Soldiers and Sailors Monument was still decorated for Memorial Day.
Syracuse, NY -- A memorial in the center of Syracuse honoring Onondaga County residents who gave their lives during the Civil War was discovered defaced this morning.
About 11 a.m., a police officer found the graffiti “tag” on the east side of the Soldiers and Sailors Monument in Clinton Square, which was decorated in bunting for Memorial Day. The white painted tag appeared to be three hastily scrawled letters.
“It’s bad that they did it right after Memorial Day,” Chuck McFadden, of the Downtown Committee’s environmental maintenance committee, said this morning.
McFadden and David Kneer, who is also on the maintenance staff, were called shortly after the white paint was noticed below the red, white and blue bunting. It took about 15 minutes to get the paint off.
McFadden recognized the painted scrawl as a tag he has cleaned up before in downtown.
“Oh, yeah, that’s a familiar tag,” he said.
Police photographed the tag and McFadden said police keep a file on what graffiti artists leave behind in the hopes of learning the artists’ identities.
McFadden called the vandalism “a disgrace.”
“It shows no respect at all for the soldiers and for the people who gave their lives so they can walk around here free to do what they’re doing,” McFadden said of the vandal.
Chuck McFadden (left) and David Kneer apply solvent on graffiti that was sprayed on the Soldier and Sailor monument at Clinton Square in Syracuse.