{"id":813635,"date":"2026-08-14T18:34:14","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T18:34:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/813635\/"},"modified":"2026-08-14T18:34:14","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T18:34:14","slug":"arrest-announced-in-vandalism-of-world-war-ii-memorial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/813635\/","title":{"rendered":"Arrest announced in vandalism of World War II Memorial"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 A person has been arrested in connection with vandalism at The World War II Memorial<\/a> on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro announced Friday.<\/p>\n

Pirro announced on X that her office was filing two felony charges against Melissa L. Farris. Pirro said the felony charges are \u201cDepredation Against Property of the United States and Destruction of Veterans\u2019 Memorials.\u201d The offenses carry penalties of up to 10 years in prison.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, the words \u201cClean hands dirty $\u201d were found painted on the monument and bubbles filled a fountain.<\/p>\n

\u201cVandalizing our World War II Memorial is a despicable attack on a sacred monument honoring the Americans who fought and died for our freedom. Those Americans include my father and grandfather,\u201d Pirro wrote. <\/p>\n

A woman identified on her Facebook page as Melissa Lovewell posted a video Thursday in which she is seen taking cans of spray paint from her bag and then painting the monument. <\/p>\n

\u201cI will wait here to be arrested for spraying our veterans\u2019 fountain,\u201d she says. \u201cIt was me, I\u2019m doing it, it\u2019s on camera.\u201d <\/p>\n

In a video posted Friday, the woman, who in a separate post said she had been in Washington for three weeks, said she was turning herself in.<\/p>\n

The arrest warrant filed in the case indicated that witnesses took pictures of the vandalism occurring, which were circulated among U.S. Park Police officers. <\/p>\n

One officer recognized the suspect as someone they arrested Aug. 10 \u201cfor unlawfully camping on federal property\u201d just blocks away. She livestreamed that arrest, the warrant said. <\/p>\n

The suspect was identified by her Kentucky driver\u2019s license as Melissa L. Farris, of Elizabethtown, Kentucky.<\/p>\n

Farris was expected to be arraigned Friday. The Public Defender\u2019s office said she was not yet listed in the system and had not been assigned an attorney.<\/p>\n

The incident sparked harsh rebukes from both Pirro and President Donald Trump and comes after the president blamed damage to the nearby Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool<\/a> on vandals, without providing evidence. That case prompted charges against multiple people which were dropped when Pirro said evidence showed the damage came from botched repairs after Trump\u2019s renovation at the site. <\/p>\n

\u201cOur beautiful World War II Memorial was just hit by Spray Painting Vandals,\u201d Trump said on Friday on his Truth Social site. \u201cFirst the Reflecting Pool, now this.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Interior Department said that the U.S. Park Police were on the scene following the Thursday vandalism and an investigation was ongoing. \u201cThe public should know we will find the person responsible for this disgusting act,\u201d the department said.<\/p>\n

The Friends of the National World War II Memorial, a nonprofit organization that helps maintain the site, said: \u201cThere are many places in our country for expression, debate, and disagreement. A national memorial honoring those who served and those who never returned home should never be used as a canvas for vandalism.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Veterans of Foreign Wars called the vandalism \u201can act of profound disrespect, a slap in the face to the veterans who served and sacrificed and to the families who carried that burden at home.\u201d<\/p>\n

A former Olympian was charged<\/a> in late July with deliberately damaging the Reflecting Pool<\/a>, but the Justice Department later moved to dismiss that case, saying evidence prosecutors had received refuted the idea that vandals were to blame.<\/p>\n

Trump sharply criticized Pirro\u2019s assessment<\/a> that damage to the Reflecting Pool was the result of shoddy construction and not the work of vandals, as he claimed.<\/p>\n

The case dismissal was an embarrassing setback for a Justice Department that had previously echoed Trump\u2019s claims and billed the prosecution as accountability for damage at a Washington landmark, a pet project of Trump. Pirro\u2019s decision to drop the case was also a rare moment during Trump\u2019s second term of an aide or political appointee openly defying him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 A person has been arrested in connection with vandalism at The World War II Memorial…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":813636,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3506,3505,12,793,73532,4381,345131,345132,3,10585,795,21,19,22,20,25,24,39118,800],"class_list":["post-813635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-dc-wire","tag-district-of-columbia","tag-donald-trump","tag-general-news","tag-jeanine-pirro","tag-law-enforcement","tag-melissa-l-farris","tag-melissa-lovewell","tag-news","tag-u-s-department-of-justice","tag-u-s-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa","tag-vandalism","tag-washington-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/813635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=813635"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/813635\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/813636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=813635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=813635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=813635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}