The NYPD is looking for four vandals who wrote “f*** the Queen” on Wall Street’s iconic Charging Bull monument the day after she passed away.
On September 9 at 2:30 a.m., the suspects—two males and two women—were seen on security film strolling around Manhattan.
According to NYPD, they used a “paint marker like equipment” to mark the bull’s forehead. Later, the graffiti was cleaned up.
In New York, graffiti is a Class A misdemeanour, which carries a maximum one-year prison sentence.
A fine and any associated fees for restitution may also be levied against those found guilty.
The 7,100-pound bull was a guerilla art piece made by Italian artist Arturo Di Modica and placed in lower Manhattan in 1989.
It has seen multiple instances of vandalism in the past, notably twice in 2019.
In September 2019, Tevon Varlack, a truck driver from Texas, struck the sculpture known as “the devil” with a steel object, breaking its right horn.
Charges of criminal mischief, unruly behaviour, and criminal possession of a firearm led to his arrest.
The bull was painted red the next month, and a “die-in” was conducted at its hooves to draw attention to what environmental activists said was environmental catastrophe brought on by Wall Street.
More recently, to commemorate Di Modica’s passing in February 2021, the bull was covered in flowers.