David Hearn had just finished a loop around Hains Point on Friday as part of a 52-mile bike ride when he swung by the Lincoln Memorial to see the refurbished Reflecting Pool for himself.
Noticing a piece of the new “American flag blue” liner that was partially detached from the pool bottom, Hearn said he reached into the water to see what it felt like. Moments later, as the Bethesda man prepared to leave, U.S. Park Police officers arrested him on a misdemeanor charge of destruction of government property. He is scheduled to appear in D.C. Superior Court on July 9.
Hearn’s arrest ignited a social media flurry as President Donald Trump and his allies blamed the pool overhaul’s problems on administration opponents. Emily Miller, a conservative journalist, posted a 2 minute and 8 second video on X, which showed Hearn detained by two members of the National Guard and subsequently surrounded by Park Police officers.
“Man arrested for vandalizing Lincoln Reflecting Pool. He grabbed the hose that female National Park Service workers were using to clear the algae,” wrote Miller, who confirmed via text that she had filmed the encounter but declined to speak on the record.
In an interview Saturday, Hearn, 67, denied damaging government property and said he had never touched the hose, though he acknowledged that his bike tire may have.
“I didn’t vandalize anything,” Hearn said. “I didn’t destroy or break or peel anything. By the time I realized what was going on, I was being put in handcuffs.”
Hearn, wearing biking gear and a helmet, can be seen in the video with his hands cuffed behind his back. Fragments of conversation are audible. But a pump operating in the background drowns out much of the exchange.
Asked to describe his actions, Hearn said: “I reached in there, and I was able to grab the end of that flapping piece, the already peeling piece. It was still attached to the bottom. I didn’t remove anything.”
Hearn is a three-time Olympian who competed in the canoe slalom. He won two world championships in whitewater racing before retiring from active competition in 2002.
The century-old Reflecting Pool has become controversial following the president’s decision to refurbish the concrete basin with a new liner. As government workers in recent days tried to combat an algae bloom in the reopened attraction, a new problem surfaced: chunks of the pool liner broke free.
A few hours after Miller’s video went public, the president in a late-night Truth Social post blamed “Radical Left Lunatics” for “Vandalism at the beautiful Reflecting Pool.” Trump promised the algae problem would be quickly resolved and other repairs made early next week.
The president also accused Jonathan Karl of ABC News, who has reported on the pool’s mounting problems, of “trying to rip the rubber off of the surface” of the pool.
Karl declined to comment.
In 1996, Park Police arrested Hearn for canoeing on the Potomac River after heavy rains left it near a record high. A federal judge dismissed charges of failing to obey a lawful order because the river where Hearn was canoeing is governed by Maryland not the federal government.
On Friday, Hearn said he was detained for almost five hours at a Park Police facility on Hains Point before being released shortly after 9 p.m. He was reunited with his bike and rode home.
Aaron Schaffer contributed to this report.
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