Prince William County police said a man allegedly took a sledgehammer to the Iwo Jima statue near the Quantico Marine base in Virginia, causing what they estimated was hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage.
Shortly after 10 p.m. Wednesday, police found Miguel Alonso Maldonado Soriano “actively damaging the statue with a sledgehammer,” according to a police department daily incident report. The incident took place at the intersection of Richmond Highway and Fuller Road in the community of Triangle.
The violence left one of the statue’s soldiers without a head, according to police and photos reviewed by The Washington Post. A second soldier was missing the bayonet from the rifle slung over his back. A third figure’s helmet and face had been “chipped and gouged,” police said in a statement.
Maldonado Soriano, 27, of Stafford, was arrested without incident, the report said. He faces two felony charges, injury to a monument and destruction of property, and a charge of misdemeanor trespass with intent to damage property. A representative for the attorney listed in online court records as handling Maldonado Soriano’s case said the office couldn’t yet comment. He is being held without bond.
The damaged statue is a smaller version of Arlington’s Marine Corps War Memorial, which depicts a scene captured by photojournalist Joe Rosenthal on Feb. 23, 1945, with six U.S. Marines raising an American flag atop Mount Suribachi on the Japanese island of Iwo Jima during World War II.
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