Global Courant 2023-05-06 05:45:03
A memorial honoring law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty was vandalized this week with the burning of US flags just days before the start of National Police Week.
According to the National Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) and a report from the Louisville Courier Journal, the crime occurred late Wednesday at the Louisville Law Enforcement Memorial in downtown Louisville, Kentucky.
It appears two U.S. flags were burned in the eternal flame that sits atop the monument in Jefferson Square Park, not far from the Louisville Metro Department of Corrections building, the report said.
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“As we approach National (Police Week), a time when we honor our fallen brothers and sisters, a monument honoring fallen cops in Louisville has been vandalized! The memories of our fallen officers will live on forever in our hearts and minds the FOP wrote in a tweet on Thursday, including a photo of the heavily damaged monument.
Ryan Straw, the Kentucky FOP’s vice president and director of government affairs, also tweeted the photo. “What a slap in the face this is to our families of the fallen, our officers still serving and the entire community,” he wrote.
According to the report, officers responded to a call at about 11:15 p.m. Wednesday and found the two charred flags draped over the memorial. Most of the debris had been cleared by Thursday morning, except for some remnants of the flags strewn across the ground and damage to the memorial itself.
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The Louisville Law Enforcement Memorial was damaged on Wednesday, May 3, 2023 by vandals burning American flags using the eternal flame that sits atop the memorial. (Louisville Metro Police Station)
The report said Louisville Police Department was reviewing video of the incident, and an officer from the Louisville Police Department’s Office of Media Relations told Fox News Digital the crime was still under investigation.
A Kentucky priest named Father Jim Sichko offered to pay to have the monument restored. “I will cover the cost of getting this fixed. SOMEONE OVERVIEWING THIS LET ME KNOW,” he wrote on Twitter in response to the FOP.
The memorial was previously defaced in 2020 during the protests and riots following the death of Breonna Taylor, who died when police raided her apartment in connection with a drug investigation.
A photo of Breonna Taylor is featured alongside other photos of women who have lost their lives as a result of violence during the 2nd Annual Defend Black Women March at Black Lives Matter Plaza on July 30, 2022 in Washington, DC. (Leigh Vogel/Getty Images for Frontline Action Hub)
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Brandon Gillespie is an associate editor at Fox News. Follow him on Twitter at @brandon_cg.
