act was aside from hate.
The news comes just days after a jury convicted Derek Chauvin of second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and manslaughter in the killing of Floyd on Tuesday, April 20.
Chauvin is due to be sentenced in around eight weeks. He is currently awaiting sentencing in Minnesota’s only maximum-security prison in Oak Park Heights, where he is being kept in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day.
Finner said that while the verdict had caused some unrest in the city, he urged people to keep the peace.
‘But one thing I want to say about Houston, Texas. We stick together. My friends, some of the people and things that I’ve been talking about over the last couple of weeks, us sticking together, and when you see something, you say something. We got the call and Houston Police Department are here,’ he said.
‘I want everybody to understand, ignore people with bad hearts and bad motivation, do not give them the power,’ he told CNN.
Following Chauvin’s guilty conviction, the US Justice Department announced a probe into the Minneapolis Police Department on April 21.
Addressing the press, Attorney General Merrick Garland said the civil investigation will ‘determine whether the Minneapolis Police Department engages in a pattern or practice of unconstitutional, unlawful policing’.
He said Chauvin‘s verdict does not address ‘potentially systemic policing issues in Minneapolis’ and that the problems are ‘deeply woven’ in US history.
‘I know such wounds have deep roots. And that too many communities have experienced those wounds, firsthand. Yesterday’s verdict in the state criminal trial does not address, potentially systemic policing issues in Minneapolis,’ he said.
He continued, ‘The challenges we face are deeply woven into our history. They did not arise today, or last year, building trust between community and law enforcement will take time and effort by all of us. But we undertake this task with determination and urgency, knowing that change cannot wait.’
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Topics: News, Black Lives Matter, Derek Chauvin, George Floyd, Houston, Minneapolis Police Department, Mural, Now, vandalism
Credits
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